Twenty years ago today, Canada played a key role in overthrowing the president of Haiti and thousands of other elected officials, significantly increasing foreign influence and triggering the country’s ongoing downward spiral. On February 29, 2004, Canadian special forces took control of the airport, facilitating US Marines’ removal of elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whom they forced onto a plane bound for the Central African Republic, an action Aristide described as “kidnapping.” Immediately following Aristide’s removal, five hundred Canadian troops were dispatched to patrol the streets of Port-au-Prince.

The Canadian government significantly influenced the OAS electoral mission, contributing more than Can$300,000. Beyond the OAS framework, Ottawa also backed the opposition’s call for an election review. Canada and the United States threatened to cut off assistance to the country to protest the formula used to determine the winners of the Senate seats. In September 2000, Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy and US secretary of state Madeleine Albright convened a meeting of “the friends of Haiti.” The meeting resulted in a US declaration that they would withdraw assistance for Haiti’s November presidential election.

On January 31 and February 1, 2003, Chrétien’s government organized the “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti” to discuss that country’s future.Quebec journalist Michel Vastel reported this event in the March 15, 2003, issue of L’actualité, noting that no Haitian officials were invited to the meeting. At this assembly, high-level US, Canadian, and French officials decided the elected president “must go,” the army needed to be recreated, and the country put under UN trusteeship.