Canada's Hard Line on Drugs Contrasts with Latin American Shift in Tone Lee Berthiaume - Canada.com
go to original July 29, 2013

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, left, listens to Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Affairs Jose Antonio Meade Kuribrena during a joint news conference in Ottawa on Thursday, July 25. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

OTTAWA — Canada‘s steadily increasing role in the U.S.-led war on drugs is bumping up against calls for change in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Conservative government has made tackling drug trafficking in the Americas a key priority in recent years, deploying the military and doling out millions of dollars to help countries in the region take the fight to transnational crime groups.

But key partners, including Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia, all of which are on the front lines of the fight, have asked for a hemispheric and international debate on new approaches as drug violence continues to sweep their countries.

The division between Canada’s position and that of other countries was highlighted earlier this week when Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and his Mexican counterpart, Jose Antonio Meade Kuribrena, were asked about drugs during a joint press conference in Ottawa.

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