Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro waving to a crowd during his presidential campaign, July 4, 2024. Photo: X/@NicolasMaduro.
The Canada Files can confirm that Venezuelan Canadians were blocked from voting in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election. Venezuela’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America Carlos Ron responded to this outlet’s questions, sent after seeing Canada block Iranian Canadians from voting in Iran’s presidential election.
This Canadian government move has precedent. Back in 2018, Canada formally blocked Venezuelan Canadians from voting in Venezuela’s presidential election. In November 2019—after leading the Lima Group seeking the ouster of President Nicolás Maduro since 2017—Canada recognized coup plotter and then-“interim government” leader Juan Guaidó’s Canadian representative, Orlando Viera-Blanco, as Venezuela’s supposed ambassador to Canada. Yet, by the end of 2020, CBC News would admit that Viera-Blanco could only run the Venezuelan coup leader’s Canadian “embassy” from his apartment.
By January 2023, Juan Guaidó was voted out as the leader of the Venezuelan opposition’s “interim government“, as their attempts to force Maduro out had failed. Rumours were swirling by December 30, 2022, and on that day The Canada Files asked Global Affairs Canada if the Canadian government still recognized Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s “legitimate”/”interim president.” GAC did not respond until January 4, 2023, saying that it would “review and assess the implications” of the decision to oust Guaidó as opposition leader. GAC made a public statement on January 6, 2023, indicating that Canada “respects the decision taken to change the structure of the interim government.”
Notably, in GAC’s answer to The Canada Files, it said that Canada wanted to see a “return of fair and free elections in Venezuela in 2024.” This Canadian statement, after having blocked Venezuelan Canadians from voting in the 2018 presidential election, was already quite eye-catching. Canada’s supposed determination to see “fair and free elections in Venezuela in 2024” would not be matched by its actions this year.
Carlos Ron, Venezuela’s deputy minister of Foreign Affairs for North America, confirmed to The Canada Files that, to this day “Canada has not granted full permission for a Venezuelan diplomat to return to our embassy in Ottawa.”
This prevented Venezuelan authorities from opening a voting center, since they had no diplomatic representative in the Venezuelan embassy in Canada. By preventing the Venezuelan government from opening a voting center, Canada blocked thousands of Venezuelan Canadians from voting for their next president yet again.
Yet, Canada would quickly cast doubt on the legitimacy of Venezuela’s presidential election. The shamelessness of Canada’s push for “democracy,” further exemplified by Canada blocking Syrian Canadians from voting in Syria’s 2021 presidential election, truly knows no bounds. “Democracy” simply does not include Venezuelan Canadians being able to vote in their home nation’s elections, according to the Canadian government.
(The Canada Files) by Aidan Jonah
Aidan Jonah
Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, a socialist, anti-imperialist news site founded in 2019. He has written about Canadian imperialism, federal politics, and left-wing resistance to colonialism across the world. He is a second-year Bachelor of Journalism student at Ryerson University, who was the Head of Communications and Community Engagement for Etobicoke North NDP Candidate Naiima Farah in the 2019 Federal Election.
