Evidence of meeting #135 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 immigration.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Daniel Fried  Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council
Benjamin Haddad  Director, Future Europe Initiative, Atlantic Council
Staffan Lindberg  Professor, Political Science Department and Director of the V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, As an Individual
William Galston  Ezra K. Zilkha Chair and Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings Institution, As an Individual

9:15 a.m.

Liberal

Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON

Thank you.

I would like to turn to Ambassador Fried. You had referenced Russia and China. During the Cold War, we had proxy wars in different parts of the world. Now we have a hybrid war, and when you take a look at what the Kremlin's role is in particular in these trends in Europe, perhaps you would like to comment on that because we're well aware that they do things.

We've seen the Schroederization of politicians in Europe. We see substantial loans to Marine Le Pen's party in France. They are engaged in false flag tactics like the fire bombing of a Hungarian—and this is where it gets really complicated—cultural centre in western Ukraine to stir up interethnic animosities. The culprits were caught. They were Polish white supremacists who by chance ended up getting caught. Then they spilled the beans that it was an AfD official from Germany who paid them to do this, and the money came from handlers in Russia.

It shows a multi-layered approach to destabilizing liberal democracy in Europe. You have those very active engagements, and then you have China with Huawei where they go around to a lot of these countries and say, “Look. Forget about even pretending to have elections with this equipment. It's cheaper than western equipment, plus you can watch your citizenry with this equipment.”

I was wondering if you would like to comment on those—

9:20 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt

I'm going to thank my honourable colleague for his comments but, sadly, the time is over.

Before we move to MP Caron, Dr. Lindberg, could I ask you to please forward your slides and your presentation to the clerk. We do want to translate and distribute that material to members of the committee so they have it.

Thank you, sir.

MP Caron.

9:20 a.m.

NDP

Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Thank you.

Mr. Lindberg, first of all, I just want to say that I didn't want to embarrass you. As Mr. Levitt said, the committee is responsible for ensuring that all documents are sent to us in English and French. It's not your fault. The committee should have done its job.

That said, I'll move on to my questions.

I think that today's well-functioning democracies are the democracies that run the same way as they did before the rise of autocracy. These democracies seem to have the same communication methods, the same approaches and the same diplomatic process.

I think that protection against the threat posed by the rise of autocracy in well-functioning democracies depends heavily on communication and a proper approach to the problem.

I'll provide an example of what we've seen not only here in Canada, but around the world. I'm talking about the reaction to the United Nations migration pact. This pact was intended to initiate the start of communication to end the chaos caused by migration. However, various autocratization forces used the pact as a lightning rod, in order to gather behind a standard.

Do you agree with this analysis? How could we address the issue of communication or approaches in our democracies? Do you have any proposals in this regard?

9:20 a.m.

Prof. Staffan Lindberg

The UN pact or the UN agreement on immigration was the object of a little bit of discussion also in my own country in Sweden. I didn't follow the debate in Canada, unfortunately, on this but across Europe, obviously, there were strong reactions in some countries. It was used, as you say, for fearmongering simply.

I think the current trend of using fear more and more in the political communication between leaders and people in Europe and beyond is very dangerous. We know that fear is one of the most dangerous political forces that you can [Inaudible—Editor]. The extreme cases we know: Nazism and fascism in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, the genocide in Rwanda. Fear can make people accept extreme actions.

In that sense, I agree with you that it's really important to put a lot of emphasis on the quality of communication and what the message in that sort of communication is to avoid fearmongering and try to counter it when possible.

9:25 a.m.

NDP

Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Thank you.

Mr. Haddad, I have a question for you.

You talked about migration, which I've just discussed with Mr. Lindberg. Migration poses a certain problem, particularly in the Mediterranean Basin. The problem won't disappear gradually, on the contrary.

We're talking about Europe, but we can also talk about Canada. How could we best accommodate refugees or migrants in liberal democracies such as ours? As I just said, the problem won't gradually disappear. How should we change our approach?

As I asked Mr. Lindberg, how should we share this priority and this set of principles that we have as democracies?

9:25 a.m.

Director, Future Europe Initiative, Atlantic Council

Benjamin Haddad

You're right. The French leader said, something like 25 years ago, that populists ask the right questions and give the wrong answers. It's true that this issue of immigration has been hijacked, in terms of fear, by nativist rhetoric. If we want to be able to respond to these fears responsibly, we have to understand where they come from. If you look at the refugee crisis in 2015, there initially was objectively a failure from the European Union to anticipate and respond effectively to the refugee crisis. I think we have seen a lot of measures since then, with a lot of coordination among European countries to be able to respond effectively in three ways.

The first way is to welcome with a humane and generous philosophy the refugees and asylum seekers in the European Union. There's still ongoing debate right now in Europe about how to be able to share the...I don't want to use the term “burden”, which is often used, but to share the refugees around European countries.

The second one is to clearly bolster border control. We have seen increased resources in terms of both manpower and financial resources that have been allocated to the European border control agency, Frontex. You still have this debate going on right now in Europe with the European Commission putting forward more resources.

Finally, and I think this is really key, is understanding that this immigration is as a result of instability in the periphery of the European Union. It's a result of crisis and conflict in Libya, in Ukraine, in Syria, so there is absolutely no way—I think you made that point in your question—for Europeans to shield themselves and to think that they can “bunkerize” themselves from the rest of the world. Economic aid and sometimes also military involvement will be critical for Europeans to be able to respond to these challenges.

I really want to stress the fact that it is important and completely legitimate for voters and citizens to feel that at least their institutions are in control of this phenomenon. You can be humane, generous and open and at the same time show that you are in control of your own immigration policy. I think it is one of the great successes of Canada that it is a country that has a fairly strict and controlled immigration policy and at the same time is open and generous. It has shown itself to be extremely open to refugee and asylum seekers in the last few years.

9:25 a.m.

NDP

Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Thank you.

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt

Thank you.

We will now move to MP Saini.

April 9th, 2019 / 9:25 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Good morning or good afternoon, everyone.

I would like to start with you, Dr. Lindberg. You've written extensively on autocratization. If we start from Dahl's famous conceptualization that electoral democracy is a polyarchy, and if we go now and see the democratic erosion going on throughout Europe, probably one of the most interesting things is that this autocratization is affecting democratic countries as opposed to the electoral autocracies that it affected in the past. When we look at the majority of the countries that are being affected, a lot have to be east European countries, the near abroad states to Russia.

How much is this democratic erosion phenomenon a general phenomenon and how much is it simply the near abroad countries—Hungary, Poland, the Visegrad nations—that are being affected, maybe because they have a Russian-speaking population because they're in close proximity to Russia? How much is it a Russian orbital problem, or how much is this democratic erosion a more widespread problem?

9:30 a.m.

Prof. Staffan Lindberg

It's 23.5% Russian.... No, obviously, it's really hard to quantify.

Although we now speak about Europe, and I highlighted some of the changes in Europe, we see this happening across the world. It's only sub-Saharan Africa that's not affected by this trend yet, and there, arguably, in many places, democracy is not at a very high level, or most countries are not democracies.

It is and has been affecting Latin America. It is affecting central Asia and Southeast Asia as well. It is not simply an east European problem induced by proximity to Russia, even if that may also make things perhaps more accentuated.

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

This question is for Mr. Haddad and Mr. Fried.

You mentioned the immigration issue which started in 2015. When we look at Europe, part of the criticism was that the Schengen agreement was not as strong as it could have been. More importantly, Hungary has now been censured by European lawmakers where it has gone to a majority. Now it will go on to the 28 member states. There has to be unanimity if any sanctions or any repercussions are going to happen to Hungary, but as you know, Poland is going to veto that.

How much of this is actually creating a new normal? If you look at what's happening in Europe now with some of the political changes in the other stronger democracies, it seems that a new normal has now been accepted. Dr. Lindberg has said that the depletion rate now, when it comes to democracy, is about 8%. You have this creep, or democratic erosion. It's happening so slowly that other countries are now beginning to accept that they used to be here, but now they will accept this as a new normal to somewhat keep the peace. Right now Europe is going through a lot of transition, especially with Brexit and with the hard border in Ireland, so maybe they think it's just better to accept certain things just to keep the peace at the new normal, or.... What should be the response to that?

9:30 a.m.

Director, Future Europe Initiative, Atlantic Council

Benjamin Haddad

A quick point on this is that the Schengen agreement was the abolition of internal borders. I think the reason they were seen to be a failure to a certain extent was that there wasn't the necessary transfer of resources to control external borders. This left an undue burden on certain countries, like Italy, for example, which was left on its own to a large extent at the beginning of the refugee crisis. I think this fuelled the rise of populism in a much more unhelpful government today.

Some of the measures that were taken by the European Union since then are not discussed enough because we mostly generally talk about negative news rather than the positive news afterwards. I think we have seen a lot of measures precisely to make the Schengen area much more effective. It is absolutely critical because it is one of the major success stories in the European integration. Without the Schengen area, I think the European project would be much more weakened.

To come to your point on Poland and Hungary, I think this question of immigration has been exploited by leaders for domestic purposes to bolster their own power and sometimes take measures against the rule of law. It's really critical for European leaders—and we have seen this recently—to be able to separate the two and respond effectively to challenges that are economic or linked to immigration with reasonable policies and to assuage voter concerns, yet at the same time be extremely firm when it comes to the backsliding of the rule of law that questions the liberal democracy that is the heart of the European Union. They are non-negotiable.

I don't know if I would agree with your assessment of a new normal. On the contrary, I think we are seeing a rising concern in Europe over this. We've seen both the European Council and the European Parliament react quite forcefully in the last year. We have seen the EPP take measures against Orbán this year. This is still an ongoing conversation, but I would argue that it has been an awakening for European leaders on these issues.

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

I have one final question.

You've written about the illiberal democracy and obviously Orbán is the sort of figurehead for that ideology. The opposite to that is Emmanuel Macron on one side, who wrote a position paper and said that there has to be a reset or a renewal in the European Union, and you have Orbán on the other side. When Macron said this, he never got much support from the other democracies, yet Orbán seems to be gaining more support either with the Visegrad nations or with other nations. There seems to be two polar opposites in Europe, but Macron doesn't seem to be the one who's garnering as much support as Orbán is. Why is that? Why aren't the other more established democracies supporting Macron, as opposed to Orbán?

9:35 a.m.

Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council

Daniel Fried

I agree with the way you've set out the problem. The United States is, shall we say, distracted, as is the U.K. I think it is important that the democracies do rally around what Macron has said, or rather the principles that Macron is at least trying to champion. Frankly, good for him. Instead of sitting on his hands or complaining or retreating, he's trying. The point of the declaration of principles was to do exactly what you, sir, have suggested be done, which is to rally around the democratic principles, so that the apostles of illiberal democracy don't have a clear field.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Thank you very much.

9:35 a.m.

Director, Future Europe Initiative, Atlantic Council

Benjamin Haddad

If I may add something, I agree with your assessment on Macron's position in Europe. I think it is a result of the fact that it is a harder position to take to both defend the European Union and its principles and at the same time be lucid about the challenges and some of the policy failures of the European Union in the last few years.

Macron recently addressed Brexit in a document that said we should not be complacent about Brexit, even though the British establishment is going through difficulties in dealing with it, because the mistakes and failures that have led to Brexit are still in the European Union and we need to address them.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON

Thank you.

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt

With that, gentlemen, we are going to thank you for joining us and providing us this testimony this morning.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

Do we have time to ask questions?

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt

There is a vote at 10:30, and we'll have to break from here at 10:20. Also, we have to suspend to get the second panellists set up. Sorry, I should have made that clear. I want to make sure that we have little bit of time to at least get one full round of questions with the second panel.

Gentlemen, thank you very much.

With that we shall suspend.

9:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt

We are resuming.

We're going to start with our second panel as we continue with our study on threats to liberal democracy in Europe.

I'd like to welcome, as an individual, Dr. William Galston, the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair and Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Galston is the author of nine books and more than 100 articles in the fields of political theory, public policy and American politics.

Dr. Galston, thank you for joining us from Washington, D.C., this morning. I would ask you to provide your opening remarks, and then we will open it up to our colleagues on the committee for questions.

9:40 a.m.

Dr. William Galston Ezra K. Zilkha Chair and Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings Institution, As an Individual

Thank you very much, Chairman Levitt. It's an unexpected honour to be asked to testify before this important committee.

Your staff very usefully provided me with five questions to address. Two of them concern Canada's transatlantic alliances and policies for bolstering the liberal international order. Coming from a country that has made a total hash of these issues recently, I'm a little reluctant to offer my advice, but if you press me during the question period, I will do so.

Of the remaining three questions, the responses to which will form the bulk of my opening testimony, the first concerns the factors driving the popular and populist resentment, the upsurge in this resentment in most of Europe's liberal democracies. Happily, after a period of confusion, something of a scholarly consensus is emerging as to the major causes of this upsurge.

A familiar place to begin is with the impact of technology and globalization on the economies of advanced western democracies. This has triggered, among many other pathologies, the end of the 40 years of postwar convergence between more prosperous and less prosperous regions, and instead the rise of massive and steadily increasing regional inequalities. One economic geographer has recently labelled the upsurge of populism “the revenge of 'left-behind' places”, and I think there's a lot to that.

Second and relatedly is the collapse of traditional manufacturing in many areas, including many former urban manufacturing centres, particularly in France and the U.K. This hit the industrial working class very hard. At the same time, centre-left parties updated or modernized their programs away from working-class concerns toward the concerns more characteristic of upscale professionals. This left the working class in many countries feeling resentful and politically homeless. They decoupled from their traditional alliances with centre-left parties and became the most unstable force in European politics and, I would add, in American politics as well.

Third is the impact of immigration, which has triggered a host of identity concerns and issues. If I had a lot of time, I could go through a series of decisions by European leaders, such as Tony Blair and Angela Merkel, which contributed to the impact of immigration on the population of European countries. Suffice it to say that we have the AfD in Germany, the League in Italy and Brexit in the U.K. in no small measure as a direct response to public concerns about immigration policy.

I should add parenthetically that one of Canada's distinctive features against this backdrop is its immigration policy, which not only serves your national interests pretty well, but also enjoys broad-based public support, the last time I checked. This is very unusual and accounts, I think, for the decidedly more positive and healthy tone of Canada's democracy, relative to most of the rest of the west.

The fourth cause for popular and populist discontent was the mismanagement of the financial crisis and its aftermath. European elites did not distinguish themselves in their handling of the post-crisis recovery. Failed austerity policies raised questions about the elites' competence and their concern for ordinary people.

Fifth and finally, there are growing conflicts between elites, most of whom are urban-based, and those in small town and rural areas about cultural change and the rapid evolution of social norms. In this respect, I would note the increasing importance of educational differences. One of the great dividing lines that have emerged in western democratic politics is between people who have gotten a college education and people who haven't. This is more than a question of economic opportunity. It also shapes fundamental outlooks on a host of cultural issues.

So much for question one.

Next is question two: What are the main threats facing liberal democracies in Europe today? Here I can be briefer. I think we have to distinguish first between established democracies and new democracies, especially the post-communist democracies. The main problem is with the latter, not the former. I am not saying that large established democracies in Germany and France are going to get off scot-free, but I do not expect them to morph into something illiberal, let alone undemocratic. I am much less sure about the new post-communist democracies.

In this respect, I would cite the growing cross-national appeal of what I will call “Orbánism”. Viktor Orbán of Hungary, of course, has originated what he calls illiberal democracy, which gives you the trappings of democratic elections without liberal restraints such as a free press, an independent judiciary, robust civil society and protections for individuals and minority groups.

The problem with Orbánism and this whole idea of illiberal democracy is that it is not a stable political position, for two reasons. First of all, the centralization of power tempts leaders to put their fingers on the electoral scales. We have seen this happening in Hungary and in many of the countries influenced by Orbán's ideology. Second—and this is even graver—is that the reliance on the people, the idea of pure majoritarianism, in practice gives way to exclusionary definitions of the people, based on differences of religion, ethnicity, language, etc.

The third and final question I will address is: What can and should be done? Here, very briefly, let me just tick off a few points. First of all, whatever neoclassical or neo-liberal economics may say, it is increasingly important to take place seriously as the basis for economic policy. The exacerbation of regional differences has created serious strains within European countries and between them, and there are active discussions going on in the United States, the U.K. and the EU as to what can be done to put in place more effective, place-sensitive economic policies.

Second, the kinds of immigration policies that leaders such as Tony Blair and Angela Merkel put in place are not politically sustainable. Immigration policy must be rethought to meet public qualms halfway and to establish a basis for a sustainable immigration policy that enjoys a broad measure of public support.

Third, the EU should be very careful and restrained in imposing elite cultural preferences on populations that may have a more traditional set of views. Take Poland, for example, where the influence of the Catholic church is particularly profound. The conflict between EU cultural norms and what most people in Poland believe is correct is an increasingly troubling issue.

Finally, I think it's important to acknowledge the power of the desire to retain a measure of control over one's national destiny. It turns out that nationalism is not dead, and because it's alive—but not only because it's alive—it shouldn't be treated as a dirty word. I think it's going to be important to work for a new balance between the imperatives of nationalism on the one hand and of European integration on the other.

In conclusion, I will say that, as an overarching goal, an ever-closer union may be past it's sell-by date.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I'll be happy to answer your questions.

9:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt

Thank you very much, Dr. Galston.

We'll move straight to questions.

We're going to begin with MP Kusie, please.

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you very much, Dr. Galston.

I was a diplomat for Canada for 15 years and I have to say that I'm a big fan of the Brookings Institution. I retweet your stuff frequently and I believe many of the ideas that you've outlined were also outlined in Stephen Harper's recent book, Right Here, Right Now. However, I'm very interested, as my colleagues are, in regard to.... You talk about the practicalities of things we must do to help these established democracies. I certainly agree with them, but I'm looking for your opinion—I know you said you would give it if you were pressed, and I will press—on a mentality, vision or approach for Canada to take with respect to our foreign affairs agenda.

I'm just going to quote the recently published “2019 Trudeau Report Card”, which was issued not by me or my party but by the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton, a major university in our capital city. In the report they discuss two types of approaches to foreign affairs. I'm going to ask which approach you think is better for these established democracies in Europe that are troubled right now, and how we can best assist them.

The first approach is one that the Harper government is known for having used. It is more hawkish: to stand in the face of dictators and to directly promote democracy abroad. In fact, it has been noted that the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, has used this as well. I genuinely believe that the difference is that—and this is stated in the report; these are not my words—the Trudeau government relies on “virtue signalling” and as opposed to a grand strategy, sort of a more piecemeal, ad hoc approach. With the Harper government, we did a have a direct strategy. I would say it was a more fulsome strategy.

The alternative—and the current government is criticized for this, but we were criticized for it as well—to this hawkish outlook is one of more diplomacy. In the recent example of Venezuela, Canada having taken a leadership position in the Lima group, some are saying this degrades our ability to act as a fair broker, which of course, since the time of Pearson, we are historically known for doing.

In your opinion, in regard to Europe, which is better, the more hawkish approach or the more diplomatic approach?

9:55 a.m.

Ezra K. Zilkha Chair and Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings Institution, As an Individual

Dr. William Galston

I will respond to the member's question as follows.

I think Canada has a nearly unique position of moral strength and credibility on the global stage. I'm not saying this to be flattering; I genuinely believe it to be true. I think you are seen as a country that has articulated a set of principles and has done its best to live by them, and this perception of moral credibility I think should be the foundation of Canada's foreign policy.

Now, with regard to the substance of that policy, I believe that Canada should be forthright in a principled defence of liberal democracy as the best form of government and of the liberal international order as the best way of maintaining peace and sustaining prosperity and progress among nations. Does that mean a policy of active intervention? It depends on what you mean. It certainly means the use of your moral pulpit to criticize undemocratic decisions and tendencies in Europe and elsewhere, where they occur.

With regard to Venezuela, for example, I think it's possible to be part of the solution and at the same time to say forthrightly what I believe to be the fact of the matter, and that is that Mr. Maduro is a dictator who is increasingly isolated from his own people and has shown by his actions in recent months that he really doesn't care very much about their well-being. You all know what I'm referring to.

Therefore, I'm not sure there's a really bright line between the diplomacy track and what the member characterized as a harder line track. I think Canada should be hard line in defence of principle and flexible in the policies it uses in order to defend and promote those principles. What that looks like on an event-by-event basis, I can't tell you. I will say that your foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, has evoked a lot of admiration.