Spying allegations put Canada-Brazil military ties at risk: experts

OTTAWA – Defence and diplomacy experts say a carefully cultivated military relationship with Brazil could be wrecked by the unfolding spy drama involving Canada’s super-secret eavesdropping agency.

Since late spring, a platoon of Canadian soldiers has been embedded with a Brazilian army unit as part of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

The deployment, slated to run until Christmas, has been considered an important bridge-building effort with South America’s biggest military power.

Walter Dorn, a professor at the Canadian Forces Staff College in Toronto, says the scandal will give Brazil second thoughts about Canada as a reliable partner.

Jean Daudelin, an associate professor at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, says it has created an air of mistrust.

But Defence Minister Rob Nicholson has said he doesn’t believe military relations —the Haiti mission in particular — will suffer as a result.