The need to export democracy

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/07/2023 (815 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

AS war rages in Ukraine between an authoritarian aggressor and a fledgling democracy, it raises the fundamental question of the current state and prospects for global freedom. Are human rights and the rule of law advancing or is dictatorship on the march?

This was the theme of a recent meeting of the Winnipeg chapter of the Canadian International Council. Initially created in 1928 by John Dafoe, the legendary editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, and open to all Manitobans, the council is devoted to public education in international affairs. The future of world democracy and whether Canada has a relevant role to play is being debated in Parliament and in forums like U.S. President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy, so the council’s examination was prescient.

The world is in a democratic recession: Freedom House, in its annual 2023 review, reports that global freedom declined for the 17^th consecutive year, with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine the centre point but with repression continuing in Turkey and Hungary, increasing in Hong Kong and destabilizing Tunisia, once the only hopeful reminder of the potential of the Arab Spring. For most of the global population, according to the criteria of Freedom House, civil and political liberties are denied: 39 per cent live in “not free” countries, 41 per cent in “partly free” and only 20 per cent in “free.”

Canada could be doing more to bring this global democracy recession to an end. Whatever our other faults, we are a world leader in democratic process: our elections are free and fair with Elections Canada doing an exemplary job, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rule of law, we control election spending and allocate media time for election debates, and the list goes on. Here in Manitoba, for example, we have been election innovators, being the first province in Canada to give the vote to women and to establish independent boundary commissions.

This fact is recognized by the global election-assistance community, who are eager to employ individual Canadians to participate in election monitoring, advise on federalism, suggest measures to recognize and protect ethnic or religious minorities or provide media training. I worked in Ukraine, for example, under the auspices of the National Democratic Institute of the United States.

The experience and talents of Canadians in working with partners to achieve democracy could be an important foreign policy asset and this potential has been explored both by Parliament and Canadian governments. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper established a task force to examine the idea and the concept of a Democracy Canada Centre was championed by Steven Fletcher, a cabinet minister from Manitoba, as minister of state for democratic reform. The economic recession of 2008, however, discouraged the Harper government from moving forward.

But the concept of a stand-alone Democracy Centre was not forgotten. In 2019, the House of Commons Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development issued a report on “Canada’s Role in International Support for Democratic Development,” once again calling for the establishment of a new institution to carry out this specialized work. The Trudeau government responded by committing to the creation of such a centre, and it was even specifically mentioned in the 2021 mandate letter from the prime minister to Mélanie Joly, the minister of Global Affairs. But after the initial fanfare, little has been heard of the concept lately, and it was not mentioned in Canada’s submission to the Biden Summit on Democracy in March 2023.

The case for such a centre, however, is evident from a June 2023 report issued by Joly on “The Future of Diplomacy.” Responding to criticism that the department of Global Affairs is risk-adverse, too-centred on its Ottawa headquarters without adequate capacity in the field and lacking in specialist knowledge as opposed to generalist management skills, Joly promised to do better.

Implementing the oft-repeated promise of creating a new stand-alone instrument of foreign policy dedicated to democracy and human rights would achieve all these desired goals. A Canadian Democracy Centre would concentrate on a few countries of critical importance, building local staffs engaged for the long haul since it takes time for a culture of compromise and tolerance to grow. It would cooperate with and partially fund existing Canadian organizations like the Parliamentary Centre or CANADEM and it would call upon the expertise of the hundreds of Canadians who have worked abroad on the democracy assistance programs of other countries.

Russia and China pour vast resources into subverting democracy. As one of the most respected democracies in the world, the time is now for Canada to join with other freedom-loving nations to stem this authoritarian tide.

Thomas S. Axworthy is Public Policy Chair of Massey College. He chaired the 2009 Advisory Panel that reported to Minister Steven Fletcher on creating a Democracy Promotion Agency.