Why Mexico Needs More Canada, According to Political Analyst Denise Dressler Marina Jimenez - The Star | |
go to original September 23, 2016 |
Mexico is still reeling from Donald Trump’s visit. Political Analyst and Professor Denise Dressler talks to Jorge Ramos about what’s to come with protests still in place and cabinet ministers resigning. (AMERICA with Jorge Ramos)
Forbes magazine has called Denise Dresser one of Mexico’s most powerful women. The influential writer and academic shares her thoughts on why Canada needs to pay more attention to Mexico’s drug violence, her crush on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and how she manages to attract all those Twitter followers.
Dresser was in Toronto this week for the inaugural 6 Degrees Citizen Space conference held by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.
Why is the Canada-Mexico relationship important?
Mexico is a free trade partner of Canada. Despite that, for many Canadians, Mexico is even more foreign, unknown and uninteresting than many countries in Africa. Canadians pay more attention to what is happening in Europe, the refugee crisis in Syria than what is happening in Mexico, a country with deathly violence, drug trafficking that is becoming much more widespread and an economic crisis.
About 150,000 people have died of drug violence in the last decade, and more than 27,000 have gone missing. We have 43 murdered students (who were kidnapped in 2014). It’s as if we are living a low-intensity civil war in a country where lawlessness runs rampant.
What could Canada be doing to help?
While Canada’s attention is focused elsewhere, there is a fire in the neighbourhood. And I don’t see any Canadian firefighters, or demand for assistance that Canada help the way it has other transitional democracies. Canada could be calling out things in Mexico as it does on human rights issues in other countries, for example China.
In the context of the U.S. election, Donald Trump has said he is going to build a wall and deport 10 million Mexicans. As far as I can see, the Canadian government hasn’t taken a stand on this issue, which violates every principal of inclusiveness, tolerance and free trade. Trump has said he will dismantle the North American Free Trade Agreement. This would be hugely harmful for Canada and the U.S., and for integration in the region.
Read the rest of the interview at The Star
Related: 6 Degrees Conference: Can We Build Inclusive Societies When People’s Beliefs Are More Divided Than Ever? (TVO)
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