Opinion piece by Bob rae, Fellow of Massey College, the Munk School at the University of Toronto, the Forum of Federations and Queen’s University. He served as Ontario’s 21st Premier, interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and Canada’s Ambassador to the UN.
In coming to the defence of Ukraine’s, Denmark’s Greenland’s and yes, Venezuela’s, sovereignty, we are defending our own. Imperial habits die hard. And Canada must be at the centre of these battles because our existence as a nation at stake.
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The decision by the Trump administration to launch an arrest operation in Caracas, Venezuela, capturing Nicolás Maduro and his spouse Cilia Flores, has profound consequences for all of us.
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The revelation that the United States would be “running Venezuela”, taking over the oil industry, replacing “free and fair elections” with a “judicious…very judicious transition”, … outlined in the recent U.S. National Security Strategy was the most expansive expression of American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere and beyond in decades.
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The meetings in Paris this week of the Coalition of the Willing supporting Ukraine take on a whole new meaning and significance. The U.S. release of the National Security Strategy one month ago, the subsequent military buildup and invasion of Caracas, the collateral rhetoric about Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Greenland, Canada — all point a revival of Great Power unilateralism at the expense of everyone else.
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In the time leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, [Russian] President Putin released speeches and documents explaining the Russian grievance.
The Putin Doctrine is fundamentally this: Greater Russia has included Ukraine for centuries … Ukrainian nationalism is a fake concept promoted by Russia’s enemies … The decision to grant Ukraine independence in 1991 was a betrayal, aggravated by NATO “aggression” … Putin further claimed that Ukraine was committing a “genocide” against Russian speakers in Ukraine, and that therefore Russia’s invasion in February 2022 was fully justified as self-defence.
It is worth noting that these arguments were all heard, considered, and dismissed as having no merit by the International Court of Justice.
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The third member of the P3, China, has its own narrative and explanation to justify its treatment of Tibetans and Uyghurs, among other minorities, its claim to Taiwan, and its status as a “Great Civilization”, giving it power and status above and beyond others.
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Ukraine’s fate is ours. If the Coalition of the Willing cannot find the means and the will to defend Ukraine’s interests, the message to Russia, China, the United States and others would be clear: your region is your playground, and any casus belli — no matter how ludicrous — will do.
As Canadians, our interests, values, and nationhood are directly at stake. This is not an exaggeration. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan for greater national solidarity, aggressive search for new markets, and a sustained effort to reach a new CUSMA agreement all make good sense, but all of us need to recognize the costs and consequences of the lawless world we are now in.
It can’t be business or politics as usual.
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No, there is still MUCH you can do to resist, even without being a fighter.
Like what? There isn’t really a safe way to resist a military occupation.
Sabotage – Work slowdowns, “lost” paperwork, derailed supply chains. (Your printer mysteriously breaking at just the right time? A classic.)
Information Warfare – Secret newspapers, illegal radio broadcasts, coded messages. Because when the government controls the media, whisper networks become lifelines.
Underground Networks – Smuggling targeted minorities, POWs, and political dissidents out of the country. Creating safe houses, fake IDs, and escape routes.
Civil Disobedience – Non-compliance, fake cooperation, and good old-fashioned ghosting when the occupiers came knocking.
None of these are safe, though. Just safer than actually doing violence yourself.
It seems like supplying fake IDs or doing sabotage would still fall under “fighter”. Even just as words “the fighters” and “the resistance” are somewhat synonymous.
Of course not. But resistance is not about becoming a guerilla. It is much much more than that.
Resistance is a continuum: It can be as simple as shrugging and saying “sorry officer, I didn’t see anything”. Or it can be causing delays, playing dumb, being frustratingly incompetent, being clumsy and unlucky, working by the book, insisting on following every bit of procedure, checking in for directions every five minutes, firing competent personnel, hiring incompetent personnel, forgetting to mention that valuable equipment needs to be maintained etc etc. If you feel more brave, it can be things like passing on information, or active sabotage. Then you can get to things like running propaganda, sheltering people, all the way up to armed resistance. You don’t need to do all of it at once, in fact, for the armed resistance to be effective, it depends on all the lower intensity acts of resistance as well.
Okay, that’s an important note for everyone.
OP sounded like they had trouble managing life in peacetime, though. It’s not clear a somewhat lower level of risk and time commitment would be better. (Although further comments reveal they might be exactly who guerillas are looking for)
I’m not interested in partaking. This is not normal. I don’t do well with change of any kind. I guess you have never had a nervous breakdown before.
Nobody does but in the case of an invasion we don’t get a choice. When US soldiers start dragging your neighbours into the street you don’t have the option of saying “no thanks”.
If that happens I would want them to kill me first. Ideally the first strike of bombings would take me so I wouldn’t have to cope with what was going on around me.
I have known many people who have had nervous breakdowns. Some still retain the courage of their convictions. I am sure you could find some passive aggression to contribute if you needed to.
I don’t need to contribute to anything. You and I are just not on the same wavelength. I’m a very passive person. It’s my nature.
Passive, yet active enough to engage in dispirited doomsaying. If you were that passive you wouldn’t be commenting. You wouldn’t be actively attempting to discourage people from resisting. You wouldn’t be actively expressing your intent. You would, at most, be swiping up or down with your thumbs until some event led to you putting your phone or computer down and forced you to act.
Nope, from chance, practice, or experience; I’m pretty resilient.
Inteest has nothing to do with it. You can comply fully, partially, or not at all. Most people figure out somewhere in the partial compliance.
If there is an invasion I will inject bleach into my veins or self-immolate. I’m not going through that hellscape scenario.
Lol, suddenly you don’t sound so cowardly.
Like, other people are being unfair to you, but if self-immolation is on the table what else do you have to fear?
I have to use several antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds to get through the day. An invasion would be the crumbling of my world as I know it. I cannot handle chaos or disruption. It would break me. I need calm, quiet, and stability. It would literally be the end of the world.
You don’t understand personality types or psychology or psychiatry. Not everyone has your neurotype.
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