Former Vice President of the Concordia Student Union, Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist and author. He has published eight books: Canada in Africa — 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation, The Ugly Canadian — Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy, Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping — The Truth May Hurt, Stop Signs — Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay (with Bianca Mugyenyi), The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy (Shortlisted for the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non Fiction in the Quebec Writers’ Federation Literary Awards), Playing Left Wing: From Rink Rat to Student Radical and (with Anthony Fenton) Canada in Haiti: Waging War on The Poor Majority and Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid. Yves was born in Vancouver, where he grew up playing hockey. He was a peewee teammate of NHL star Mike Ribeiro at Huron Hochelaga in Montréal before playing in the B.C. Junior League. After being suspended from Concordia University, he turned to research and writing, but he’s still a fan of the great Canadian sport.
The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy
by YVES ENGLER
About the book:
This book could change how you see Canada. Numerous studies have found that Canadians' self-appraisal of their country's foreign policy is more positive than any other country. Most believe Canada's primary role has been as peacekeeper or honest broker in difficult-to-solve disputes. But, contrary to the mythology of Canada as a force for good in the world, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy sheds light on many dark corners of Canadian foreign policy: From troops that joined the British in Sudan in 1885 to gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean and aspirations of Central American empire, to participation in the UN mission that killed Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, to important support for apartheid South Africa, Zionism and the US war in Vietnam, to helping overthrow Salvador Allende and supporting the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, to Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan today.
Praise for Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy:
We bear responsibility for what governments do in the world, primarily our own, but secondarily those we can influence, our allies in particular. Yves Engler's penetrating inquiry yields a rich trove of valuable evidence about Canada's role in the world, and poses a challenge for citizens who are willing to take their fundamental responsibilities seriously. --Noam Chomsky
Engler has done for Canadian foreign policy what I tried to do for United States foreign policy in my book "Killing Hope" -- cover each region of the world, showing how "peaceful, benevolent, altruistic Canada" has, on numerous occasions, served as an integral part of Western imperialism, particularly the American version, helping to keep the Third World down and in its place. From Vietnam to Haiti, Canada has served the political and economic demands of US foreign policy and the multinational corporations. The picture that emerges is not the image of Canada the world has long admired. --William Blum
