Venezuela, Foreign Policy, and the NDP Leadership Race

U.S. Imperialism and Canadian Politics

Existing as we are in the Worst of All Timelines, the United States is now brazenly plotting a regime-change war against the government of Venezuela. The pretext for what would be an unprovoked war of aggression – that Venezuela is a narco-state flooding the U.S. with illicit drugs – has been wholly refuted by the U.S. government’s own intelligence. Instead, the real reasons for Trump’s threats are widely known – Venezuela’s world-largest oil reserves and its treasure-trove of gold and other rare minerals.

The American military has parked warships containing 16,000 troops off the shores of Venezuela, while systematically blowing up any small watercraft they detect along the country’s coastline. These extrajudicial mass murders (over 60 dead and counting) are being televised to U.S. audiences as deranged examples of the Trump regime getting “tough on crime”.

In the face of such lawless aggression, it’s critical that the Canadian government speaks out. If the United States can defy international law and overthrow the government of a sovereign state in the Americas, then this is particularly ominous for Canada. It wasn’t that long ago that Trump was publicly threatening us with annexation. Have the Canadian public forgotten this so soon?

Unfortunately, the Liberals and Conservatives have a history of supporting U.S. military adventures. Given this, their silence, and even complicity, in the face of Venezuela’s violent extortion is to be expected. However, as the furthest-left major party in Canada, the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) should be upholding our country’s commitment to international law. NDP MPs should be strongly condemning the U.S. attack on Venezuela and joining the international community to call for a peaceful resolution. As of writing this article though, the party has been silent in the face of Trump’s aggression.

The NDP Leadership Race

The current NDP leadership’s silence on Venezuela is damning, but at least there’s a new federal leader about to be elected, and a chance that the NDP may choose a candidate with the strength and clarity to take a stand on foreign affairs. Unfortunately, it’s far from certain that party insiders will allow a fair electoral contest to occur.

To date there’s been considerable controversy around the race, with five “official” candidates in the running and one “unofficial” candidate who is running a serious campaign, but has yet to be vetted and approved by the federal NDP.

The five vetted candidates for the federal leadership include journalist and film-maker Avi Lewis, B.C. dockworker Rob Ashton, current NDP MP and foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson, B.C. city council member and We Wai Kai First Nation member Tanille Johnston, and Ontario farmer Tony McQuail. The candidate who has yet to be vetted and approved by the Federal NDP is author, activist, and avowed socialist Yves Engler.

As the one “outsider” campaign, Engler’s team has been clear that they are delaying the vetting process in order to make it politically costly for the NDP to do what they fear it will – deny Engler’s candidacy. This is a serious allegation by Engler’s campaign, but even a cursory glance at the party’s history shows their fears to be well-justified.

Stifling Radical Voices

Since its 1961 founding, the NDP has a consistent history of blocking movements and leadership candidates deemed “too radical” by the party’s elites. This has especially been true of candidates and members who openly espouse socialism. In 1972 the socialist “Waffle” movement within the NDP was forcibly ejected from the party. In 2001 NDP party centrists fought back against the left-wing New Politics Initiative (NPI) which sought to bring the party into partnership with radical social movements. The NPI was disbanded in 2004, after the election of Jack Layton, who co-opted and then largely denuded the movement’s vision of grassroots left politics.

Apart from sidelining socialist candidates, the NDP has also excluded candidates who oppose Western imperialism and seek to uphold international law. This meant that any candidate who had made statements in support of Palestinian human rights was banned from running. For decades Zionists within the NDP ensured that Israel’s occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians was the one issue that party activists and candidates could not touch.

The prohibition on supporting Palestine has softened recently due to grassroots pressure within the NDP, while the mass movement against Israel’s genocide in Gaza has decisively shifted the Overton Window. This has made it safer for candidates like Heather McPherson and Avi Lewis to make statements condemning Israel’s genocide. However, their cautious announcements pale in comparison with Yves Engler’s lifetime of pro-Palestinian and anti-imperialist journalism and activism. While it’s heartening that the NDP is finally joining the rest of the world in denouncing genocide, we can’t forget that Yves was denouncing occupation and apartheid in Palestine long before it was safe, popular, or politically expedient to do so.

The Engler Effect

The fact that Yves was long correct on Palestine while the NDP was horribly off-base is not just a claim to activist cred or radical bonafides. It’s important because it illustrates an understanding of international relations, geopolitics, and imperialism that Engler has cultivated over researching and writing 13 books and conducting hundreds of talks, protests and demonstrations. That someone with this amount of foreign policy expertise is running for leadership of the federal NDP is at once a minor miracle, and also long overdue.

The conflict between the Trump regime and Venezuela highlights the vast gulf between Yves and the other NDP leadership candidates. As Trump’s flagrant and incredibly dangerous military escalations have proceeded over the previous weeks, Engler has denounced the U.S.’s illegal actions and has called for Canada to condemn them and to support the democratically elected government in Venezuela.

And what have we heard from Lewis, McPherson, and Ashton? Not a peep of disapproval from any one of them. In fact, instead of supporting Yves in his principled position, the other candidates and their supporters have engaged in a smear campaign against Engler. Zionists, NATO hawks and right-wing critics of Engler have dredged up long-discredited slurs, while even a number of self-described leftists have jumped onboard, throwing every possible distortion and factual absurdity at his character in the hopes that something, anything, will stick.

The fact that Yves criticizes the official narrative of the Rwandan genocide that whitewashes Canadian and American complicity in the tragedy? He must be a genocide denier! The fact that Yves criticizes the pro-Israel Jewish establishment in Canada? He’s clearly anti-Semitic! The fact that he denounces Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also acknowledges the role played by NATO in provoking the war? He’s obviously a Putin propagandist!

It doesn’t matter that Yves has never actually denied the horrible slaughter in Rwanda, that he has publicly denounced anti-Semitism and expressed his commitment to oppose it, or that he is openly critical of all parties in the Ukraine War – Yves’ character assassins just care about one thing – silencing the one leadership candidate who actually understands the forces of imperialism and colonialism that have shaped our world and that now threaten to destroy it.

The Failure of the Canadian Left

From my vantage point as a long-time leftist and anti-war activist, watching the Engler campaign unfold and seeing the dishonest attempts to derail it has been an exercise in profound disappointment and frustration.

On the one hand this sad spectacle shows, yet again, how the understanding of geopolitics and imperialism that many self-identified leftists in Canada have is in fact naive and deeply confused. How many posts did I see of ostensibly left friends celebrating the Nobel Peace Prize win of Venezuelan oligarch Maria Corina Machado – the fascist compradore who is cheering on a military invasion of her country by the United States?

How many self-identified leftists did I see denounce Engler because he had the temerity to point out that anti-Semitism was being used as a weapon to silence opponents of genocide, but in his dozens of writings on the topic, didn’t always use the exact, right words (according to the critics) to do so?

How many self-identified leftists have I seen smear Engler because of “his views on Rwanda”, or “his statements on Ukraine”, when it is amply clear that none of the critics had even read Yves’ work on these conflicts or found even one factual statement from Yves that they disagreed with?

The answer, of course, is far too many, and this reflects a political immaturity that the Canadian Left can simply no longer afford.

A Democratic NDP, or A Party of Back-Room Deals?

In contrast to his detractors, I would argue that Yves Engler is head and shoulders above other NDP leadership candidates in terms of foreign policy expertise. Beyond this, I can also share my impression of Yves’ on a more personal level, as I’ve known him for close to 15 years.

In 2011 Yves and his wife Bianca launched a co-authored book at our Hamilton community centre. Since this first introduction I’ve attended numerous other book launches and events by Yves, participated on panels with him, co-organized events with him, and even attended protests with him. Over this time I’ve always known him to be a committed and principled activist. I never heard Yves utter a single anti-Semitic word or offer an opinion that wasn’t backed by logic and evidence. Yves and I might not agree on everything (what academic authors do!), but in the time that I’ve known him, I’ve never known him to be unreasonable.

In a less dysfunctional world, I think a person of Yves Engler’s calibre and qualifications would be openly welcomed by the federal NDP as a leadership candidate. It is true that some people find Yves’ anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist analysis radical, or his methods confrontational, but these are good and healthy things to debate. Rest assured that the values Yves is advocating for – peace, justice, equality, sustainability, socialism – are the same values that unite most of us on the left. Radical ideas and actions drive change and open up the field of debate. All of this is good for democracy, and this is something the NDP needs to seriously consider.

And so, what approach should Canadian leftists take to this controversial NDP leadership race and to the question of Yves’ candidacy? The answer is simple – we should demand that the federal party approve Yves’ candidacy (when he submits to vetting), and then let the membership decide if his vision is one the NDP should endorse.

Although I support Yves, the more important principle is that from now on, NDP leadership races should be decided democratically by the party rank and file. Candidates should still be vetted, but to inform the members, not to filter out candidates seen as “undesirable” to a small group of party insiders. If you don’t like Yves? That’s fine, don’t vote for him. If you have a legitimate axe to grind with his arguments? That’s fine as well – debate him! Knowing Yves, he will certainly not shy away from good faith engagement or argument about ideas and policies.  However, if you seek to prevent Yves from running at all through a process of character assassination and back-room hit-making? Then I’m sorry, but you can’t claim to be a supporter of democracy.

The Challenges Ahead

In closing, we can’t lose sight of the larger context in which the NDP leadership race is being run – a precarious world in which the declining U.S. Empire is lashing out in increasingly desperate and dangerous ways. We are roped to this floundering titan by geography, and if we think that foreign policy issues won’t be important to the immediate future of the Canadian working class, then we’re utterly delusional.

In fact, in the coming years we will have to navigate generational challenges concerning trade, economic stability, ecological sustainability and national sovereignty. In terms of the international community, we will also have to navigate the real risk of great power conflict and a Third World War. The inherent stakes are massive – with human survival and the survival of the biosphere hanging in balance. 

To safeguard our collective future, Canada has to be on the right side of this rapid and chaotic process of geopolitical change – the side of human rights, international law, and international co-operation. Yves Engler has written and advocated for these goals his entire adult life, and this is what makes his voice so important right now.