Welcome. It being 3:30, we will call this meeting to order.
This is the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, meeting 19. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are continuing our study on democratic development.
We're very pleased to have two guests with us today. We have George Perlin, an emeritus professor and fellow in the school of policy studies at Queen's University. His teaching and research are focused on issues of democratic development. He is also a fellow at the Institute for Research on Public Policy, where he is directing a project to assess international assistance policies for the promotion of democratic development. Among his many accomplishments and activities, he directs a project funded by CIDA to provide Ukraine with a comprehensive program of professional and post-secondary education concerning democracy and human rights.
In the first hour we're also pleased to have Dr. Jeffrey Kopstein, director of the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the Munk Centre for International Studies. He is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He has argued that there are differences between European and American approaches to democracy promotion, but that Canada can pursue a distinctive approach that is complementary to both and would strengthen the transatlantic relationship. In his view, democracy promotion should be a leading element of Canada's foreign policy, and Canada should seek to renew interest in the community of democracies created in Warsaw in 2000.
We look forward to hearing from both of you. The way the committee operates is that we give each one of our presenters ten minutes and then there will be questions from our colleagues following that.
I'll turn it over to Mr. Perlin. Welcome.