With little fanfare only three days before the minority Liberal government of Paul Martin fell by way of a non-confidence vote in Ottawa's House of Commons (on November 28th), beleaguered Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew appointed Christian Lapointe as Canada's next Ambassador to Ecuador. Lapointe has been serving as Director of the Caribbean and Central America and Andean Region Division within the Department of Foreign Affairs. This move could spell trouble for Ecuador as Canada is in the midst of profound changes in foreign policy that find new support for destabilization under the cover of support for "democracy promotion."That certain elements of the Canadian government are in lockstep with their American counterparts in the Bush administration and the IRI, USAID, World Bank, etc., is not in the least bit surprising. Their political moves are working, albeit more slowly than planned, and a post in Ecuador will be a good position to continue having influence in. Timing here says a lot: they wanted to get this person in at the last minute. I'm always interested in this sort of thing since it often means their position is "soft," that is, wouldn't have happened as easily under normal circumstances. In this case, he seems to be going in the back door while a lot of other things are going on. I could be very wrong on that, but, just some--perhaps silly--speculation.
I'm in the process of making a names list and putting their actions together for the Haiti coup so I can get a better picture myself of who all the actors are. I'll share that will one and all as I progress.
Go read the whole article for some interesting tidbits on the Canadian scheming.
