Will Justin Trudeau Change Canadian Policy in the Middle East?
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- Published on Monday, 09 November 2015 22:15
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1184 .... November 10, 2015
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Will Justin Trudeau Change Canadian Policy in the Middle East?
Gregory Shupak
The election of Canada's Liberal Party is likely to mean a shift away from the hyper-belligerent tone Stephen Harper's Conservative Party used on issues pertaining to Middle East policy, but few concrete changes can be expected to take place. All signs point to the incoming government continuing to play a key supporting role in U.S.-led imperialism in the Middle East.
That the Liberals intend to approach international affairs in an aggressive manner is made clear in their platform, which accuses the Conservatives of "weakening Canada's military," criticises Harper's government for providing the Canadian armed forces with supposedly inadequate funding, and promises to maintain the military's budget at current levels. The platform vows... to "build a more modern, efficient, and effective military... to strengthen frontline operations," and to "strengthen Canada's Armed Forces" so that it can "offer international deterrence and combat capability." These statements indicate an intention not to spend money on the military for its own sake, but to do so in order to use force.
This can be expected, furthermore, on the basis of the Liberals’ track record. When the party was in power between 1993 and 2005, it participated in U.S.-led attacks on both Afghanistan and (contrary to popular mythology) Iraq as well as countries in other regions of the world such as Haiti.