In response to the good question of Mr. Dewar—and I mean a good question—I just wanted to read into the record DFAIT's policy found on its website, which may be an answer:
Canada has been a consistently strong voice for the protection of human rights and the advancement of democratic values, from our central role in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1947/1948 to our work at the United Nations today. Canada is a party to seven major international human rights conventions, as well as many others, and encourages all countries which have not made these commitments to do so. Canadians recognise that their interests are best served by a stable, rules-based international system. Countries which respect the rule of law tend to respect the rights of their citizens, are more likely to benefit from development, and are much less likely to experience crises requiring peacekeeping, emergency assistance or refugee resettlement missions.
This fundamentally works to the issue of building capacity of the nations of the world to respond in a civilized way between governments and citizens.