Freeland steps up diplomatic pressure on Venezuela
TORONTO — Canada is concerned that the political and economic turmoil in Venezuela will spark a refugee crisis for the South American country and its neighbours, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Monday.
Freeland said that she and Peru’s foreign minister would take that message to the United Nations in New York City, following her appearance at a business conference in Toronto.
Canada and Peru co-chaired a meeting of ministers from the Lima Group of countries last week in Toronto. Freeland and Peru’s foreign minister Ricardo Luna were delegated to meet with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Apart from Canada, the group’s 12 members are in Latin America.
But Freeland said Monday that Venezuela and Canada are in the same geographic “neighbourhood” and that Canada has a role to play in supporting the country’s democratic institutions and respect for human rights. “I do think ... this is a humanitarian crisis as well as a political one. We are seeing real preventable suffering of the people of Venezuela,” Freeland said at the Toronto Global Forum before heading to New York for the UN meeting.
“And I think ... there are mounting signs of a regional refugee crisis as well. Colombia and Brazil are facing a lot of pressure. So I think it is an area where Canada needs to be very engaged.”
Venezuela — an oil-rich country that was led by outspoken socialist Hugo Chávez from 1999 to 2013 — has suffered an economic meltdown since his death.
The dramatic drop in global oil prices since late 2014 and the devaluation of the country’s currency have fuelled triple-digit inflation that has resulted in shortages of food, medicine and basic necessities.
The government of President Nicolas Maduro, who succeeded Chavez, has also been accused of grabbing power by creating a new constitutional assembly that claims supreme authority over other arms of the government, including the oppositioncontrolled congress.
In September, Freeland announced that Canada had imposed sanctions against 40 key figures in the Venezuelan regime, including Maduro, who she said had helped undermine the country’s stability.