Here's an article in today's Toronto Star about the passing of Mr Chavez:

By:Tony BurmanSpecial to the Star, Published on Sat Mar 09 2013

Millions of euphoric Venezuelans poured onto the streets, happily celebrating the end of a regime that grabbed much of the nation's oil wealth for itself, pillaged the treasury and doomed most of the population to extreme poverty. But that wasn't this week in Caracas, of course, after the death of Hugo Chavez. That was in December 1998, in towns and cities throughout Venezuela, when Chavez was first elected president. We need to remember the past to better assess the future, and we can be certain that most Latin Americans do.

The legacy of Latin America's most dominant leader since Fidel Castro will undoubtedly reverberate beyond the borders of Venezuela. His death comes at a time when Cuba's post-Castro era is finally in sight and when several progressive South American governments — fiercely independent of overbearing American influence — are gaining in popularity. In the tortured history of modern Latin America, where elites have freely cashed in their national sovereignty for personal enrichment, we may be witnessing a historic new chapter and, perhaps, a new start with its meddlesome American neighbours.

To many outside of Venezuela, largely fuelled by a hostile American media, Hugo Chavez was a clown and a buffoon. To others, he was deservedly criticized for tolerating mismanagement and corruption, and for trying to intimidate his political opponents. By any measure, his years in power were flawed and chaotic.

But that is not the complete story, and most Venezuelans do not forget that. When Chavez was elected in 1998, his government replaced decades of corrupt and greedy rule by political and business elites — openly supported by the United States — who squandered the nation's wealth.

During his years as president, millions of Venezuelans received health care for the first time. Extreme poverty was reduced by 70 per cent and access to public education increased dramatically. Illiteracy has virtually been eradicated. Above all, the vast Venezuelan majority, marginalized and ignored by governments in past decades, assumed a dignity and pride of place that had been unheard of in the modern Latin American political culture.

Since September 2001, the United States has virtually ignored the region, and the Latin American response has been eye-opening. The populist approach by Chavez, which challenged conventional political and economic thinking, has been contagious.

This is the one region that did not respond to the 2008 global recession with across-the-board austerity. Instead, several governments expanded public services, reduced poverty and inequality, and nationalized key industries. The result has been strong economies and a string of popular governments that have actually been reelected.

Apart from Chavez, who won last October's presidential election in Venezuela with an 11 per cent margin, the latest example of this is Rafael Correa, reelected last month as Ecuador's president with 57 per cent of the vote. Last year, Latin America's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, was elected in Bolivia and, in 2009, Dilma Rousseff was voted in as president of Brazil.

The distinction of Latin America in today's global political context is that it is far more independent of the United States than other regions, such as Europe or — dare I say — Canada. And that is a staggering irony given its history in the past century of being a virtual vassal, or doormat, of the U.S.

I made my first visit to South America in the mid-1970s, travelling by bus for more than a year from one country to another. Virtually all of them were military governments, supported by the United States, and most were very dismissive of any semblance of human rights. The most notorious example during that period was Chile, led then by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

I recall so many people remarking to me that the Canadian government, above all, was promoting a foreign policy that was independent of the United States. As we try to assess the legacy of Chavez, it is striking to realize that, since that period, Latin America and Canada seem to have switched places.