Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 5th, 2019

[Christopher MacLennan]

I wouldn't disagree with it. I think I might add to it.

In “The End of History?”, Francis Fukuyama's very interesting way of describing that period, one thing was kind of right about the notions of the end of history: that there was no alternative to at least having the appearance of being a democracy.

Two things happened, I think, post the fall of the Soviet Union. One was that we underestimated the importance of nationalism, and the fact that nationalism was a core element of the way democracies see themselves and popular sovereignty. We didn't see that important strident element to democracy; hence, Yugoslavia and what happened in the early 1990s.

The other aspect was that I don't think we were really prepared for countries that were going to have the veneer of a democracy, and then subvert some core elements of democracy and democratic understanding in ways that we didn't expect. Yes, they still had elections, and yes, they still had parliaments, but they were not following the rule of law and they were closing democratic spaces.

Now in the social media age—and this is one of the key things we're dealing with now—it's kind of gone into hyperdrive, that ability to subvert on a daily basis the democratic spaces that are so critical to holding parliamentarians to account.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

You stated something else that I'd like to address: that the funding for democracy building is, in actual fact, modest. Considering those modest means we have to work with, the uniqueness of Canada—the word “unique” is overused and used incorrectly.... Canada is unique. We're a multicultural nation. We're not a melting pot. There are some other countries that are also built on immigration.

In Canada, especially considering our population, we see Canadians, more so than most people, doing incredible work right around the globe.

I'd like to return to 2004 because we did something that no other country had done. At that time, we directly engaged 500 Canadians who were vetted to make sure that they would be neutral in the electoral processes in Ukraine. We were able to reach into places and to find things that normal observer missions.... It wasn't just because of the number, but we didn't require translators. With modest resources, we leveraged such a great amount of work and cultural understanding. They knew what to look for, how to read people, and often in many of these countries translators and drivers actually work for the forces that may not be friends of democracy.

I mentioned this because.... After that major observer mission, did we have an assessment on whether we considered it a success or a failure? Would you be able to undertake to table that assessment for the committee?

[Christopher MacLennan]

I'm not familiar with whether there was an assessment post-2004, but we will definitely look to see if one was done. If there was, we'll present it.

If I could just mention that I do agree with you. Yes, there is a Canadian model. We're all a part of that model and a product of that model. I can tell you, when we're interacting with our developing country partners there is a great thirst for many aspects of the Canadian model. Federalism is one of them. Federalism should not be understated in terms of that importance in certain aspects of managing national conflict, religious minority conflict, and sometimes just grand variations from one region to another.

There are many places where they're looking for a Canadian voice, for a number of reasons. We're not an imperialist country; we've never had an empire. Many of those things sound a bit clichéd, but the truth is that we hear it on a regular basis from our partners.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

You're out of time.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I'd like to request one quick undertaking. What year was Canada Corps eliminated and what were the reasons for that?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. He will have another turn.

[The Chair]

That's fine.

MP Ziad Aboultaif, go ahead, please.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Good morning and thank you for being here today.

We know that you can't teach democracy. It's more of a practice. It takes so many sacrifices and years of development to get a society to adopt it. We also know that only about four and a half per cent of the world population lives in full democracies and the other 95% is really struggling to get there. We seem to be experiencing a comeback of old regimes in some of the empires that have been very significant at imposing their way through.

Besides that, we have the plans and the money and the know-how to go and promote our democracies. In major parts of the world, in every corner almost, we are having a comeback. I'm not going to call it an enemy, but we have another opinion coming forward more aggressively than ever. We have the money and the power, and we have two battles to fight, not just one.

That brings me back to the SDGs, the United Nations SDGs. For goal number 16, Canada coincides with about four or five elements—numbers 16.3, 16.5, 16.7 and 16.8. The question is, within those measures and within those areas that we're trying to improve and with millions of dollars that we're taking away from our own society to try to promote democracies and to help other communities out there or other countries, how is your department able to measure the effectiveness of what we do? In reality, we have to come back to Canadians and tell Canadians that we are spending this kind of money and we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars. So far, we really don't have any answers or enough answers to say how effective this is, or how much of a breakthrough we've made in Indonesia or Kenya or the DRC or the Americas region or anywhere.

On the measures, it's very important for us to know in this committee how your department is able to show or to tell us how much progress we are making.

[Christopher MacLennan]

For every single project, there is a set of indicators and a set of results identified specific to that project. Right now we have a project in which we're supporting the electoral processes in Indonesia because they have an election that's upcoming. The goal is to help Indonesia not only to manage its election effectively but also to avoid violence and to increase participation.

That project will have core indicators attached to it, which will be aligned with the department's departmental results framework. That is then reported publicly to Parliament in terms of what is accomplished. Obviously, there will be a roll-up of what you will see in the departmental results framework, which will include that project plus all of the other projects associated with our democracy assistance.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

From the records, it is good that we have mechanisms to monitor and we have some benchmarks at least to be able to measure where we're going from here.

When has a department—because, as you know, governments come and go but departments remain there—ever said, “We're failing here. This is not good. This is not based on expectations, so let's see if we can eliminate, recommend eliminating or changing or at least take a different direction in tracking how we're going to do this and how we are we going to move forward.”

Does the department stop and say, “This is the time to say forget about this, and let's try something else”?

[Christopher MacLennan]

I think you see that when you look at exactly where governments will decide to place the emphasis and where they spend their development assistance dollars. One of the key things that the present government identified was huge gaps in sexual reproductive health and rights and how these were actually core to advancing women in developing countries and allowing them to participate not only economically but also politically, and to promote democracy.

The government identified that as a clear gap and a place where increased funding was required. That's an example of saying we need to focus more here than we have been in the past here.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

The focus that this government adopted, is it based on recommendations from the department or from within what the government's thinking that this is the way we're going to be more effective?

Can you advise us on that?

[Christopher MacLennan]

It's the way it always works. The public service provides its best advice to a government. Then the government takes that advice along with its platform and its choices. Together those two streams produce a decision of the government.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Just as a final note, you put your recommendations through and you wait for the politicians to make a decision. Is that correct?

[Christopher MacLennan]

We provide advice to the political level.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

And it's up to the politicians to make those decisions.

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to MP Graham, please.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

We've heard some concerns from the other side about what we'll call bang for our buck on these investments.

Do we have any way of assessing what our adversaries are spending on undermining democracy?

[Christopher MacLennan]

That's a very good question.

The short answer, I think, is no. It's very difficult. It's definitely one of those spaces that is evolving every single year as technology changes and as the stakes change.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Can we see trends that they're investing more than they would have 20 years ago?

[Christopher MacLennan]

I don't know. I would presume so, but I don't know.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

There's no way of quantifying that.

When we are talking about our investments, there's no way of comparing what we're spending against. There's no comparing that.

[Christopher MacLennan]

That's correct.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

What are the risks for us of becoming insular and not spending on this outreach?

[Christopher MacLennan]

I think the risks to Canada obviously are that we are fully conscious of the fact that there are these actors out there that are actively looking to undermine democratic processes, including in our own country. We've watched the news over the last few weeks and the fact that this is a concern for Canadians and it's a concern for others.

The rapid response mechanism from the G7 is probably the very best example of all G7 countries taking this issue very seriously and looking to counter it to the best extent possible.