Canada’s foreign policy towards Guatemala has historically been marked by two topics : human rights and business opportunities. Despite deteriorating relations with Canadian and transnational civil society on the issue of mining, the Harper government continues to promote human rights in Guatemala. This article proposes a theoretical reflection on the instrumentalization of human rights in Canadian foreign policy by analyzing the Guatemalan case since the 1980s. In fact the instrumentalization of human rights has always been part of the (re)definition process of the Canadian identity through Internationalism and now with Neoconservatism in foreign policy.