Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 19th, 2019

[The Chair, Mr. Michael Levitt (York Centre, Lib.)]

Good morning, everyone. I call to order the 127th meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

This morning we will be continuing our study on Canada's support for international democratic development. We will be hearing from four individuals this morning. Our first two speakers are on the line.

First, from London, England, from the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, we have Anthony Smith, the chief executive officer.

Good morning, sir, or good afternoon.

[Anthony Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Westminster Foundation for Democracy]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair]

From Washington, D.C., from the National Endowment for Democracy, we have Carl Gershman, the president.

Gentlemen, I would ask you to deliver your introductions, each taking maybe slightly less than 10 minutes. I know that everybody will have lots of questions for you. We'll finish off the hour with those.

Mr. Smith, perhaps I could have you begin.

[Anthony Smith]

Thank you very much, Chair. I'll try to be quicker than that.

I'm very grateful for your invitation to give evidence to this inquiry. Having read the remarks of some of your previous witnesses, I won't repeat some of the general points they made about the recent trends in democratic governance and what they said about the importance of supporting democracy around the world. I fully endorse what they said and I also strongly endorse the points they made about the importance of Canadian support for democratic governance.

I think the most useful contribution I can make to your committee is probably to describe the origins and governance of my organization, its current work and some of the factors that have affected our approach in recent years.

The Westminster Foundation for Democracy was established in 1992 at the initiative of a cross-party group of parliamentarians who wanted to support their counterparts in eastern Europe and in other regions that were enjoying new freedoms following the end of the Cold War. Since our Parliament did not have the means to fund such work, they approached the British government which, having looked at the practices in the U.S. and Germany in particular, decided to establish our foundation. Since then, our governance structure and mission have remained broadly the same.

We are an arm's-length body of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, so the board and the CEO are appointed by the foreign secretary. The board is non-executive and has six political members. At present, they are all members of Parliament—they don't have to be. It has four non-political members as well.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office approves our strategy, but we have operational independence in our work. Although we are not a parliamentary body, the Speaker of the House of Commons is our patron, and we work very closely with all the U.K.'s Parliaments, including the devolved Parliament and assemblies. The U.K. political parties are obviously critically important to us. Our mission remains the same now as it was in 1992: to support improvements in democratic governance in developing and transition countries.

Today we have offices in 30 countries and we work with four main stakeholders: Parliament, political parties, electoral bodies and civil society. Our focus is the quality of the political system in our partner countries, so our main areas of thematic focus are women's political participation, inclusion of marginalized groups, accountability and transparency.

Our dominant methodology is peer-to-peer support, sharing experiences among counterparts. The details of each program are different and tailored to the requirements of our individual partners. I can provide examples later on. There are also many in our annual report and on our website. We also have a small research program and a research partnership with the University of Birmingham in England.

On our funding, we receive an annual grant from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This has been steady at £3.5 million in recent years. We also receive grants from the U.K. government, and from a range of other donors for programs in specific countries or regions for which we usually compete with other organizations. Our overall revenue this year will be about £17 million.

Let me just mention three factors that have affected our recent approach to the work in this area. The first factor is interests versus values. We are very much a values-driven organization, but we can no long rely on values alone to persuade donors to invest in democracy support. We also point out that democracy is a critical contributor to all the U.K.'s international priorities from security through to prosperity, from poverty reduction through to carbon reduction. My guess is that it's the same for Canada and all our other allies in their international priorities.

We also want to be clearer than in the past about the specific elements of democratic practice that count, be it financial oversight, policy-driven political parties or gender-sensitive parliaments. It's no good anymore just to say that we support the general idea of democracy. We have to be much more specific than that.

The second factor that affects our work is that change takes time. We believe that progress comes through patient investment in a combination of institutions and leadership. Institutions need skills and a political culture that's adaptive, tolerant and resilient in the face of the inevitable challenges that every country will face, but every country also needs leadership to respond to those challenges and to take up opportunities when they arise.

In some ways, time in this work is more valuable than money. Democracy needs modest resources but abundant patience. I would add that for us as an organization, the position that we're in today, which is feeling pretty strong at home, has taken 25 years of work to get to. So we've needed patience domestically as well.

These two factors feed into the final one that I want to mention, namely, how to work as effectively as possible to support democracy. My feeling in the U.K., and my observation in other countries, is that effectiveness has to start with a clear policy. Each country, be it the U.K., the U.S., Canada or whichever it might be, needs a well-developed democracy support policy that will secure broad political consensus. We haven't all had that all of the time, but I think it is a very important element.

With a strong policy, we can establish a coherent approach across government and help to maintain support over a long period. Without a strong policy, there is a risk of incoherence and a short-term approach.

Mr. Chair, I'm happy to elaborate on any of those points, but those are the main things that I wanted to say to start off the discussion.

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

We are now going to Carl Gershman.

Sir, please begin your remarks.

[Carl Gershman, President, National Endowment for Democracy]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the committee for inviting me to testify this morning.

I applaud the fact that you're initiating a study of Canada's role in democratic development around the world. I've long believed that Canada has a critically important role to play in this field, never more so than at the present time.

NED was founded 35 years ago, at a hopeful moment, when what was subsequently called the third wave of democratization was just beginning to gather momentum. As, of course, we well know, the current period is very, very different. The year 2018 marked the 13th consecutive year, according to Freedom House, in which democracy has declined around the world. This period has seen the rising power and assertiveness of authoritarian states like China, Russia and Iran; the backsliding of once democratic countries like Turkey, Venezuela, the Philippines, Thailand and Hungary; and the rise of populist and nationalist movements and parties in the established democracies. Autocratic regimes have tried to repress independent groups working to promote greater freedom and to cut them off from international assistance, from institutions like the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, NED's party institutes. They've also passed harsh laws that make it illegal for NGOs to receive foreign assistance.

The work nonetheless goes on and has even been expanding, which is a testament to the determination and the courage of indigenous groups that want to continue to work and receive needed assistance despite the risks. We should not forget that despite all the backsliding, there have also been important gains over the past year in Ethiopia, Armenia and Malaysia. NED provided support to democrats in all of these countries before the political openings, which positioned us to quickly scale up our support once the openings occurred. This is an example of our commitment and ability to navigate around the obstacles created by authoritarian regimes and to continue to provide assistance, while taking care to protect the safety of our grantees.

NED is an unusual institution. It was built to take on tough challenges. Following President Reagan's historic Westminster address in 1982, which called for a new effort to support democracy throughout the world, NED was created as a non-governmental organization governed by a private and independent board of directors. NED receives its core funding in the form of an annual congressional appropriation that was authorized in the National Endowment for Democracy Act passed in 1983. The NED Act also built a firewall between the endowment and the executive branch of our government.

NED is a private, bipartisan, grant-making institution that steers clear of immediate policy disputes and takes a long-term approach to democratic development. In addition to supporting grassroots democratic initiatives, it also serves as a hub of activity, resources and intellectual exchange for democracy activists, practitioners and analysts around the world.

NED takes a multisectoral approach to democratic assistance, funding programs by its four core institutes, which represent our two major political parties, the business community and the labour movement. I'm aware that you heard from the presidents of our two party institutes, NDI and IRI, just two weeks ago. Each of the NED's four core institutes is able to access its sector's expertise and experience from all over the world. In addition, its targeted demand-driven small grants program responds directly to the needs of local NGOs, defends human rights, strengthens independent media and civic education, and empowers women and youth in a manner that enables them to establish credibility as independent democratizing forces in their own societies.

As an autonomous institution dedicated to supporting democracy, NED can steadily strengthen indigenous civil society organizations, learn through trial and error, and build important networks of trust and collaboration that can be effective over the long term.

As a nimble private organization with no field offices abroad, NED has developed a reputation for acting swiftly, flexibly and effectively in providing vital assistance to activists working in the most challenging environments. It also devotes enormous efforts to monitoring the work of our grantees and to fulfilling our fiduciary responsibilities in the careful management of taxpayer funds.

NED further leverages its grants program through networking and recognition activities that provide political support and solidarity to front-line activists. These activities include the World Movement for Democracy, which networks democracy activists globally; the Center for International Media Assistance; the Reagan-Fascell democracy fellows program; and our own democracy award events on Capitol Hill.

NED also promotes scholarly research through the International Forum for Democratic Studies and the Journal of Democracy, giving activists access to the latest insights on aiding democratic transitions and strengthening liberal values, and also helping to inform thinking internationally on critical new challenges facing democracy.

In 2015, the Congress provided NED with additional funds to develop a strategic plan to respond to resurgent authoritarianism. As part of this plan, NED now funds programs that address six strategic priorities: helping civil society respond to repression; defending the integrity of the information space; countering extremism and promoting pluralism and tolerance; reversing the failure of governance in many transitional countries; countering the kleptocracy that is a pillar of modern authoritarianism; and strengthening co-operation among democracies in meeting the threat to democracy.

By pursuing common strategic objectives, the entire net effort has become stronger and more integrated, with greater co-operation taking place across the different regions and among the five institutions—NED and its four core institutes—that comprise what we call the NED family.

As Canada thinks about how to establish an effective, and cost-effective, way to advance democracy in the world, I suggest that you consider the distinction that is drawn in a new European report between what it calls top-down and bottom-up approaches to democracy assistance. In essence, the top-down approach supports the incremental reform of, for example, the judiciary or other institutions, often in a technocratic way and in partnership with governments that may be only superficially committed to democratic reform. The alternative bottom-up approach responds to and seeks to empower local actors in addressing immediate challenges that they face and developing their capacity to promote reform and institutional accountability over the long term. The report recommends a substantial strengthening of the bottom-up instruments, such as the European Endowment for Democracy, an organization modelled on NED, which the report says has been effective in dealing with the current difficult challenges.

I want to conclude by stating my strong and long-held belief that Canada has the ability to make an important contribution to strengthening democracy internationally, especially at this very uncertain moment when liberal democracy is under attack around the world. You have hundreds of dedicated democracy practitioners, many of them veterans of NDI and IRI programs, who have the experience to lead a new Canadian effort.

The U.S. is still engaged in this work, and there is strong bipartisan support in the Congress for what NED does and for human rights and democracy more generally. However, the American voice is now more muted than in the past, and the time has come for Canada to step up and provide a new source of democratic energy and drive.

There are many practical ways that you can help, but the decision to create a new instrument to provide such help will itself be an important act of democratic solidarity, one that will give hope to many brave activists and make our world a safer and more peaceful place.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much to both of you.

We'll move right into questions. We're going to begin with MP Alleslev, please.

[Leona Alleslev, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC]

Thank you very much to both of you for being here and helping out with this important conversation.

My first question is for both of you.

It's quite concerning that we've seen 13 consecutive years of the erosion of democracy. I'd like to know, one, has that erosion over the past 13 years been equal, or have we seen it accelerating in recent history? Two, with all the work that the U.K. and all of us—the international bodies and even Canada without a specific institution—have been doing, why are we still seeing a significant erosion? To what would you attribute that erosion? What problem are we trying to solve?

Anthony.

[Anthony Smith]

My response to the first question is that I don't believe there is a continuing acceleration of decline. I think the decline coincided with a period of a range of crises in the world, including an economic crisis. The causes of it range from the political conflicts that resulted from those crises along with the phenomenon we've seen of countries adopting the form of democracy but in a hollow way, without the reality of a democratic culture underpinning that form. Many people who had an autocratic approach to government learned how best to maintain power without resorting to the more extreme forms of autocracy we've seen in the past.

As to why the erosion has taken place, I think that's partly covered by the answer I just gave. We mustn't forget that there has been a hugely welcome amount of progress in the world in terms of democracy over the last 50 years. If you look back even further, you should be even more encouraged. The erosion is something that has happened because politics is difficult in places. The ability of people to exploit weaknesses in democratic institutions has increased. People learn lessons and share those lessons about how to do that.

I think we all have to keep doing our work. As I said in my opening statement, this is slow, patient work in many places. The experience that the three countries represented in this meeting have of building our democracies over generations is something that many other countries don't have yet. They are still working on that. It does take time.

[Leona Alleslev]

Mr. Gershman.

[Carl Gershman]

I don't know that there has been an acceleration, but the trend is steady and very worrisome. I think we should start by at least recalling....

I referred earlier in my testimony to the third wave of democratization. That was the period that began with the fall of the Portuguese military in 1974 and then grew and expanded. It really covered the whole world except for the Arab Middle East, which then had the revolutions of 2011. This really came to a head at the end of the 1990s. The number of democracies in the world reached a peak in 2005 of about 125. We've seen this reversal since then.

I should point out that in the theory put forward by Samuel Huntington about the third wave, he said that the third wave assumes the possibility of a reverse wave, just as the first two waves of democratization had reverse waves with the rise of communism and fascism in the 1930s. Then there was the backsliding in the newly decolonized countries in the 1960s and 1970s, with the rise of military dictatorships in Latin America.

I might note that in 1976, Daniel Patrick Moynihan said that democracy is “where the world was, not where the world is going”. It was a very pessimistic moment. He had been ambassador in India, and India had an emergency at that time, yet that was at the very point where the third wave of democratization was beginning. We shouldn't get too upset by these reversals. They are sort of built into the process of development. In terms of reversal, obviously there are things like the economic crisis of 2008, globalization and the fact that many people have been left out of globalization, and the so-called dictator's learning curve, where dictators learn how to use forms of democratization while increasing repression, making it more difficult to attack them. All of these things are factors.

I did point out in my testimony that we should not forget that gains have been made. What's happening now in Ethiopia, Armenia, Malaysia and even Tunisia, the first Arab democracy, is very, very important. We need to be able to encourage those trends. The political scientists, in talking about the current period, do not use the term “reverse wave”. They do not feel we're in a reverse wave. It has been called a recession. It may get worse, and this is what we have to fight against, but I would not exaggerate the backlash and the backsliding.

[Leona Alleslev]

That leads to my next question.

Both of you have institutions that have been in place for quite some time. If you had to do it over again, and you were starting to create an institution at this moment, what key things would you do differently or focus on to set it up for success, recognizing this moment in time and where we're going next?

[The Chair]

Gentlemen, we have about 30 seconds left, so you might want to address that as part of an answer to a subsequent question. If you want to take a very brief amount of time each, I'm happy to let you do so.

[Anthony Smith]

I'll build that into a—

[The Chair]

You'll build it into a future one. Okay.

We're going to move to MP Vandenbeld, please.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, both of you, for coming here and showing models of what this could look like.

I'd like to direct my first question to Mr. Gershman.

It's good to see you again. In your opening remarks, you mentioned that Canada has a critical role to play. I wonder if you could elaborate on that. In what particular niche area do you think Canada could play a role? Particularly in terms of the previous question, how do you think we could learn from the institutions that exist around the world? What should we be doing in terms of our own democracy promotion?

[Carl Gershman]

Canada is a parliamentary democracy, and I do think it has an important role to play in strengthening parliaments around the world. It also is a country that has played a lead role in a number of critical countries, like Iran, Ukraine and many others. I think Canada is primed to be able to help in those countries. These are very difficult countries, and I think Canada can develop the capacity to work in a low-profile way in these very difficult countries, especially the more authoritarian countries like Russia, Iran or even China. I think it's possible.

We have, frankly, a very significant program in North Korea. The programs are actually supporting groups in South Korea working in North Korea, but really, it's possible to find openings in many places around the world to work and to support democracy activists who are all over the world.

I think Canada, working closely and with its experience and the networks it already has, has the capacity to connect with all of these networks and to work quietly in these very difficult places.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

My second question is for both of you.

Both of you mentioned the importance of a long-term presence on the ground.

I think, Mr. Gershman, you said that in certain places you were able to scale up when there was a window because of the presence and the networks that were there.

I'd like to talk about not just the physical presence of having an office in a country but also the movements and the networks. I'm thinking of the World Movement for Democracy and other networks. How important is it?

Mr. Smith, you mentioned that time is more important than money, which is a very significant statement, I think.

Perhaps we could start with Mr. Gershman and then Mr. Smith about the importance of having a constant presence.

[Carl Gershman]

Regarding the question of offices, first of all, let me underline that the NED is a unique institution with its four institutes. We are not a programmatic agency. We're a grant-making agency with an oversight responsibility. We don't have offices anywhere in the world. We sometimes say that if they don't like us, they can't kick us out because we're not there, but we find ways of supporting indigenous groups on the ground in all of these countries. That includes Russia, where we were declared undesirable in 2015, yet the program has expanded since then quite remarkably. We're able to work in this way.

The World Movement for Democracy is something that was established—it's now celebrating its 20th anniversary—and represents a network of activists all over the world. Thank you, Anita, for being a member of the steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy. As I think you know, it's going to be holding its 20th anniversary celebration in Malaysia in July. We just had Anwar Ibrahim deliver the Lipset lecture in Canada—in Toronto last week—and in Washington, so there's a lot of co-operation at that level.

These networks are able to connect people with each other to learn from each other and support each other. They become real learning and solidarity networks. I think they've been extremely valuable. When you supplement this with the research, the fellowships and other things, there are various ways you can support people in addition to providing grants to local NGOs and also the kind of programs that our institutes carry out, which are on-the-ground training programs in many countries.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Smith.

[Anthony Smith]

Very quickly, the key issue for us about long-term presence is that what we're trying to support is a democratic culture. Helping to share rules and procedures and technical skills is one thing. What really counts is the leadership and the understanding at every level when political challenges arise. It is important for everyone within an institution to demonstrate tolerance, understanding and a commitment to democracy. Those things really are not learned overnight, as we know from our own countries. They take a long time. That's what it's about.

The presence for us is sometimes physical. We have 30 offices in different countries, but actually we have relationships with many more countries. That comes both through our own technical staff but also through the U.K. political parties, which are part of our foundation and have relationships that they've built up over a period that is coming up to generations now.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

Both your institutions mentioned autonomous, arm's-length from government. I think, Mr. Gershman, you mentioned a firewall.

If an entity is created, how important is it that it be arm's-length from the daily back and forth of government? How do you go about doing that?

[Carl Gershman]

I think it's critically important.

There are different levels of independence. I should note that in his testimony, Mr. Smith noted that the board is appointed by the foreign secretary, and they approve the strategy and the budget. That's not the way it works. NED has a greater degree of independence. I think Canada is going to have to determine the level of independence this can have.

I think the firewall has been critically important in giving us the flexibility and independence to move quickly and to get into very tough situations, sometimes before our government is ready to do that, sometimes when our government may have diplomatic initiatives under way. Somebody may say that if this were connected by an institution without an arm's-length relationship, it may be very difficult.

We were able to be active in Egypt during the Mubarak period. We're active there today, and also in Russia. We're active in China. This gives us the freedom to work, despite the diplomatic engagement that our government may have. That's how Congress wanted it.

This process has worked. In other words, it has not created complications for our government. It strengthened it, as I pointed out. In countries such as Ethiopia, Armenia and Malaysia, when an autocratic government falls, the fact that we have been there and have been involved there has given us the capacity to move very quickly to begin to strengthen the groups that are involved in the transition process. I think that's absolutely critical. I call attention to these three countries because we have to work together to help democracy succeed in these countries. If it does succeed, it's possibly going to give new momentum to democracy in other countries around the world.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

MP Duncan, please.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, both of you, for your work. What your countries are delivering is very profound.

Following up on what my colleague just mentioned, Mr. Gershman, I noted that you said your endowment is established by statute, and that creates a firewall by law. I'm wondering, Mr. Smith, if you could speak to that.

I'm interested in the issue of political interference or accountability. It would be a two-way street. Some people may object, saying that if all of these initiatives are being delivered by somebody at arm's length, then the government doesn't have to say it's accountable for how those monies are being spent. On the other hand, if you do have a firewall, then it does give you the independence from the government of the day.

I'm wondering if both of you could speak to that.