Foreign Affairs committee  It's my pleasure.

Foreign Affairs committee  This is an issue that has been much debated in the United States in recent years. To the American civic identity, defined by crucial founding and refounding documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address and the “I have a dream” speech, this is foundational.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will necessarily be brief in my answer: clear-eyed realism. I think it has taken the United States, for example, a long time to wake up to the fact that China is not a status quo power. It has no intention of integrating its economy into the western rules-based economic order.

Foreign Affairs committee  The member has posed a very challenging question, which is fair enough. If nationalism can be held in check only by authoritarianism, that tells you something quite important. It tells you that there are genuine, indigenous, popular sentiments that are being suppressed forcibly, and I don't think anybody's in favour of that.

Foreign Affairs committee  The member's question raises very important theoretical and practical issues. As you anticipated, I'm well acquainted with the Levitsky–Ziblatt book. It is one of the foundational books in the recent spate of analytical books about the future of liberal democracy. You've put your finger on the central argument of the book; namely, that if we look only at institutions and laws, and not at democratic norms that shape the way people actually behave within democratic orders, we will have missed something very significant.

Foreign Affairs committee  This has happened in the United States as polarization based on differences over issues has morphed into something much more dangerous, what the scholars call affective polarization where each political party comes to see the other as a fundamental threat to the democratic order and to the principles they hold dear.

Foreign Affairs committee  It would be inappropriate for me to intervene in internal Canadian partisan differences. I'm sure you understand why I'm not going to do that. I think that Canada is seen as a successful model, not always untroubled, but a successful model of a multi-ethnic democracy that has managed an enormous diversification of its population over the past few generations with a policy of economic and social integration that, I believe, enjoys the world's respect.

Foreign Affairs committee  The member may very well be right. I am not stating my position with any confidence, but I would say this. There is a difference between mutually agreed adjustments to borders on the one hand and the seizure of territory on the other. In the case of Russia and Crimea, there was no negotiation.

Foreign Affairs committee  I will not say that the abdication is permanent. We had one election in the United States with an extraordinary outcome. I believe that the presidential election of 2020 is much more important than the presidential election of 2016, because by 2020 the American people will have all the information they need to assess the benefits and the costs of this sharp reversal of American foreign policy and diplomacy.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. As to the member's question, I don't think the EU has been a profile in courage in dealing with Kosovo, regrettably. On the other hand, I think the attainment of a permanent and sustainable peace between Serbia and Kosovo is important enough to warrant the consideration of measures which, in other circumstances, would not have to be considered.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would respond to the member's question by saying that the Balkans now are what they were a century ago, namely, a venue for great power competition. I'm going to refrain from passing judgment on that fact, but simply say that it is a fact. The good news is that most Balkan countries are being allowed to make their own choices.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, the member's question has really put me on the spot. My view is that the Canadian government, in an organized way, should make it clear that it believes that liberal democratic values create unique relationships among nations, relationships that are much more than simply transactional.

Foreign Affairs committee  Let me give you a short answer to a question that deserves a longer answer. Populism can be useful when the established political parties agree on fundamentals but are failing to ask certain very important questions about the evolution of the economy and society. I think it is fair to say that when it came to trade, for example—and once again, I'm talking about my own country, the United States—the elites of the two major political parties did agree on fundamentals.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would respond to the member's question with emphatic agreement. We have to ask ourselves why Russian troops are in the Donbass and other parts of eastern Ukraine. The answer is that they were a last play on Mr. Putin's part to prevent Ukraine from slipping out of an orbit defined by the gravitational force of Russia and moving closer to the west.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would respond to the member's question as follows. Let me just talk about the case I know best, that of the United States. I was a member of the Clinton administration. I did not have any responsibility for China policy, but it is certainly the case that the major thrust of the Clinton administration's China policy was to open up world markets to China and vice versa.