It would be vain of those of us in the west to say we were a cause. It would not be vain to say we were a facilitator or that we helped. Many people I worked with in the nineties had their lives on the line in Guatemala, in El Salvador, in Indonesia. They were the risk-takers. I never was. I travelled on a diplomatic passport.
When we went in to help, it was because they were asking for help. They were trying, within their own societies, to develop what we call a rights-based society, a civil society. So it was not us who created this flourishing. We in democratic countries certainly helped. But the principal initiative, as it has always been historically, was that people in those countries did the pushing and the risk-taking in the demand, if you like, for freedom. We just helped a bit in making it possible.
I heard your earlier question about an arm's-length institution. If I may say so, because I'm not there now—another day maybe—we have in this country an arm's-length institution called Rights and Democracy, which was created as a recommendation of an all-party committee, through unanimous agreement; there were only three parties in the House at that time. It has a wonderful mandate. It's not a Canadian mandate; it's the whole UN family of rights mandate to build toward democracy.
I'm not there—it's not self-serving now—but I would personally have loved to see that institution significantly expanded. It could do some of the things it hasn't had the resources to do, like election monitoring and party-building, in addition to doing the fundamental civil society.
So to your point that I listened to earlier about arm's-length institutions, they are important. We have a unique one here in Canada in Rights and Democracy, and it gets most of its funding from Parliament, without political interference from any of the parties. I think it does a good job abroad.