Evidence of meeting #126 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Inclusive Economies, International Development Research Centre
Ah....
Public Policy Chair, Massey College, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Should we get to that 0.7%? Say “yes”.
Director, Inclusive Economies, International Development Research Centre
Madame Laverdière, I did not think the question was directed at me; hence, my slight surprise.
Of course, as a Crown corporation, we do not express views on Canada's government policy, including the 0.7% commitment. The work of the IDRC is, of course, as the guardian of the commitments that the Canadian taxpayers have made in the best possible way.
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Okay, but let's assume that if you had more money, you could do more.
It's presumably a fair statement.
February 7th, 2019 / 9:25 a.m.
Director, Inclusive Economies, International Development Research Centre
We manage the budget appropriations from the Canadian Parliament, and it is our pride to do that in the best possible way.
When I listen to Mr. Axworthy, I see many reasons to do more. With regard to the ideas put by Mr. Axworthy, I see complementarity with the IDRC, because we would be working, and we have the network to work, with local partners to promote those, which I think you called the “low politics”.
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
I didn't want to put you in the hot seat, but I understand from Professor Axworthy's comments that he agrees that this schedule to get to the 0.7% would be a good idea.
Public Policy Chair, Massey College, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Yes.
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
I'll come back to another issue. I don't do this very often, but I'll tell a personal story.
I remember being in Dakar, Senegal, when there was a democratic election that saw the transition from Abdou Diouf to Mr. Wade. The next morning, people would call me and say, “Oh, Hélène, thank you to Canada for the democratic transition.” I started asking them, these very high-level people, “Why are you thanking us?” It was because we had a journalist training school in Dakar and people felt that it was the work done on the ground by all those journalists who had been trained by Canada that had really made a difference.
In Dakar, at least, that program closed, unfortunately. If we look at the tool kit, because that was one part of the tool kit, what do you see as the main gaps currently in democratic promotion in general?
Director, Inclusive Economies, International Development Research Centre
Sorry. We weren't sure whether the question was directed to both of us.
Public Policy Chair, Massey College, University of Toronto, As an Individual
There are so many aspects that one can work on in democracy, and different societies need different emphases. There's not a one size fits all. I will say that among the many areas where the least useful work has been done is party management and party organizations.
Parties are the essence of democracy everywhere. They're sometimes unpopular with the broader public, but to have well-functioning democracies, you need fairly run parties. We have a strong tradition in human rights. We have a very strong tradition in local government. We have a strong tradition, through IDRC, in the broader theories of how to work on development. When I look at the broad range of things that need work, I see that the least work has been done on party systems.
I'll bootleg part of a response to the earlier question, which is that, as Canadians, we should be enormously proud of our general activities around democracy. We were one of the first to have an independent boundary commission so that there would be no gerrymandering. We have Elections Canada, an absolutely excellent organization. In almost all indices of how a democracy should be operated by institutions, Canada is very near at the top, because we run fair systems. We've done it for a long time.
One area that we are good at, but very few work on, is the management of parties, in particular how one encourages gender equity in parties.
Liberal
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you, gentlemen.
I'd like to put my first question to Mr. de Haan and zero in on some of the nuts and bolts of how we do things.
The Sentinel Project is tremendously encouraging. It addresses what I assume in most cases are these organic inter-ethnic rumours that lead to, as you said, suspicions, which then lead to potential conflict and violence. The success of this type of project is encouraging.
What happens when a government methodically, meticulously begins the process of inter-ethnic conflict, as opposed to that happening organically?
I'd like to turn to the work we were trying to do in Myanmar. We had huge hopes. It was almost euphoria. We were granting citizenship to individuals, and a few years down the line we had a genocide. Clearly, we got it wrong. We hadn't identified the processes that were already being put in place.
Do you have any idea about a different style of project? And I'd like to turn to a different part of the world. We've had a parliamentary internship project for some 25 years with young Ukrainian students or postgraduates. It's not a government project; it's actually a diaspora project. There are I think over 1,000 of these individuals who are now at all levels of government: municipally, oblast-level, provincially, federally. We've had ministers, mayors, and the experience they had here was invaluable.
Do you not think that perhaps your body, or another body, should be set up that focuses in on these emerging democracies, countries in transition, to do...?
It doesn't happen overnight. We thought it would start in Myanmar. It's a long process. To disrupt democracy is very easy. Putin is finding it incredibly easy.
Should we not be looking at those types of projects? Then, when it comes to the parties, should we not have parliamentary internships for these countries, where parliamentarians would come and spend time in our offices, just as these young leaders did who then turned out to be national leaders in their countries?
I thought I'd put that question to you.
Director, Inclusive Economies, International Development Research Centre
Of course, the genocide in Myanmar makes one shiver and wonder if we got it right. Thank you very much for that question.
For both the IDRC, both in The Sentinel Project working in Myanmar and the examples of training journalists that could be there, as Madam Laverdière was talking about, are all options that we want to support and we do support. The Sentinel Project is an example, as I mentioned. We work with a Canadian organization that is committed to digitalizing the technology, and IDRC then focuses on working with local partners who can address those issues, because, of course, you're not going to do that from Canada. So we work with local organizations to carry forward those democratic principles that we have here in Canada and see how we can support local activists to carry forward the same.
The program in Myanmar was started before the genocide at the time that we.... It was in 2007 when there was the hope of growing democracy. Of course, there was an enormous backslide, and we are constantly thinking about how we can best respond to that in that context. The response to that is, and we often.... I think that the Honourable Bob Rae, when he spoke to a meeting on this at IDRC on Myanmar, compared the work that Canada did in the transition from apartheid where, after the transition from apartheid, we found that half of the members of Nelson Mandela's first parliament were people who had been involved in Canadian projects.
These were all projects that didn't say this is what kind of democracy you set. These were all projects that created the building blocks of democracy, the processes for supporting it.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you.
Just because of the limitation on time, I'll interrupt.
Director, Inclusive Economies, International Development Research Centre
I'm sorry for that.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Do you think these types of projects, including parliamentary internship projects, would be worthwhile? Just give a quick yes or no.
Director, Inclusive Economies, International Development Research Centre
Yes.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
From the nuts and bolts to the big picture, you talked about it being a slide straight down over the past 14 or 15 years in terms of democracy globally. Two days ago, we had the president of IRI, Dr. Twining, before the committee. Afterwards a group of us had an opportunity to chat with him. A question was posed to him: If there were one country that we had to work in, if you had to make one choice—I know it's a tough one—where would you choose? He said it was a tough choice, but if he had one country to choose, it would be Ukraine. Then he made the case for that.
Obviously, I—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
MP Wrzesnewskyj, your time is up. I think you're posing a question to Professor Axworthy.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
Professor Axworthy, would you like to answer that question of which country, and then we'll move on?
Public Policy Chair, Massey College, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I've worked in Ukraine, so I would agree.