FAAE Committee Report

The Bloc Québécois acknowledges the thoughtful work that has been initiated by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in its report Advancing Canada’s Role in International Support for Democratic Development, but we believe that the main conclusions drawn in this report are hasty conclusions, if not questionable ones, except for the recommendation to proceed to an independent evaluation. This evaluation should, however, be aimed not only at investigating all the efforts made by Canada in aiding the democratic development of certain countries and “all channels of funding as to their effectiveness in achieving their stated objectives, and to advise on which types of Canadian assistance have proved to be most effective and where Canada can have the most positive impact,”[1] but also at assessing if there is a need for a complete overhaul of Canada's assistance to democratic development and for new tools and structures, such as the establishment of a new foundation as proposed in the report.

The approach proposed in the report is to conduct an independent assessment after the creation of a new foundation generously endowed and with greater freedom of action. This approach, therefore, consists in asking questions after having accepted to disburse important sums of money for the creation of a new foundation. This way of proceeding defies all logic. Not only does the report rely on a very incomplete picture of Canadian assistance to democratic development, but it contains a number of inconsistencies that have us wonder about the real objectives behind the creation of such a foundation. Several fundamental issues remain unanswered. A number of warnings have gone unheeded.

Without an accurate and comprehensive overview of the situation, particularly without consultation with Québec’s ONG that have experience in this domain and without the assessment of CIDA’s engagements nor without the study of the foundation Law of Rights and Democracy, the Bloc Québécois cannot subscribe to the need for a complete restructuring of Canadian assistance to democratic development nor to the need for the creation of a new foundation as proposed in the Committee’s report.

The Bloc Québécois feels it is risky, if not dangerous, that the majority of the Committee accepted the idea put forward by a few promoters of a foundation oriented toward providing assistance to political parties and finding a strategy to bring together the various Canadian and international actors, and doing so, making Canada the world leader in democracy assistance.

Incomplete portrait

Given the mandate that the Committee adopted the 10^th of May 2006 which was to “carry out a major study on democratic development” in the framework of a broader study of “Canada’s role in complex international interventions”, the Committee could not skip on the task of spelling out the international action issues in assistance to democratic development.

Despite, or because of, international commitments to support the development of democracy, caution is required on the part of democratic countries in choosing what action to take in development assistance.  That action may be seen from a historical perspective as guided more by the self-interest of donor countries than by the needs of the people in the recipient countries.

This is widely the case for the people in countries that have experienced political or economic colonization.  It is often the case for the people in Arab/Muslim countries:  they associate democracies with the countries that supported and still support authoritarian leaders who remain in power thanks to force, to torture and to corruption.  Before the invasion of Iraq, American leaders were certain that Iraqis would thank them for rescuing them from Saddam Hussein.  The Iranians recall that their own authentic democratic revolution, under the leadership of Mossadegh, was brought to a halt in 1953 by the coup d’état fomented by the CIA and the British secret services, who joined forces to prevent Iran from controlling its own oil.  And they remember that it was thanks to the United States and the Great Britain that the Shah was put back on the throne, from which he was chased in 1979 by the Iranian revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Shiite Islamist movement, to power.

Many of the African countries that achieved independence after the Second World War saw their charismatic postcolonial leaders eliminated by the former colony’s military.  Still today, they keep seeing corporations based in democratic countries plunder their mineral resources with impunity and support authoritarian leaders.  The governments of emerging democracies have often tried to exert control over their resources, only to run head-first into the interests of their former colonial masters or powerful foreign interests that do not hesitate to support politicians who will allow them to go on plundering, regardless of the interest of those politicians to maintain themselves in power or regardless of their interest for the well-being of the population.

Also worth remembering are the American doctrine that South America was its fiefdom and the revolutionary movements that served, during the Cold War, as proxy combatants for the two power blocs in many countries that today are ravaged, weakened and broken. People in countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain are very interested in developing their democracy along with their economy and their sovereignty. They are educated and may appear able to reach democracy more quickly and more easily than others. This is a new and interesting area activity; its difficulty, however, should not be underestimated, despite the enthusiasm generated by the events in Georgia and Ukraine among a few intellectuals at Queens University’s Centre for the Study of Democracy. To be convinced, one should look into the activities of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and look at the ongoing changes in Russia.

There remains another issue: do the majority of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development want to leave our current aid recipients to their fate in order to concentrate on former East Bloc countries, for the benefit of Canadian foreign policy? The authority and responsibilities given to the new foundation might well lead to that conclusion.

When promoting democracy, the democratic countries have to prove that they are not seeking to control another country, or defend their own interests, but rather are offering the people means of controlling their own destiny and creating the institutions that will, little by little, ensure them democratic governance through justice, police, human rights, free elections.  How to do this?  Is it possible?  Can we determine in what conditions?  What are the countries where international intervention has helped people take control of their own destiny?  What intervention has been useful, in what conditions?  Are such conditions exportable?  Who can exercise what kind of influence?

The Committee has not given it self the means that would have enabled it to answer these questions.  Nor did it explore the current context even tough American experts and officials, during meetings the Committee had in Washington for the purpose of the current report, invited Canada to take the lead and move front and centre. Gerald Hyman, Ex-Director of the USAID Office of Democracy and Governance, for example, emphasised that “Canada can do things that the United States cannot”[2]. Thomas Carothers, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace expert, stated “it is very important that other countries [than the United States] step forward and that “Canada has a unique role to play.”  This is especially so as the United States has stumbled in its promotion of democracy”[3]. Would it not be timely to point out that the success of Canadian intervention appears to hinge on respect for the democratic approach adopted by the people of the country being helped, which is very unlike the American and British invasion of Iraq?

Centralized democratic development assistance efforts still contested

As mentioned in the report, democratic development assistance donor states are asking more and more questions about the nature and effectiveness of this type of assistance and about more constructive ways to promote democracy. Despite this observation, the report proposes that Canada become a leader in democratic development assistance and that the Government of Canada grant the necessary funds to become the top assistance donor, without any idea of the amount of money entailed by this political decision.

Despite mixed results since World War II, the report suggests that Canada should play a lead role in democratic development. The Committee report makes this recommendation without assessing both the risks and pitfalls nor without assessing the every so often enormity of the support:

“This cautionary scepticism about external interventions on the side of democracy is not unusual among analysts. Professor Bruce Bueno de Mesqita of New York University told the Committee that “the record of exporting democracy since World War II is not a good record”, although his colleague Professor George Downs allowed that, with less baggage than the great powers and more responsive flexibility than large international organizations, “Canada has a better prospect of being successful than the UN or the United States.”[4]

Asking for nothing less.

One of the central premises of this report—that research and coordination within Canada and among nations will lead to greater progress in promoting democracy—is far from proven. A number of experts pointed out that democratic development assistance could do more harm than good, expressing their scepticism and issuing warnings. But their misgivings appear to have fallen on deaf ears, including this call for caution from Ian Smillie of Partnership Africa Canada: “(…) Some critics of Canada’s approach to governance lament the absence of coherent policies tying all aspects of the agenda together. A patchy, project-by-project approach with no obvious central policy and no central management, they say, is unlikely to yield coherent results. This may be true, but given the overwhelming size of the governance agenda, and the limited track record in its promotion by any donor, healthy doses of humility and caution are warranted, along with a good set of brakes in the expectations department.”[5]

There is no international model, as mentioned in the report. [6] However, recommendation 4, advocating increased Canadian public-sector support for independent research and knowledge generation on effective democratic development assistance, is at odds with this observation and implies that a centralized approach is a contested one.

The Bloc Québécois is of the opinion that the risk of centralized decision-making that is beyond any political control and could jeopardize Canada’s good reputation.

The recommendation that Canada take a more centrally coordinated approach to its democratic development assistance was far from being universally accepted by the witnesses who appeared before the Committee. The recommendation was made by three witnesses: Thomas Axworthy, Kevin Deveaux and David Donovan, who urged the Committee to consider this approach. Other witnesses, including Ed Broadbent, Ian Smillie and representatives from the Parliamentary Centre, said there was no need to set up another institution and that it was important, even vital, for Canada to strengthen the initiatives currently under way and for the government to provide them with greater funding (as mentioned to the Committee by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Parliamentary Centre, and Rights and Democracy). However, the report makes no recommendation on this issue.

Therefore, it would have been possible to also draw from the testimonies the conclusion that it is important for Canada to bolster existing initiatives, because its comprehensive approach to democratization has earned praise, according to Chapter 2 of the report. In this chapter, the Executive Director of the Democracy Coalition Project and co-author of the survey on “defending democracy”, brings the attention on the fact that: “Canada was praised for its pluralistic ‘flexible and holistic approach to democratization’. In the survey’s sample of 40 donor countries, Canada was among only three (the others being the Netherlands and Sweden) to receive a ‘very good’ rating on its ‘support of democracy abroad, as evidence by its willingness to provide electoral assistance to fledgling democracies, to support grassroots democracy programs through bilateral aid to and to criticize regimes engaged in the most egregious abuses of democracy.’”[7]

The Bloc Québécois is concerned about the lack of political oversight over a new independent foundation in a major foreign-affairs arena. CIDA is already criticized for its lack of transparency. A new independent foundation is likely to conduct its business the same way. In the European countries studied for the purposes of the report, democratic development assistance is closely monitored and does not receive huge amounts of money.

Furthermore, we fear that centralizing activities within a new independent institution could endanger the existing plurality of approaches, as Jean-Louis Roy of Rights and Democracy pointed out in the brief he submitted on October 2, 2006 “(…) we strongly believe that a centralized system could become a bureaucratic monster, could undermine the existing plurality of approaches, dialogues and activities that together produce significant results with our partners and, ultimately, could undermine Canada’s credit and credibility around the globe. I know no other country that has adopted such a centralized system. Before creating new institutions, existing mandates should be completely assessed and fully supported.”[8]

Funding for the new foundation: a risk of unverifiable expenditures

There is already a desperate shortage of funding for projects by NGOs and countries supported by CIDA. Canada is still far from reaching the 0.7% target. Against this backdrop, the Bloc Québécois finds it difficult to justify the establishment of another institution that will require large sums of money.

The Bloc Québécois believes that establishing a new foundation may well lead to unnecessary expenditures, as an agency already exists that has a democratic development mandate: Rights and Democracy. Its mission, according to the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development Act, is:

“(…) to initiate, encourage, and support cooperation between Canada and other countries in the promotion, development and strengthening of democratic and human rights institutions and programmes that give effect to the rights and freedoms enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights.[9]

Democratic development assistance as a foreign-policy tool for Canada to influence domestic policy in a target country?

Without better monitoring, without a clearer definition of the issues and without an independent evaluation being carried out beforehand, the types of measures recommended in this report may lead to political interference in the domestic affairs of another country. Canada could use democratic development assistance as a foreign-policy tool and decide to influence certain political “groups or forces” rather than others. Recommendation 18 and recommendation 25 allow for the possibility of a more interventionist foreign policy.

Recommendation 18 proposes that Canada should provide more support for the development of free and independent media, particularly in contexts where they are under pressure. To date, Canada has provided very little support for this type of project because it is a sensitive and controversial issue. However, the recommendation is based not on a meaningful, in-depth study of this chapter of democratic development assistance, but primarily on statements made by the Media and Democracy Group, which submitted a brief to the Committee.

There are already a few community radio projects supported by NGOs in some southern countries, and they receive funding from CIDA. As the report does not state clearly what criteria the new foundation will use to support one project rather than another, we are concerned that these NGOs will have to meet new criteria that do not match the ones on which they are currently evaluated to access funds. This may jeopardize their community radio projects.

This report draws heavily on evidence provided by witnesses, including Kevin Deveaux, who said that democratic development assistance should be used as a foreign-policy tool so that Canada can influence issues such as trade, human rights, bilateral and multilateral disputes and even questions of freedom and security. We are alarmed by these types of statements, especially since Canada's reputation, as a number of experts testified, is built on its impartiality and a foreign policy that has no underlying political agenda.

Conclusion

In a “major” study on democratic development, how can the Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development avoid at least trying to evaluate the effects of international action, both by Canada and other countries, on democratic development?  Such an evaluation is essential to determine what is helping (and not helping) to achieve the objectives set.  This needs to be done before deciding on any substantial changes to the objectives and the means allocated to achieving them.  Deciding to set up and fund a Canadian foundation that is expected to become nothing less than the “world leader” in democratic development assistance, without defining exactly what that is, and especially without explaining just how the foundation differs from existing bodies is literally incomprehensible for a Committee whose reports had the reputation of being thoughtful and well documented.  The existing bodies have apparently been written off as inadequate before any analysis has been conducted, including Rights and Democracy, a body created by Parliament in 1989 with enabling legislation that provides, as previously mentioned, “the promotion, development and strengthening of democratic institutions and programs”.[10]

The Bloc Québécois therefore supported the proposal that all Canadian public funds allocated to democratic development and also the work of CIDA and the international development organizations it funds should be evaluated, but did not support, in the absence of an independent expert evaluation, setting up a vaguely defined but generously endowed foundation that would become the sole agency funding and coordinating Canada’s democratic development activities and assistance to democracy.

This is why we consider that the work done is interesting but nowhere near adequate to support the main proposal of setting up a foundation.  In our view, the foundation appears a risky proposition, likely to jeopardize the generally positive image that Canada has earned so far.