Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Top 10 things you don't know about Canadian foreign policy

10. On dozens of occasions since 1915 Canadian gunboats have been deployed to the Caribbean and Central America.

9. Canada has been the fifth or sixth-largest contributor to the U.S. war in Iraq.

8. Ottawa asked London for its Caribbean colonies after World War I.

7. Days after the elected President Salvador Allende was overthrown Canada's ambassador to Chile called victims of dictator Augusto Pinochet's repression the "riffraff of the Latin American Left."

6. In a number of countries Canadian "aid" has been used to rewrite mining codes to the benefit of Canadian mining companies.

5. Canada had between 250 and 450 nuclear-armed fighter jets based in Europe in the 1960s.

4. Washington did not press Ottawa to break relations with post-revolution Cuba because it wanted Canada to spy on the island.

3. Throughout Pierre Trudeau's time in office and before, Canadian companies were heavily invested in apartheid South Africa.

2. Canada helped depose Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, one of Africa's first independence leaders, who was then killed.

1. Many commentators, including the world's leading intellectual, Noam Chomsky, consider Lester Pearson a war criminal.

The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy is the first critical overview of Canada's role on the world stage. While most Canadians believe their country's primary role has been as peacekeeper or honest broker in difficult-to-solve disputes, the book cites hundreds of examples of colonialism, racism, naked self-interest and willing participation as a policeman for the British and then American empires.

"Yves Engler's penetrating inquiry yields a rich trove of valuable evidence about Canada's role in the world" - Noam Chomsky

For more information contact 514 618-2253 or yvesengler [at] hotmail.com