Thank you very much. It's very good to see you again, Professor Ignatieff.
I'm very pleased to have you here and very happy that you mentioned that we should not forget about the Balkans, and particularly the former Yugoslavia, which is a scenario that I know you've written extensively on.
When we talk about the distance between North America and Europe, there is within the public memory the more recent intervention in the former Yugoslavia, followed by a significant period of Canadians' going through OSCE and multilateral institutions to provide expertise on democratic transitions. I think at that time there was a tremendous amount of hope, and the idea of democracy brought with it great expectation.
I'm wondering whether or not the resurgence of nationalist impulses and authoritarianism, anti-pluralism, and even in many cases a backsliding on gender equality.... In many transition countries, women were more economically empowered, educated and involved in political institutions, such as they were, before the democratic transition. In some ways the high expectations, the inability to meet those expectations, the corruption and a number of other forces are perhaps the reasons why there is a backsliding. Does that mean that for a country like Canada, there may be an opportunity through OSCE and other institutions to provide that kind of expertise, not to export our democratic model, but to be able to provide that kind of expertise for institutions?
I do want to bring Mr. Chungong into the conversation as well, because parliamentary institutions.... I was a senior adviser to the parliament of Kosovo when Kosovo declared independence, and overnight it had to be a modern parliament. There were many, many Canadians involved in that.
Could both of you, perhaps, comment on what Canada's role might be in that regard?