Poster for the Chavista Chronicles from Caracas interview with Aidan Jonah. Photo: Orinoco Tribune.
September 12, 2021 (OrinocoTribune.com)—On Friday, September 17 at 6:00 pm (EST), Orinoco Tribune will host a live episode of Chavista Chronicles from Caracas with Aidan Jonah, editor-in-chief of The Canada Files (TCF).
Aidan Jonah, a young Canadian journalist, founded The Canada Files—a socialist, anti-imperialist news website focusing on investigative journalism on Canadian foreign policy, in 2019. He has written about Canadian imperialism, federal politics, and left-wing anti-colonial resistance across the world. During the 2019 federal election in Canada, Jonah worked as the head of Communications and Community Engagement for Etobicoke North NDP candidate Naiima Farah. Currently, Jonah is a third-year Bachelor of Journalism student at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.
While the destabilising role of the US war machine across the world is well recognised and widely discussed, Canada’s similar role is well hidden behind a carefully constructed image of a peaceful and social democratic country with a “socialist” welfare system. Yet, Canada has a terrible track record when it comes to its foreign policy as well as in certain areas of its domestic policy. Through meticulously researched articles, The Canada Files shines a light on these issues.
In recent months, the outlet has published a number of articles that Orinoco Tribune considers as highly relevant within the context of Latin America’s current socio-political-economic situations. In an exclusive titled “How the NED, Open Society Foundations and NATO collectively fund institutions driving development of Canadian political thought,” Jonah exposes how “direct influence from abroad” has been creating Canadian public discourse to a significant extent, contrary to popular belief.
This co-opted “public” discourse has directly affected countries across Latin America through Canadian foreign policy, which mostly revolves around resource extraction activities by Canadian mining corporations from Mexico to Chile, and is perfectly aligned with US foreign policy for the region. In this regard, a good example is TCF associate editor Daniel Xie’s article on Canada’s role behind the present crisis in Colombia—the nationwide protests and the violent state repression against it.
On issues of global geopolitics—from the New Cold War against China to the Palestine question, The Canada Files has adopted a firm anti-imperialist position. The site has uncovered the covert—and sometimes overt—warmongering stance of supposedly “leftist” political parties like the National Democratic Party (NDP) or the Green Party in regard to China. The Canada Files has also called out the national media of the country for not presenting any alternative to the establishment narratives, even if such alternatives may exist for the people.
Orinoco Tribune wishes to discuss all this—and a lot more—with Aidan Jonah, on this coming Friday. We will certainly discuss Venezuela, given that the US “ambassador” to Venezuela, James Story, pointed out a few days ago that the US, Canada and the European Union are working on new sanctions against Venezuela if the Mexico Talks fail.
The interview will be conducted by Orinoco Tribune’s Saheli Chowdhury and Gabriel Martínez Saldívar, and will be streamed live on Zoom and Facebook, with simultaneous translation to Spanish in the Zoom platform. Save the date: Friday, September 17 at 6:00 pm (EST).
Featured image: Poster for the Chavista Chronicles from Caracas interview with Aidan Jonah. Photo: Orinoco Tribune.
Special for Orinoco Tribune by Saheli Chowdhury and Gabriel Martínez Saldívar
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Saheli Chowdhury
Saheli Chowdhury is from West Bengal, India, studying physics for a profession, but with a passion for writing. She is interested in history and popular movements around the world, especially in the Global South. She is a co-editor and contributor for Orinoco Tribune.
Gabriel Martínez Saldívar
Gabriel Martínez Saldívar is from Mexico. He holds a BA in Modern Literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and an MA in Critical and Cultural Theory from the University of Leeds, England. He is interested in Marxism and in Critical Theory from an anti-imperialist and decolonial perspective. He is a contributor and volunteer at Orinoco Tribune.
