FAAE Committee Report

The report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, in this report sets out recommendations for ‘Advancing Canada’s Role in International Support for Democratic Development,’ with a view to making Canada a ‘world leader’ in this important – yet sensitive - domain. In the opinion of the NDP, the majority report, endorsed by both Conservative and Liberal SCFAIT members, does not adequately address several complex issues, central to successful democratic development initiatives.

The NDP’s concerns are both substantive, and procedural. In terms of its substantive content, the report makes no concrete recommendations for attaining Canada’s international commitments to provide for the basic economic and social rights of the world’s poorest populations. The development of healthy democracies cannot be separated from a comprehensive human rights framework. The Standing Committee report largely ignores this critical link between the social and economic rights of the poor and democratic development, and does not offer a single recommendation to the government to address these issues in its woefully deficient current development aid policy.

Canada’s International Development Framework

Democratic development does not take place in a vacuum. Effective governing institutions and constructive civic engagement rarely, if ever, occur where individuals and communities are denied their basic economic and social rights. Security of the person, poverty reduction, sanitation, basic health services, and educational opportunity, are fundamental human rights that must be met if communities and individuals are to engage constructively in democratic processes. These rights are encoded in international law, accepted, ratified and promoted by successive Canadian governments, and have been emphasized in testimony presented to the Standing Committee (See: pp.27-28, Chapter One; pp. 43-47, Chapter 2), as they have been consistently throughout my four years since joining the Committee in the spring of 2003.

While acknowledged in the report with reference to “the full range of international human rights – including socio-economic and cultural rights,” (Recommendation 1), the subsequent recommendations are unacceptably silent on this critical interrelationship. The Standing Committee report fails to provide concrete guidance for how these related issues should be incorporated into the heart of Canadian development policy practice. The report acknowledges that democratic development cannot be effectively pursued in the absence of these social and economic rights. Yet, the NDP’s repeated attempts to amend the report to include these key considerations were rejected.

Canadians are painfully familiar with the continuing failure of Canadian government’s first under the Liberals, now under the Conservatives, to reconcile actions with words on this critical issue. On June 9, 2005, the Committee unanimously passed the NDP motion, calling on the then-Liberal government to reach the international standard of 0.7% of Gross National Income for development aid by 2015.[1] On June 28, 2005, on the eve of the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the House of Commons unanimously adopted this motion as well.[2] These motions expressed the clear will of the SCFAIT, and of Parliament itself. Yet, neither the then-Liberal government, nor the current Conservative government, has respected the unanimous will of Parliament to live up to these international ODA obligations. The lack of concrete recommendations to better address these social and economic rights is a glaring omission from this report.

Canada’s Official Development Assistance (ODA), for instance, as a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI) has been in considerable decline since the early nineties, where it measured approximately 0.5% of GNI/P.[3] By 2001, Canada’s development assistance reached rock bottom at 0.22% of GNI, as a result of a succession of restrictive Liberal budgets.[4] The current Conservative government has undone several years of modest recovery by reducing the development aid budget in 2007 to 0.31% of GNI - down from 0.36% in 2006, significantly short of the 0.7% target laid out in the Millennium Development Goals, to which Canada is a signatory.[5]

In November 2006, the SCFAIT members traveled to five European countries - Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and the UK – all of which have surpassed or are clearly on track to meet their Millennium Development Goal obligations. Democratic development experts in these countries, as well as many other witnesses presenting to the Standing Committee in Canada, all expressed the critical need for Canada to match its democratic development programs with substantial financial commitments to these related development goals. Still, the lessons of these leading countries, and the recommendations of these leading experts, were absent from the report’s final recommendations. The NDP cannot support the report without their inclusion.

The Standing Committee report purports to provide an agenda for action, on how the Canadian government can become a ‘world leader’ in democratic development. However, in our view, Canada must first demonstrate its commitment to the full range of political, economic and social rights without which effective democratic development cannot occur.

The NDP recommends as a first step, that the government of Canada demonstrate through concrete action it is prepared to respect its own parliamentary decisions and international obligations on these critical social and economic rights, to establish credibility with other countries on democratic development. The government of Canada must respect past motions and bills passed by the House of Commons (such as the better aid bill C-293, passed by Parliament, but still waiting to be proclaimed), as well as its signed obligations to the international community to achieve its ODA commitments, and incorporate the full range of human rights considerations across all of the government’s democratic development activities.

The Government’s ‘Credibility Gap’ on Democratic Development

The NDP is further concerned that the withholding of government policy documents on democratic development and the unanticipated inclusion of a major institutional policy recommendation within the draft report suggests the politicization of the report and its recommendations for the purposes of the Conservative government’s own narrow policy agenda.

This Committee’s deliberations were severely frustrated by the government’s refusal to share with the committee existing policy strategy documents pertaining to their democratic development agenda. On December 5, 2006, the Standing Committee adopted an NDP motion directing the government to share its draft strategy on fragile and failing states – some of very countries most likely to be targeted by Canada’s democratic development initiatives. As Parliamentary Secretary, Deepak Obhrai said at the time, “we don't see any difficulties. The government will be very happy to come forward and present its strategy on failed states and what it's been doing. This calls for it, and I think this is an improvement, so we have no problem in supporting this.”[6]

Repeated NDP requests over the subsequent six months for compliance with this motion were refused with no satisfactory explanation. When the final report was voted upon in mid-June, the government’s position had not been shared with committee, nor appropriate officials called before the committee to testify on this policy strategy.

The committee’s frustration was compounded by the inclusion in the report of major new policy initiative – the formation of a ‘Canada foundation’ for democratic development – which was not consistently advocated in testimony before the committee, nor requested by the majority of committee members.

Critically, the Standing Committee report’s recommendation for a new foundation was accompanied by a clearly articulated policy agenda for this foundation to play – including funding and logistical assistance for political parties in recipient states. Following the testimony of Thomas Axworthy, the report recommends this foundation “focus on political party assistance… which would introduce a tool largely absent from Canadian foreign policy” (italics added, p. 124, Chapter 7). The NDP is deeply troubled by this proposition. Genuine democratic development initiatives should never be captive to narrow national self-interest. ‘Democracy’ promotion can be, and has frequently undermined indigenous democratic processes around the world, when abused for the partisan foreign policy purposes of an external state.

Regardless of the foundation’s proposed activities, the Committee was in agreement that a comprehensive evaluation of Canada’s existing programs is a necessary precondition before future directions for Canada’s democratic development agenda can be effectively made. The NDP continues to hold the view that the creation of any new structures or institutions (such as a Canada foundation) should await the results of an independent evaluation of Canada’s existing democratic development programs. To the extent that the report signals its intent to move forward with a clearly-defined initiative under the auspices of a new institutional body, the report prejudices the outcomes of that evaluation.

These substantive and procedural failures cast serious doubt over the government’s respect for democratic processes within Canada, and its willingness to address the concerns of development experts and opposition parliamentarians. By disrespecting democratic processes at home, the government is undermining faith at home and abroad that it can operate as a credible broker on these issues in its democratic development policy abroad. The NDP recommends that the form or structure for any new democratic development initiatives should await the completion of an independent evaluation of Canada’s existing programs.

Conclusion

The NDP is deeply concerned by the substance and procedure of the Standing Committee report. This report, supported by the Conservative and Liberal members, advocates for Canada to become a champion of democratic development in today’s world. It is worrisome that in the process, the government disregarded democratic decisions reached by both the Committee and Parliament itself. In light of these considerable deficiencies both in substance and process, the NDP holds the view that neither this report’s recommendations, nor the government responsible to implement them, are adequate to the task of providing appropriate leadership in delivering constructive and effective democratic development.