The road to appeasement?

November 18, 2025

By Bill Kilpatrick

Listening to local artist Arne Roosman speak about his experiences during the Second World War at a book launch at the Canadian Peace Musuem this past weekend, one cannot help but reflect on the similarities between his experiences and the current state of the world. Roosman spoke about the importance of peace and how it should be a priority, but we do have to ask: should we aim for peace at any cost? Given that attempts at peace at any cost have failed in the past, should Canada be pursuing a policy of appeasement with the United States or should we be standing up against the rise of authoritarianism and threats to our national sovereignty?

The word appeasement has become a dirty word synonymous with capitulation ever since British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain attempted to appease German dictator Adolph Hitler and avoid war by giving him part of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Hitler promised that he would make no more demands for territory nor would he take over the remainder of Czechoslovakia, only to break this promise in 1939 when he took over the rest of Czechoslovakia and then made demands for parts of Poland leading to the Second World War. The result of this appeasement was an emboldened Hitler as opposed to a satisfied Hitler as many believed he would be. Now that there is another quasi-dictator to the south making demands for territory using gangster methods of threats and bullying how should Canada be responding in order to protect our own freedom?

According to scholars of authoritarianism, wannabe dictators need to weaken and eliminate numerous things in order to destroy democracy and consolidate their power. They need to destroy human rights, the rule of law, take over the media, and undermine fair elections, and they cannot do it alone as they always have collaborators to help them and legitimatize their anti-democratic choices along the way. Canada has always touted itself as a country that upholds the rule of law and defends human rights, but some recent comments by politicians have me doubting whether this will continue and questioning if we are heading down a road of appeasement.

According to a CBC article, while addressing the Untied Nations back in September, Canada’s Foreign Affairs minister Anita Anand said to the assembly that “When multinational institutions are under threat, Canada will not turn inward.” She then went on to outline three priorities for Canada’s foreign policy: strengthening defence regarding NORAD and NATO, economic resilience, and “balancing the other priorities with core values involving human rights, gender equality environmental protection and Indigenous rights…” Which is why her comments at the recent high-level meeting of G7 foreign ministers held on Nov. 12 are so puzzling and appear to contradict those core values.

At the G7 meeting Anand was asked if the United States is breaking international law by blowing up boats and murdering people off the coast of Venezuela. Her response came as a great surprise to many when she stated “…I would say that it is within the purview of the U.S. authorities to make that determination.” Really? Imagine a world where each nation got to decide if they have broken international law? What would be the point of having international law? For a government that constantly touts their respect for the rule-of-law this is an odd comment indeed and openly denies the realities of international law.

It’s almost like our Foreign Affairs minister ignored or was not paying attention when a mere 13 days before the G7 meeting, on Oct. 31 Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for human rights said that the U.S. “must halt such attacks” according to an article by the Associated Press. The article went on to quote Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for Türk’s office, who said that Türk believed “airstrikes by the United States of America on boats in the Caribbean and in the Pacific violate international human rights law.”

Combine Anand’s comments with the recent apology by Prime Minister Mark Carney to Donald Trump for Doug Ford’s commercial and it appears that the Liberals are wavering on their claim to have their elbows up. Carney said that Trump was “offended by the ad” and so he apologized. While it seems to be a particular quirk of Canadians to apologize for things that they didn’t do, this apology was absolutely not called for. You don’t apologize to a bully for bullying you and you certainly don’t apologize to a liar when they are offended by the truth.

Authoritarians like Trump value loyalty over the truth, but if we are to preserve our democratic society along with the rule of law and a respect for human rights, we have to value the truth over loyalty, no matter who it offends. People are entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts, something that Aldous Huxley warned about when he said, “Reality cannot be ignored except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and the more terrible becomes the price that must be paid.”

If the liberals really care about preserving multinational institutions then they have to defend them publicly; if they care about freedom of expression then they have to defend it, not apologize for it. If the liberals continue down this new path of appeasement including the denial of reality we may find that the price we pay is our own freedom.