What Does Canada Do?
I interview Pitasanna Shanmugathas about Canadian foreign policy—he and Ryan Ellis made a documentary that looks at Canada’s global role.
Pitasanna Shanmugathas has a master’s degree in global affairs from the Munk School of Global Affairs—he’s worked for Save the Children, Science for Peace, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, and STAND Canada.
I urge everyone to check out his 2022 documentary Truth to the Powerless: An Investigation Into Canada’s Foreign Policy—you can watch the documentary online for free, which is great. Shanmugathas was writer, director, producer, and editor—Ryan Ellis was director, producer, and videographer.
The documentary looks at Canadian foreign policy, illuminates various Canadian atrocities, and interrupts Canada’s PR image. There are interviews with establishment politicians who defend Canadian actions—there are also interviews with critics who don’t accept the establishment line.
I was honored and thrilled to interview Shanmugathas—see below my interview with him that I edited for flow and added hyperlinks to.
1) What’s your 2022 docuseries Truth to the Powerless: An Investigation Into Canada’s Foreign Policy all about, what are its key takeaways, and what might viewers of your docuseries find surprising?
The docuseries is a nonprofit educational resource—you can watch the entire thing online for free.
It looks at Canada’s post-WW2 role in the international arena. And interestingly, it’s the first documentary on the topic that includes interviews with both (A) the academics—and dissidents—who want to challenge the story that’s told about Canada’s purportedly well-intentioned interventions and (B) the politicians responsible for formulating, advocating, and even championing the policies being criticized. It features extensive interviews with: academics like Noam Chomsky and Tyler Shipley; politicians like Bill Graham and David Pratt; and activists like Yves Engler and Dimitri Lascaris.
As for key takeaways, the first one is the role that finance plays in Canadian foreign policy—we dedicate the second episode to this topic. The episode discusses: how Canada Pension Plan invests Canadian citizens’ pensions money in some of the most militaristic, polluting, and rapacious corporations; how Ottawa lets Canadian mining companies get away with devastating and poisoning ecosystems and villages in Latin America and Africa; how Ottawa lets Canadian mining companies escape accountability in situations where these companies’ security forces have raped and displaced villagers; and how Canada supported Indonesia—for purely financial reasons—while Indonesia invaded East Timor, occupied it, and killed 25% of its population.
And the episode also discusses how Canada has—in a way that might make you think back to Canada’s support for Indonesia—continued to sell arms to Saudi Arabia during their devastating war in Yemen. We interview important figures like Dennis Horak, who was Canada’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
The second key takeaway is that Canada has been willing to oppose and dismantle democracy in other countries in order to protect neoliberal corporate interests. The first episode includes a discussion of Canada’s support for overthrowing Patrice Lumumba, who was the Congo’s first democratically elected leader and whose eventual assassination plunged that country into factional wars and total disaster—today the Congolese are some of the most impoverished people in the world despite the fact that the Congo is the most resource-rich country on the planet. Foreign corporations are plundering the Congo’s rich resources with total impunity—the profits don’t go to the desperate Congolese population.
And the sixth episode explores—in great detail—Canada’s direct role in overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was Haiti’s first democratically elected leader. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world—during Aristide’s time in office he managed to improve the country’s literacy rate, build schools, tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and increase the minimum wage. Washington didn’t like the bad example that Aristide was setting for bigger economies like Guatemala, Honduras, or Mexico that might see Aristide’s successes—in such an impoverished country—and follow suit. So the US worked with Canada and France to overthrow Aristide. We interview Canada’s defense minister at the time of the coup—David Pratt. We also interview Canada’s foreign minister at the time of the coup—Bill Graham.
As for what might surprise viewers, the first episode discusses how Canada supported fascism during WW2 in a way that makes Canada complicit in the killing—and extermination—of countless civilians. I assume that many viewers would find that history surprising.
But I think that a great deal of the documentary—all sorts of things in it—might surprise viewers. The documentary presents a picture that’s starkly at odds with the mainstream mythology about Canada’s role in the world.
And incidentally, please consider donating to the Truth to the Powerless project if you find the docuseries informative—all donations go toward the costs associated with hosting the docuseries.
2) How did you come up with the idea for the docuseries?
One day—by chance—I stumbled on Elaine Brière’s 1996 documentary Bitter Paradise: The Sell-Out of East Timor. Watching it was probably my first exposure to any content critical of Canadian foreign policy. Bitter Paradise was probably the first Canadian documentary to look at our foreign policy from a critical perspective—Amy Miller’s 2009 Myths for Profit is a later Canadian documentary that also looks at Ottawa’s actions abroad critically, though with a much broader scope. Miller was actually one of our documentary’s consultants—our other consultant was Mark Achbar, who’s known for the 1992 documentary Manufacturing Consent and the 2003 documentary The Corporation.
It occurred to me—years after watching Bitter Paradise and Myths for Profit—that these two groundbreaking films only interview critics. And that it would be cool to have a documentary that also included interviews with the politicians responsible for Canadian foreign policy—viewers could then see the establishment line alongside the critics’ responses.
I pitched the idea—for the project that became Truth to the Powerless—to Ryan Ellis in 2019. He loved the idea—we started a long process where we traveled around filming people with help from other filmmakers.
Ryan and I wanted the documentary to act as an educational resource. We therefore funded the entire project ourselves, which allowed us to make the documentary free for Canadians—and people around the world—to watch.
3) Your docuseries discusses “Canada’s Support for Apartheid in South Africa and Israel”, “Canada’s Role in Destabilizing Iraq & Libya”, and “Canada’s Role in Dismantling Democracy in Haiti and the Americas”—what would you say is the worst atrocity your docuseries discusses?
That’s an interesting question.
In terms of numbers, it would have to be Canada’s support for Indonesia while that country massacred 25% of East Timor’s population—around 200,000 people. The East Timor story constitutes Canada’s bloodiest post-WW2 complicity.
In terms of the instances where Canada’s direct influence resulted in the most destabilization, you could look at Canada’s role in overthrowing Haitian democracy. Or Canada’s silent—but crucial—role in the Iraq War. Or Canada’s leading role in the NATO-led bombing of Libya—Canada played a leading role regarding Libya and was right at the forefront.
Regarding Haiti, the country had thousands of elected officials under Aristide and now has zero—all of their current officials have been appointed under Western supervision. And the country remains deeply impoverished—Aristide was making some genuine progress before the overthrow.
Regarding Iraq, the illegal invasion—which was an act of unprovoked aggression—unleashed sectarian tensions, produced ISIS, and led to all sorts of hideous and horrifying bloodshed. The entire region was doused in blood and destabilized—it’s very difficult to overstate just how much damage the aggression has done and continues to do.
Regarding Libya, the aftermath was terrible. We saw the creation of a 21st-century slave trade in Libya; we saw a massive flow of arms into the hands of ISIS; and we saw a migrant crisis where boatloads of Libyan migrants drowned trying to reach European countries that often rejected the desperate Libyan migrants.
But in terms of human consequences, Canada’s role in exacerbating climate change is the most consequential and devastating policy of all—global heating is an existential crisis that threatens everything that a person could value, care about, or want to protect. The second episode discusses how Canada’s actions on climate change—which are unspeakable and disturbing—have a lot to do with financial interests.
4) Your docuseries includes interviews with various politicians like John English, David Pratt, and the late Bill Graham—how were you able to obtain interviews with such high-ranking politicians? And what stands out to you as most interesting when you look back on what you heard from the politicians?
We just reached out to the politicians’ offices. And sometimes we got no response. But sometimes we got back questions—that we then answered—about our project’s nature and what the interview would cover.
We wanted to get politicians who could give us the official establishment line regarding a range of different aspects of Canada’s foreign policy—the critics could then be given a chance to respond to that material. So the documentary gives viewers both sides and is—like I mentioned—the first documentary on the topic to do so.
As for what stands out to me as most interesting, I did a very uncomfortable—but very important—interview with the late Bill Graham, who passed away in August. He was Canada’s foreign minister and defense minister. He was ubiquitous in the sense that he was front and center on a range of policy issues—Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq—at the most important times.
My general approach for the documentary was just to interview the politicians and then let the critics challenge things. But I made an exception with the Graham interview, since it was really important to me—and had been for a while—that someone ask him some challenging questions about Haiti.
And it was very uncomfortable when I challenged him about Haiti—the tension in the room was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. But I feel like the victims of Canada’s intervention in Haiti were owed the chance to see Graham challenged.
I reflected on my interactions with him, including off-camera ones where he had no reason to be insincere. My conclusion was that he’d believed—wholeheartedly—the establishment story where Canada’s intervention was a good thing that saved Aristide’s life and prevented great bloodshed.
And in fact, I feel that it’s possible that all of the politicians who gave me justifications for Canada’s foreign-policy abuses—which is almost all of the politicians I interviewed—were sincere believers like Graham was.
5) What feedback have viewers given you so far, how much success have you had in reaching Canadians, and what’s next in terms of reaching Canadians?
We’ve gotten overwhelmingly positive reviews—people have praised the documentary as an eye-opener that breaks through the mainstream mythology.
In terms of reaching people, Canadian Foreign Policy Institute hosted a Truth to the Powerless panel discussion on 25 August 2022—I participated, as did some of the documentary’s interviewees:
The panel discussion helped us reach Canadians.
But our docuseries hasn’t gotten any coverage at all from Canada’s mainstream media. Which is what you’d expect, since we’re criticizing the powerful interests that Canada’s mainstream media is connected to.
I even know of a case where a CBC journalist liked our documentary, wrote an article about it, submitted the article for publication, and got—from the CBC editors—an unexplained rejection.
6) What do you make of the notion that Canadian foreign policy is simply a joke and isn’t important? I myself sometimes feel this way, given that everything that our American neighbors do has a vastly larger impact on the world than what Ottawa does. And you could point out that magnitude isn’t the only moral issue when it comes to state policy, that it also matters what you personally can most affect, and that people—generally, though not always—can most affect their own country’s policies.
The US is the global superpower, but that doesn’t mean that Canada’s foreign policy isn’t significant—just watch Truth to the Powerless, which discusses many highly significant Canadian actions that have had an important impact.
Canada could—rather than having a negative impact—take the lead on a number of issues. For example, Canada could sign the TPNW and become a global leader in calling for nuclear weapons to be abolished.
And for another example, Canada could become a leader on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Canada could vote in favor of UN resolutions—the ones calling for an end to the occupation or the ones calling for an end to Israel’s construction of illegal settlements—that the overwhelming majority of the world supports. We could also boycott Israeli products made in the Occupied Territories—the third episode discusses Canada’s support for Israel’s brutal and illegal occupation.
Canada makes a real difference in the world—it’s up to Canadians to determine whether that difference is positive or negative. And the documentary is supposed to make Canadians think about who we want to be in the world, what we want to stand for in the world, and what we want to do in the world.
7) Do you get the sense that Canadians are more informed and educated about Washington’s past and ongoing imperialism than about Ottawa’s past and ongoing imperialism?
I think that that’s indeed the case.
The US is the global superpower—their actions are enormously consequential. And their politics, media, and atmosphere are simply more entertaining and exciting than what we have up here in Canada—this entertainment aspect keeps Canadians engaged.
And there’s a strong tendency for people to be less knowledgeable—and less critical—when it comes to their own country’s atrocities, so you’d expect Canada to fit with that standard phenomenon.
Canada tries to get the world to see itself as a peacekeeper nation. And the documentary discusses how Washington has sought help from Ottawa when there was a belief that Ottawa’s positive image would be useful—the fifth episode discusses how Canada covertly supported the US’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, while the first episode discusses how Canada covertly supported the US’s war in Vietnam.
Canada has been involved in some of the most horrendous Western-perpetrated atrocities in modern history. And history textbooks across Canada would spotlight Canada’s heinous role if it wasn’t for the fact that the powerful write history.
8) What do you think about my 27 January 2022 piece “Can We End Canadian Atrocities?”? Anything that you’d add? The piece discusses Canada’s role regarding Israeli atrocities and regarding atrocities in Haiti.
I think that it’s an excellent and informative piece—it does a great job providing readers with resources about Canada’s foreign policy.
We interview Yves Engler a great deal during the docuseries. And his work has strongly influenced my own views on Canadian foreign policy.
9) What’s the most exciting activism going on right now when it comes to changing Ottawa’s foreign policy? Which organizations can people join?
I’d encourage people to check out the work of two excellent organizations—Canadian Foreign Policy Institute and Canadian Voice of Women for Peace.
These two organizations are constantly doing phenomenal work that challenges the powerful interests that have so much influence over our government’s decisions.
10) What criticisms have you gotten regarding your docuseries?
We were criticized for only having a few female interviewees in our documentary.
But we made a genuine effort to interview women. The reason that we struggled to get female interviewees is that Canadian foreign policy has been—and continues to be—male-centric.
And people should definitely be upset about the fact that men—mainly elderly white men—have historically dominated our foreign policy and continue to do so. Our documentary seeks to expose the historical and present reality of our country’s foreign policy—we want people to get upset if they see something that they don’t like in that reality.
We tried to get Chrystia Freeland—her office rejected our request. We tried to get Elizabeth May—she was receptive but Covid got in the way. We tried to get Sandra McCardell—she refused to discuss her role in the NATO bombing of Libya. Fortunately, we were able to get Hélène Laverdière—she was great.
Of course, gender equality won’t somehow fix Canadian foreign policy—it makes no sense to suggest that Canada’s foreign policy will somehow suddenly become peaceful and positive if you simply put women in powerful political positions. Canada’s foreign policy will—as long as it’s based on resource extraction, arms exportation, opposing developing countries’ democracies, and supporting settler colonialism—remain as militant and hawkish as ever regardless of how many women you have in high political positions.
Justin Trudeau formed a gender-balanced cabinet in 2015 and said—when asked why—“Because it’s 2015”, which was good PR. But Trudeau engages—under the cover of this PR—in a militaristic and rapacious foreign policy that mostly victimizes women and children.
Genuine change is hard work—it’s crucial not to fall for PR deceptions. Canadians can change their country’s foreign policy through education and activism—we hope that our documentary makes a difference.