Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 28th, 2019

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I have to say that personally I find you the most important witnesses we've had here, and I wish we could have you all day.

Some committees have expanded into six hours as of last night, but I don't think this one will, unfortunately.

Whatever entity might be set up, I think it would be very valuable to continue dialogue with both of you and your organizations.

There are many questions. The first is—and we talked at the beginning about this—whether the answer to Canada's providing more assistance in building effective democracy and human rights and justice and anti-corruption is to create yet another organization or whether we should be flowing the money through the number of entities we have already in Canada. That's the first challenge we have to face.

If the decision were that we recommend yet another organization, where did we go wrong with the last organization we had?

The third question is: If we create an organization, should it be an organization that directly helps to deliver this knowledge and support, or would it become a funding entity like Mr. Lamarre's organization? We've heard from both.

I welcome your advice on this. Frankly, I think it would be good to follow up, if you're willing to send to us your best advice, because obviously Mr. Lamarre's organization simply funds.

Mr. Lamarre, I'm very interested in the process you follow. I used to work for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. We were established by Canada, the United States and Mexico. We had a program with a slush fund, and funds were given out to local organizations.

I know that Canada already does some of this work—building judiciary and so forth. Some of the groups we've talked to actually have bases in some of the receiving countries, and that helps them to identify appropriate organizations. You, however, seem to have a unique process whereby the local organizations themselves apply to you for funding. Could you speak to me about why you've chosen to go in that direction?

[Robert Greenhill]

In terms of having a separate organization, when the report came out in 2007, I thought it was a useful report and I thought there was some merit in the idea of having a separate organization. Now, over a decade later, I'm convinced it's essential. The history of what's happened in Canada—under both Liberal and Conservative governments, so this is not a partisan issue—shows l'effritement that can take place on these issues unless we're really focused in a significant way. The testimonies from the NDI and IRI on the importance of having firewalls, so that whatever the issues or partisan challenges of the day, a country's continued engagement and support for democratic development can continue, makes me believe we need it.

I'm actually proposing two separate institutions. There's one that is leveraging the best of Canada, including, by the way, supporting key organizations such as the CANADEMs and the Parliamentary Centres and others. This group shouldn't be in opposition but should be supporting the existing groups. Then we should have that second IDRC for good governance, which is leveraging the capabilities of the best.

I think institutional commitment is necessary for us to change the momentum around democratic governance globally today.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'll go back to you and you can tell me how we can impose that firewall, but maybe we can hear from Mr. Lamarre.

[Christian Lamarre]

Thank you.

The fund is created in such a way that we are.... Having offices in various countries means that you're part of country programming. We are funding local civil societies in countries some of whose governments, I would say, would prefer us to go through them. We actually go through them; we inform them that we're going to carry a project in their country.

UNDP, for example, works hand in hand with the government to decide on a country program. We've decided to go to see another layer of society in each given country to give a chance to civil society to reach out to us. From the UN side, we want to look for local architects and we want to avoid intermediaries.

There's a question of our size as well. We're small in numbers as well as in funding. We want to avoid an extra layer of bureaucracy. We want some accountability as well. By doing this work directly with civil society, I think we can achieve this. The goal is to empower them.

Yes, they have to reach out to us. They have to present themselves. We on our end, I would say, manage to stay in an area in which we can say that we're the United Nations but as well can engage directly with the local civil society in each country. There's a fine line in my line of work requiring us to be careful.

Our fund is actually designed in such a way that it operates slightly differently from other UN entities. It was made this way, as well; if not, we couldn't carry out what we're doing.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I have so many more questions, but my time is up.

[The Chair]

It is, sadly.

We're now going to move to MP Saini, please.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Good morning to both of you. Thank you very much for coming in.

Mr. Greenhill, I'll start with you, because I think you gave voice and eloquence to something that has troubled me over the last few years.

Part of the issue is that right now there has been a vacuum in leadership in the United States. You've seen recently the engagement of eastern Europe, especially Hungary and Poland. The Visegrad nations are becoming more populist, although they are somewhat established democracies. You also have nascent democracies in Africa, where you have an entrenched history of clans and tribes. You have an internal geopolitical issue and you have an external geopolitical issue.

Leaving that aside, of everybody we've spoken to, nobody has yet stated the economic argument. If we're going into a country and developing democracy, side by side I think there should be a development of the economic system also. I don't think you can have one without the other.

If we go back in history and look at Bretton Woods in 1944 and the development of the IMF and the World Bank, part of the reasoning was to stabilize Europe, to make sure there was financial stability so that further complications would not arise because of financial issues. I know there is important work to be done on democratic governance, and I think it's great, but so far, nobody has said that we should also develop the economy side by side.

You've raised some very interesting points, points that are actually very profound, when you talk about deep corruption, crime, lack of security and weak institutions. All of that is pervasive because the economic system is not in alignment. When you have a lack or scarcity, you're going to have economic issues that will further impact and corrode democratic institutions. That's why democracies don't always work for everyone.

Where is Canada going to be aligned with stabilizing societies not only on the democratic side but also on the financial and economic side?

[Robert Greenhill]

Let me make three quick replies to that.

The first is that for the countries that are already upper middle income, actually correcting the governance issues can unlock tremendous economic opportunities, both from the talented people who are being constrained by kleptocrats in the country, and also by creating opportunity for investment.

The second point I'd make is that it's also an incredibly important issue for Canadian business, because corruption is a major non-tariff barrier to Canadians' being able to invest and engage in those areas. If we unlock that problem, it also helps Canadian investment support them.

The third is that for the countries that are poorest—the least developed countries—getting this governance right is necessary but not sufficient. As Madeleine Albright said, people want to vote, but they also want to eat.

Here, this committee was very articulate, two or three years ago, about the need for Canada to step back up in terms of our level of international engagement. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Pearson report that argued for us to be at 0.7%. We are at the worst level we've been in 50 years. We are well below where we were in 1969 when the Pearson report was put out, and actually, because of our stepping back on that issue, we're rather fumbling the ball on the five-yard line. We could in the next 15 years eliminate deep poverty around the world, but it would require countries like Canada to sustain the course on official development for the next decade or two, and we have fallen back on it.

This committee's important work on governance is absolutely essential, but I also think the important recommendations you made on official development assistance as a complement to it cannot be ignored.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

The second question I have is the geopolitical question. We have now countries—Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and those countries especially in Africa and in Latin America that have resources—that experience an intervention by outside countries who may not want that country to follow the path of democracy.

We walk into a country and are trying to explain to the leadership of that country that this is the path forward, yet an outside, more powerful country comes in and says to forget about this, that there are more economic opportunities by doing it this other way: “Forget about the rule of law, forget about environmental standards, forget about good governance; we're going to provide you with the resources you need”, in many cases in a corrupt way.

How do we counteract that narrative? As you said, people want to vote and they want to eat, so how do you counteract that narrative?

[Robert Greenhill]

That's a great question. The short answer is that it requires very sophisticated long-term commitment. It involves working with civil society groups and young leaders there who actually want to see a better path forward for their country. It involves ensuring that in international development and other agreements there is a greater focus on the rule of law, and it requires actually having tough conversations.

One thing we used to say in a partnership against corruption initiative that I oversaw at the World Economic Forum was that when you fight corruption, corruption fights back. We saw in Malaysia the scandal with former Goldman Sachs executives being accused. They're using the best capabilities in the world. We need to be equally clear-sighted.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

Because we have to stop a little early to do drafting instructions on this report after the next panel, I'm going to suspend here, take five minutes and bring the next panel in so that we have an equal amount of time for both panels.

That being said, I concur with what we've heard from some of the members, that this was exceptionally important testimony for us to get on the record as we come to the end of our study. I want to thank you both for coming this morning and providing such insightful perspectives to us.

Colleagues, we shall suspend for five minutes.

[The Chair]

Colleagues, we shall resume.

We're going to begin with our second panel, and an esteemed panel it is.

I want to welcome, from CANADEM, Paul LaRose-Edwards, who is the executive director.

From the Parliamentary Centre, we have Jean-Paul Ruszkowski, who is the president and CEO; and Maureen Boyd, who is the chair of the board of directors.

Thank you for being here.

You will be the last witnesses as we go forward with this study. Let me ask both groups to give 10 minutes of testimony, and then, as is our practice, we will open it up to the members.

Mr. Edwards, if I could get you to lead off, that would be fantastic.

[Paul LaRose-Edwards, Executive Director, CANADEM (Canada's Civilian Reserve)]

Mr. Chair and members, thank you for the opportunity to address the committee.

CANADEM has been doing democratic promotion for two decades. I've been doing democratic promotion for three decades, starting with my diplomatic posting to the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, England, in 1989—a long way back.

I've circulated a short brief on just one aspect of CANADEM's two decades of democracy promotion work, specifically our election observation work. I hope it makes it clear that already, in CANADEM, Canada has at least one strong and very competent platform for international democracy promotion, and I would suggest that there are others.

We have proven ourselves adept at scaling up and performing well in difficult situations, as we did in Afghanistan as early as 2002. When we were suddenly asked to deploy police and legal reform teams, we did. Then again, in 2008, with just a month's notice, we were asked to set up a free-standing, permanent team of governance capacity-building experts in Kabul, including with the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan. In both instances, not only did we have the right experts, but we were also robust enough to find our own compound, provide our own security, vehicles, food services, admin and logistics, in a rather challenging environment.

You, in Canada, already have at least one strong democracy promotion agency, CANADEM, and we are capable of much more. We have over 48,000 people on our roster, and 8,000 of them have democracy credentials.

You've posed three questions. The first was how the field of democratic development has changed since 2007. As you've been hearing, it has changed substantially. Various agencies outside of Canada have become very much stronger, including various NGOs based in countries outside of Canada. This is very positive for democracy promotion worldwide, but it has also narrowed the scope for Canada to easily re-enter direct hands-on democracy promotion and capacity building.

Your second question was about Canada's role and effectiveness within that landscape. Over the past decade, Canada has cut back its direct hands-on involvement in international democracy promotion. For example, as you know, Rights and Democracy in Montreal was wound up. Funding for democracy work by Canadian NGOs, like the Parliamentary Centre or CANADEM, was reduced to almost zero. Election observation involvement was curtailed and then cancelled completely in 2016. It has only come back partially with regard to Ukraine. At the same time, Canada's indirect involvement, the funding of non-Canadian NGOs and other non-Canadian agencies, has continued but seemingly at a reduced level. I say “seemingly” because the lack of transparency as to how Global Affairs Canada spends its money has only increased.

I would urge the committee to press Global Affairs to make it clear to all of us what it funds and whom it funds. All indications are that Canadian NGOs are receiving less and less funding while non-Canadian NGOs still receive some funding, and UN and other multilateral agencies receive substantial non-accountable and unexamined funding, for which they are not audited as to how well they make use of Canadian funds. Don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of the UN.

The third question that you've posed was forward looking, how Canada can best support democratic development internationally. This, of course, is a much harder question. Your deliberations will shed light on why Canada, since the late 1990s, has been so limited in its direct hands-on democracy capacity development work, and why, over the past decade, Canada has even reduced its direct hands-on democracy promotion. Clarity on that stepping back will help shed light on if and how Canada might move forward.

As my final point, do we need to create a new Canadian democracy promotion agency or is the first step to fund and scale up existing Canadian NGOs, followed by an assessment as to which ones are succeeding and can be even further scaled up to become Canadian democracy champions internationally? Are existing Canadian NGOs not capable of scaling up to that extent, and does Canada need to pursue the costly and time-consuming option of creating a new Canadian democracy promotion agency? I'm really not too sure which way to go on this.

Thank you. I'm pleased to respond to any questions you may have.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Ruszkowski, please.

[Jean-Paul Ruszkowski, President and Chief Executive Officer, Parliamentary Centre]

Thank you very much. It's a real honour to appear before you following some distinguished witnesses prior to our visit.

The witnesses have made three persuasive arguments, which I think we need to highlight: the increased global need for democracy development, the need to regularize the funding and resource allocation, and the opportunity for Canadian experience and expertise to bloom. We will speak briefly to each, based on our 50 years of experience working in 70 countries on more than 120 projects.

In terms of the increased need for international democracy development, I would like to quote Dr. Derek Mitchell, who referred to challenges posed by economic inequality, corruption, the mindset changing more slowly than the institutions, and the resulting frustrations and backlash that we see throughout. He also pointed out the role of digital technology, which we believe amplifies that backlash.

Other witnesses have mentioned the United States pulling back from its leadership role. Dr. Twining, the president of IRI, testified that development assistance should focus on democracy, on rights, on governance, transparency, accountability and anti-corruption. We agree. At the Parliamentary Centre we believe all citizens have a right to participate meaningfully through democracy and that effective parliaments are crucial to that governance. Our projects work. I will give you a couple of examples.

The Parliamentary Centre has been involved in more than 30 countries in Africa implementing 50 projects in the last 20 years. Its support has focused on strengthening committees for oversight and law-making purposes, supporting regional interparliamentary networks and building the capacity of parliamentary secretariats.

We are committed to offering tools for measuring results. We developed the African Parliamentary Index, measuring individual parliamentary performance. We are committed to inclusivity and gender equality. In Indonesia, our award-winning pilot project Our Voice used innovative technology—an SMS polling platform—to allow women to use their cellphones to register their opinions on public services. It helped break down traditional barriers to women's participation in decision-making and in bringing tangible changes to work at the village level.

We collaborate with other organizations. For example, in Indonesia we co-operated with women and youth development institutions. We are willing to support them. We collaborate also globally. Canada funded a very forward-looking project in Burkina Faso to fund the strategic plan for the National Assembly of Burkina Faso. The European Union, the Swedes and the Swiss have decided to fund the implementation of this for $10 million over the next three years.

The parliamentary secretaries Kamal Khera and Andrew Leslie both spoke on the Burkina Faso project as an example of international co-operation. This took place at an event hosted by the European Union ambassador, the Swiss ambassador and the chargé d'affaires of Sweden.

We want to continue to create, innovate, co-operate and partner to promote international democracy, specifically to sustain our efforts in strengthening the capacity of parliaments and individual legislators. Canada provided substantial funding for elections monitoring. This has sometimes left the parliamentarians who were elected without any tools, so we have to think about complementarity of the efforts. We want to build a governance component for every military involvement that we have abroad.

A democratic development plan should include strengthening the oversight of the security services by the country's parliament. We need to train leaders, support leadership schools, engage youth and promote inclusivity. We need to work with new technology, including artificial intelligence, to develop tools and promote strengthening.

To do that, we need money and multi-year funding. This speaks to the second area where we agree with previous witnesses that we need to nationalize and regularize funding in our resource allocation. From 2006 to 2016, our resources to support the strengthening of governance declined form the Canadian government.

I would be happy to discuss more specifically all these facts and how we compare with other countries.

Anita Vandenbeld spoke about IRI and NDI flourishing because there's an endowment fund from Congress allowing them to build resilience, consistency and a permanent presence to support democracy. We don't have an endowment fund. We don't have core money. We don't have any guarantees of multi-year funding.

Christopher MacLennan, assistant deputy minister of global issues and development, spoke earlier to you. He said that there was no dedicated envelope of spending and that, instead, there are the bilateral programs and there are other programs to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. He said that was the reason we see numbers up and down depending on the year.

That is, in a nutshell, our problem. The problem for Parliamentary Centre and other NGOs is we never know where the money is and when it is coming. The centre and the NGOs need a faster decision-making process so we can rapidly respond to situations that are volatile, like Ukraine and Venezuela. However quick and predictable decision-making is, it will make it irrelevant if there's no funding. That's the importance of funding.

Our third area of agreement is how we can get more Canadians involved. As Tom Axworthy mentioned, “Canadians everywhere are advising on a charter of rights, on the court system, on federalism, on party development. The whole world is employing Canadians on this except Canada.”

Even while individual Canadians are finding work, there are situations in which we co-operate with other governments, but those governments do not permit Canadian organizations to access those funds.

The real question is: Why would Canada not want to benefit from the Canadian brand? We're world renowned for our excellence in public service, in the justice system, legislative bodies, and civil society, including political parties. Our Canadian way is pluralistic and inclusive. I think we are ready to do the job, and we want to do it.

Thank you very much.

Maureen.

[Maureen Boyd, Chair, Board of Directors, Parliamentary Centre]

I will take about three minutes. Is there enough time?

[The Chair]

Yes, absolutely.

[Maureen Boyd]

Perfect.

As Jean-Paul said, I'm the volunteer chair of the board. My day job is director of Carleton University's initiative for parliamentary and diplomatic engagement.

In addition to offering orientation to newly elected MPs and annual orientation of foreign diplomats to Canada, I've organized more than 20 policy panels. One of them was Promoting Democracy Abroad, which I co-sponsored with the democracy caucus and with the Parliamentary Centre nearly a year ago. Our panellists, by the way, were three Canadians who work for non-Canadian organizations abroad.

As you know, the Parliamentary Centre began more than 50 years ago by providing support to the Canadian Parliament. Later, as more support was given to committees and to individual parliamentarians, the Parliamentary Centre shifted its focus to serving legislatures abroad, but we value our excellent relations with members of Parliament and senators who participate in our projects abroad and with foreign delegations here.

We know we're appreciated. We celebrated our 50th anniversary last March with an honorary reception committee composed of every former prime minister and every former governor general. There were 300 guests, with remarks from Speaker Regan, David Johnston, the acting Minister of Democratic Institutions and a trio of female parliamentarians including MPs Vandenbeld and Laverdière and Senator Andreychuk.

The Parliamentary Centre is preparing for the next 50 years. We've revitalized our board of directors. David Johnston is our new honorary patron. New members include Allan Rock, president emeritus of Ottawa U; Catherine Cano, CEO of CPAC; Graham Fox, CEO of IRPP; Audrey O'Brien, Clerk Emerita; Fen Hampson, director of CIGI's global security and politics program; and our vice-chair Yaroslav Baran, among others.

This is a strong and determined board, and we have a lot of initiatives planned. We want to reconnect more closely and strengthen relations with Parliament. We've created a group, Parliamentarians for the Parliamentary Centre, that endorses our objectives. We hope that those of you who have not already joined will do so today. We want to move into the area of thought leadership.

Other witnesses mentioned the need to encourage democracy at home. We agree. We want to engage Canadians, and in particular youth. We're organizing a hackathon later this spring that we're calling “Democracy Rebooted”, bringing together youth, government and the private sector to prototype 10 to 15 new tools and policies for a healthier democracy.

I'd like to take one moment to thank our CEO, Jean-Paul Ruszkowski, who has led the Parliamentary Centre for the last nine years but is stepping down this fall. Our application process for a new CEO starts next month, and I would encourage parliamentarians to let us know if they have an outstanding candidate they'd like us to consider. We will have a new CEO in place for the new Parliament.

In 2007 the committee called for the establishment of a new arm's-length Canada foundation for international democratic development or equivalent. We already have that equivalent in us right now—an organization that already can do this. We have an impeccable brand of 50 years' standing and we are committed to serving international democracy development for the next 50 years. Use us.

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

We will roll right into questions.

The first questioner is MP Kusie, please, for six minutes.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Ruszkowski, it’s always a pleasure to see you. Thank you for being here today.

Maureen, it's such a pleasure. I feel like I should have met you somewhere before this week, when I finally had the opportunity to meet you. I always start by saying I'm very proud to have been with Global Affairs Canada for 15 years, on numerous postings, the last one being as deputy consul general in Dallas, Texas.

I'm not a permanent member on this committee, so it's very interesting for me. This is my second time here on this study, to sort of take a peek into the different approaches that are being explored. From what I've seen, the focus here is definitely at the civic level, of course, which is going into these nations and making a difference on the ground.

I'm always very interested in the bigger picture, the leadership aspect. We had someone from a UN agency in the last panel. I recently read Madeleine Albright's book, which frankly, I was disappointed in. I felt it kind of gave an overview of every dictator in history and then went on to say that the current U.S. President is a dictator, which certainly many agree with. I preferred the recent book, How Democracies Die by Ziblatt and Levitsky, which spoke of the gradual degradation of democracy within the world.

Given that, I'll start with you both, Mr. Ruszkowski and Madam Boyd. What are your thoughts as to the role the UN should take in terms of preserving democracy internationally? Certainly we focus on the civics, and should I have time, I have more specific questions for Monsieur LaRose-Edwards in regard to the nuts and bolts of how we do this.

We go, we create these institutions and we try to do good in the world, especially Canada, which these studies have shown is a world leader in this area. I can't help but feel that if our leadership isn't going into the world at the highest levels with these same messages of strength on democracy, particularly in regard to relationships with dictators and dictatorship nations, what good really does that do to the rest of the work we do?

Could you please comment, first of all, on how you see the role of the United Nations in democracy building, since our previous panel mentioned there's no central organization for democracy? I wish there were. That's what the UN should be in my opinion. Also, how important is the messaging of the leadership of Canada for promoting democracy internationally?

Thank you.

[Jean-Paul Ruszkowski]

The first question is the toughest one. The United Nations system, as you know, is a big conglomerate of very distinct missions and different mandates. I am mainly concerned about what I've experienced in the field, which is that it's not always very easy for people to understand what exactly they want to achieve.

I will give you an example. In Nigeria there was a major, multi-basket fund for democracy. The governments of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom were funding. We tried very hard to co-operate with that office in Abuja. It was very weird in the sense that we never got clarity on how we should proceed. When they told us that we should proceed with the support of the Nigerian legislature, we had the support of the Nigerian legislature and nothing came about.

Our high commissioner at that time, Chris Cooter, wanted very much to have an account of the use of the basket fund, and the British high commissioner wanted the same thing. We never had any answers that would be satisfactory to our taxpayers.

It's a very uneven situation with the UN. They are all over, in many different fields. I'm really concerned about that.

Canada's role on the whole has been positive but not very audacious. We have reached a point where we need to be a bit more audacious. I'm thinking of the work that your chair, Michael Levitt, is doing on Venezuela. It's an example of what Canada should be doing, being more proactive and more visible. We need to pull the resources together and unite our allies, like we're doing in Venezuela.

The Venezuelan case is a good example of what Canada can do. I think Ms. Freeland has decided that she wants to take some leadership. We have a very good special envoy, Allan Culham. I would like to see more of what I saw with Venezuela.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Audacity.

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

MP Wrzesnewskyj, please.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank the panellists.

My questions will be for Mr. LaRose-Edwards.

In your hand-out, on page 2 you have a table of CANADEM election observer missions to Ukraine over the years. They're substantial in number and also substantial in the number of observers.

Is there any other country in the world in which we've had this number of missions with this number of observers?