Evidence of meeting #19 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was promotion.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
Emeritus Professor and Fellow, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
The very quick answer is we've already got material up on the project website, the Canadian version of the website, with some of that information, and we are in the process of constantly updating that: what are we trying to do; what have we achieved; where are we going? In respect to any one of our activities, we're trying to make that information available.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Alexa McDonough NDP Halifax, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are so many different things I'd like to pursue and not a lot of time to do so.
I want to say, and I think many members do, how much I welcome the direct comments by Dr. Kopstein, expressing concern about the cancellation of the international intern program, because we've heard testimony before this committee about how exceptionally important that program is, both to young people gaining experience that will open further doors for meaningful employment, but also because of the kind of brain trust that we need to be concerned about helping build up. I'm actually hoping it's something we're going to pursue at this committee level.
Dr. Perlin, I may be going out on a limb here when I say this, but it seems to me that if we're going to be serious about being involved in democracy development, one of the things that's absolutely critically important, and sort of fundamental, is to be clear about what the elements of democracy are that we are either committed to and forthright about, or not.
I'm going to take an example. Some other members of Parliament were with me on the same trip to Haiti when there was quite an impressive and exciting electoral process going on. I think Canada made an extremely important contribution to the logistics of all that, with very impressive results in terms of the overall level of voter participation and the limited numbers of incidents.
At the same time, we were visiting a factory, for example, where the working conditions were so grotesque you could hardly believe that people work under those conditions. But it was absolutely clear that the notion of there being a trade union introduced into that situation was completely anathema. In fact, people would lose their jobs without question, if there was a hint of that.
So it really raises questions about what is the concept that you're hoping people are going to embrace around what democracy means. It seems to me that it goes to the very heart of whether you can be authentic or not in offering to be part of democracy-building.
I wonder if I can ask you to comment—and I don't mean on the specifics of that grotesque workplace, but as a way of raising the question: if democracy doesn't have to do with some notion of people having some power and control over the conditions of their own lives, including their working conditions and so on, how do you make it anything but an abstraction?
A very provocative comment was made yesterday at an extremely good panel on the question of peacemaking and peacebuilding, and Afghanistan was very much the subject. But on a general level, there was the observation that one of the things we don't seem to get is that some of the extremist groups, which have been identified as terrorist groups in some countries, are busy addressing some of the very basic human needs of public services, food, shelter, and so on, and maybe hearts and minds are actually one better sometimes that way than they are at the other end of a barrel of a gun.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Madam McDonough, can we get to the question? We have ten seconds left to answer it.
4:15 p.m.
Emeritus Professor and Fellow, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
My five-second answer is that in determining what you mean by democratic development, you start with the values that underpin our system.
You're raising a question about values in the context of our system and how well that particular system might respond to the value of looking after impoverished people or people working in difficult conditions.
My view of democratic development is that you have a model that starts with the underlying values of liberal democracy, and you teach out of this. You try to convey that that is the foundation. It's not just a process of choosing leaders. It's not just a process of establishing the accountability of public servants. That's why I'm arguing for a whole-of-governance, holistic approach, founded on a conception of liberal democratic values.
I hope that helps.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Mr. Perlin.
Mr. Van Loan. You have a three-minute round, so be concise.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Kopstein. I thought that was an embracing and excellent presentation in all respects.
I see your expertise is a lot in the post-communist world and what's happened there. I look at the situation there as broken into three parts: those that were eager recipients and have done well--the Baltics and others; the states that are still in play a little bit, where the story is not over--Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and so on; and those that are young and reconstructed, or going backwards--Belarus and Russia itself. For those harder ones that are, as you said, putting up the barriers, passing the anti-NGO laws, and making it hard for us to influence things from the outside, is there something we can do, and what is the path to doing something past that Shanghai club of authoritarians?
4:15 p.m.
Prof. Jeffrey Kopstein
We have to proceed on two fronts in order to deal with it. The countries we're really talking about here are not so much Ukraine and Moldova, but they do include Belarus and essentially all of central Asia, at this point, and Russia itself.
Really, you have to proceed on two fronts. The first is that it's extremely important to sustain human contact. At the same time, there has to be a mechanism out there--and that's why I propose the community of democracies--in order to make sure that these countries and their leaders understand that they are not in the club of the elect. At this point in time we don't have that mechanism. It's been proposed several times, but no one appears to really want to move forward with it.
The main problem is that on the one hand, if you engage them, you appear to be hypocritical because you say you're backing democracy, but then you roll out the red carpet, as President Bush just did for President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. On the other hand, he talks about democracy.
It's very difficult to both pursue democracy and engage dictators at the same time. Canada needs to figure out a way of doing both of those things simultaneously, and that was the gist of my comments. The only way of doing that, to my mind, is through human contact in the long term and setting up some form of international organization or caucus that can let these governments know that they are not part of the same group of democracies that are the favoured.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
If we are looking at the old models of NGOs and others that could be undertaking that human contact and helping build civil society, when you have NGO laws being thrown out and the kind of brutality you see in Belarus, how do you help them?
4:15 p.m.
Prof. Jeffrey Kopstein
That's a good question.
This is a tough row to hoe. If you look at what was really successful in the long run in the Cold War, it was really the visits of academics, of normal people. When they would come over here and spend a lot of time, especially if they spent over three months here—I think that's actually the crucial period of time—they would go home and become long-term ambassadors for our system, very broadly understood in terms of liberal democracy, not of the particulars of the kind of institutional order we have but of liberal democracy, broadly understood. If you look at, say, Czechoslovakia during the Cold War, that was one of the most Stalinist countries in eastern Europe, but even at the height of the Cold War, Czechoslovakia continued to send Fulbright scholars over to Europe. Interestingly, they also sent them over to Germany.
One thing Canadian parties don't have, which German parties do, is their own foundations, like the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Many of you have probably heard of these organizations. What they have is extensive contacts on the ground, and a great deal of legitimacy, I might add, throughout the dictatorial countries of central Asia, in Africa, and even in the Middle East. That's also a model that Canada could pursue.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
I will briefly ask questions, then my colleague Mr. Wrzesnewskyj can also ask.
Thank you both very much for being here.
At the end of the day, what we're really trying to do is improve the lot of those people in low-income countries, in order for them to be able to decide their future and improve their health, welfare, and security. Practically speaking, what can we do to leaderships in countries like Zimbabwe, Angola, Nigeria, and Congo, which are patently abusing countries that have vast wealth? Practically speaking, what can we champion to be able to do that through legal mechanisms or other alternatives?
My colleague will ask a question.
Thank you.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Maybe we'll have the question first and then we'll get the two answers.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
We've talked of ongoing projects, and you absolutely need to prepare the field, especially because you can't predict when historic opportunities open up, such as whether a regime gets destabilized. Sometimes those historic opportunities are elections. We talked a little bit about Ukraine in the previous session we had this week. Unfortunately, we also only had thirty seconds to ask a question of Mr. Graham, who was a witness before us from the Canadian Foundation for the Americas.
Mr. Graham had referenced the Canada Corps project in Ukraine, the unprecedented 500 observers who travelled to Ukraine. I had asked him if it was a success, and he said yes. But he also then said he would never suggest to do something of the sort again. Having been intimately involved with that particular project, I was quite disturbed by that response, because it was a tremendous success by many measures.
I was curious what your thoughts might be on that. Perhaps it's something for the committee to consider at some point, to analyze something that virtually everyone says was a success, to see whether there are other opportunities that might open up. You can't predict these things, but there might be a model that we can use to take advantage of those sorts of opportunities.
4:20 p.m.
Prof. Jeffrey Kopstein
We have a division of our labour here. I'll deal with the first question.
You've identified the toughest nuts to crack, and these are the especially poor countries. In political science, we have very few findings to report to you. We have two. The first is that democracies don't fight each other. The second is that countries that become democracies tend to stay democracies if—and here's the big if—they have a gross domestic product per capita in excess of $6,000 in 1993 dollars.
It just so happens that many of the post-communist countries were just passing through that threshold, which to a large extent can explain why they made it or—in the case of Ukraine—are teetering on the edge of making it. It's because they're passing through this crucial threshold. In countries in Africa that are well below the $6,000 1993 dollar mark, it's very difficult to sustain democratic institutions. Why? For a whole host of reasons, mostly because there are a lot of other things, as you mentioned quite correctly, that are more important to average people.
That being said, it's very difficult to tell when elections will come around. Let me just give you one example of a country that is poor, has had elections, and is Muslim, and is about to become the chair of the Community of Democracies, and that's Mali. So it is not impossible for a small, poor country—even a small, poor, Muslim country—to become a democracy. It's just that experience tells us, from all the experience that we have of looking at all these countries, it's just much harder. What that tells us is that we should adjust our expectations accordingly, and perhaps that also tells us where we should be putting the limited resources that we have available to us.
4:25 p.m.
Emeritus Professor and Fellow, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
On the question about election observers, I don't know what Mr. Graham meant, but my observation is that interventions of that sort, under particular circumstances, are very important. Is it something that requires some kind of regular practice? That may be what he means. The answer to that is, no, there are more effective things that we can do. I can give you an illustration out of the Ukraine context.
One of the things that came up out of that observer mission in 2004 was the uncertainty about the way in which law enforcement personnel had worked. We were asked by Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs if we would train their law enforcement personnel on their responsibilities in an election: protecting civil rights, protecting the political rights of citizens. We ran a program, and through that program we reached something like 40,000 front-line law enforcement officers. We were talking earlier about how you measure success. The OSCE, in its report on the 2006 parliamentary elections, commented on the integrity with which the police conducted themselves. To me, that is a measure of an investment that can have long-term effects when you intervene in that way, and that may be what he's talking about.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Mr. Perlin.
Madame Bourgeois, did you have a very short question?
Before you do that, I just want to take a little liberty here. We want to welcome a group of individuals who are involved in the governance advisory and exchange program. Some of the men and women you saw entering our committee room just a few moments ago are from Russia. They are part of the exchange program. The goal of this governance advisory and exchange program is to assist Russian leaders and decision-makers in their efforts to contribute to the establishment of a stable, prosperous, and democratic Russia, with a well-developed market economy and efficient, responsive institutions.
We welcome you here to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Our study is on democratic development, and we're very fortunate to have you folks with us today.
I'm going to ask Madame Bourgeois for a very quick question.
4:25 p.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
I have a two-part question. First of all, gentlemen, has Canada ever retained your services and has Canada ever required your expertise concerning the Canadian approach with regards to democracy?
Secondly, Mr. Kopstein, I’d like you to clarify somewhat the backlash you mentioned concerning new countries that have dictatorial international relations.
As to my question that was addressed to Mr. Perlin, Mr. Miller spoke to us about the Canadian approach in matters of democratization. We know that Canada has been giving nearly 265 million dollars to different countries, including China, for nearly eight years now and there seems to be nothing new on the democratic front in China.
What do you think of all this, Mr. Perlin? Would your strategic planning be of any use to Canada?
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Madame Bourgeois.
Mr. Perlin or Mr. Kopstein, very quickly.
4:25 p.m.
Prof. Jeffrey Kopstein
I'll be brief.
On the backlash, in the 1990s it was assumed that democracy was the only way. Everybody talked about that. The phrase was “the end of history”, which many of you probably heard, right? There was no other way, apart from democracy.
In the last five or six years, a whole group of countries—and in that group, unfortunately, I would put Russia, Venezuela—that started down the path of democracy have re-authoritarianized. The really scary thing about all of this is that not only have they re-authoritarianized, to use an infelicitous term, but they appear to be cooperating with each other, sending each other draft legislation on how best to do away with their democrats. This is a truly disturbing trend, and it's not one Canada should ignore.
4:30 p.m.
Emeritus Professor and Fellow, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
On the question of intervention in China, I think this goes back to an earlier question that was asked about what you do in intervening in situations where there is not already some will. I think the answer we got about this was that you build it up gradually. You have to build some popular will for it. Elites will only respond if there is some popular will. So you can make interventions, as you were suggesting, through NGO support, through other kinds of activities that you may undertake, but you have to recognize that there are limits to what you can accomplish there.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much, Dr. Perlin.
I thank you both for coming in and giving us your presentations. Certainly we look forward to getting the blues and to studying some of your answers a little more closely. We appreciate your time.
We're going to suspend for two minutes, and we're going to ask our next guest to take the chair. We'll be back.