The truth is ugly, is it not?

But I make no apologies for bringing it to you alongside whatever celebrity news we have on the other pages.

In fact, the only thing I regret is not doing so sooner.

Canadians, and the Canadian media in general and in particular, including those who have no trouble bashing the Bushies for their intervention in Iraq, have had this collective see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil, hands-over-eyes and ears la! la! la! I can't hear you attitude towards our role in the hellhole that is Haiti.

We have much to answer for, starting with that economic strangulation — more politely called the "embargo" — we supported along with the U.S. and France, which was all part of the "resignation" of the democratically elected (with a whopping 91.8 per cent mandate) President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004.

Said U.S. President George W. Bush (whose father George H.W. Bush was in the White House when Aristide was deposed in 1991, after winning with 67 per cent of the vote): "President Aristide resigned. He has left his country. The constitution of Haiti is working. There is an interim president, as per the constitution, in place.

"I have ordered the deployment of Marines, as the leading element of an interim international force, to help bring order and stability to Haiti. I have done so in working with the international community. This government believes it essential that Haiti have a hopeful future. This is the beginning of a new chapter in the country's history.

"I would urge the people of Haiti to reject violence, to give this break from the past a chance to work. And the United States is prepared to help."

Since then, countless Haitians, men, women and children, whose lives grow more miserable by the minute, have been shot, hacked, imprisoned and subjected to state terror.

There appears to be blood all over Canada's hands: first because it was on board for the removal of Aristide and second because it is supporting, both politically and financially, an illegitimate government that appears dead set on violently crushing any opposition.

It also has a contingent of some 125 police officers who train the Haitian National Police accused of massacring civilians.

And yet, the fate of the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, perfectly situated between Fidel Castro's Cuba and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, sweatshop armpit to Canadian T-shirt manufacturers, the mine pit to Canadian copper companies, is scarcely discussed or covered by Canadian media. (I should note that the Star has been running extensive reports by freelancer Reed Lindsay.)

To my knowledge, but for a Sue Montgomery column in the Montreal Gazette and an op-ed in the Star by Yves Engler, whose slim volume co-written with Anthony Fenton, Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority, is a primer on our shameful presence there, our role was never raised as an issue during the election campaign.

(That said, foreign policy barely registered at all during the campaign, except when critics accused the Liberals of "anti-Americanism.")

Some Haiti-watchers believe that's because no politicians wanted to upset the Haitian diaspora, much of it educated elite, now resident in Montreal.

Last month, the shooting death of retired Mountie Mark Bourque, in Haiti to help with the repeatedly postponed elections, received a lot of ink, but there was scarcely any discussion of the context.

Next Tuesday, Haiti is yet again scheduled to go to the polls — although the most recent reports are that there will be none in Cité Soleil, the unspeakable slum on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince where an estimated quarter million, and I use this word guardedly, live.

Of course giving them the vote could result in a government that would soon have to "resign" anyway.

Which is not unlike what is going on with Palestinians. You will have democracy but only if the United States approves it.

It can't be easy to cover this. Haiti is a dangerous place, a Baghdad with beaches. But to ignore it from the cushy safety of editorial boards is inexcusable.

If you're interested in learning more about what is happening in Haiti, check out Amy Goodman's very fine reportage at http://www.democracynow.org or, better yet, on Saturday, Feb. 18 at 7, go see Nicolas Rossier's even-handed, decide-for-yourself documentary, Aristide and the Endless Revolution. It's playing at the Earth Sciences Building at the University of Toronto. Tickets are $5 and are available at the Toronto Women's Bookstore or by emailing haitiaction@riseup.net.

Antonia Zerbisias blogs at http://www.thestar.blogs.com.