Your question is that if we're actually involved in democracy promotion, the project of democracy is perceived as being something foreign, as being something imposed, as a kind of imperial project. That's how I interpret your question.
The best way to proceed is, first of all, at the level of human contact, NGOs. If governments are involved in those, that's not perceived as being something foreign, right?
The Fulbright scholars program in the United States actually had a very good reputation abroad, even at the height of the Cold War. There were still Fulbright scholars coming over from the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. It was an indirect form of democracy promotion.
As far as direct forms are concerned, your question is a very important one. The government should probably not get involved directly in promoting democracy. It should probably get involved through the creation of something like a Canadian endowment for democracy, an arm's-length organization that would be.... You know the details of this kind of thing better than I, but it would be, in effect, a crown corporation that would be separate from the ministries per se.