Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Issue 12 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day at 4 p.m. to elect a Chair and to study the effectiveness of Canada's promotion of democratic development abroad and the role of the Parliament of Canada in this context.
[Translation]
Mr. François Michaud, Clerk of the Committee: As Clerk of your committee, it is my duty to preside over the election of a Chair.
[English]
I am now ready to receive nominations to that effect.
Senator Corbin: The authorities that be have spoken to each other, will continue to speak for some time, and, therefore, I should like to make the following motion: I move that the Honourable Senator Peter Stollery be the acting chair of the committee for today's meeting.
Mr. Michaud: Are there any other nominations? Seeing none?
Senator Di Nino: What is going on here? I am talking about the fact that Senator Stollery is being appointed chair for only today?
Senator Andreychuk: I understood that, should a chair resign, the deputy chair would automatically come into the position for one day.
Senator Corbin: It is not automatic.
Senator Andreychuk: Then we are doing it wrong in a few other committees. We will have to talk to Senator Milne.
The motion is for today's meeting.
Mr. Michaud: I shall read the motion again. It is moved by the Honourable Senator Eymard Corbin that the Honourable Senator Peter Stollery be the acting chair of the committee for today's meeting.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Peter A. Stollery (Acting Chairman) in the chair.
Senator Corbin: The whips have spoken and the leadership has spoken and they are continuing to speak to each other. This is an interim matter.
Senator Di Nino: I want to put on the record that I asked a question of my colleague, which was heard by others, and it appears that no one had any idea of what was going on here. That is fine. I have no problem with Senator Stollery serving as the acting chair for this meeting only, but there should have been some advice given to members. When I asked the question, most of the members across from me also said they did not know what was going on.
Senator Downe: The rules are quite clear. I believe that under rule 88 of the Senate the committee picks the chair of the committee. We have no chair and we now have an acting chair for the committee.
The Acting Chairman: May I read from Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules & Forms, rule 783:
When the Chair becomes vacant, the committee must then proceed to the election of a new Chairman, which is conducted by the committee clerk. The Vice-Chairman has no role in this procedure. Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, July 10, 1973, p. 39:4.
The meeting will now proceed.
I should like to say, in case I forget, that this committee will meet on February 27 but there will be no chair after today. Hence, the next meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade will be on February 27, 2007, when the Senate rises but not before 5:00 p.m., with the following agenda: Election of a chair and examination of such issues as may arise from time to time relating to foreign relations generally on the topic of Afghanistan. The scheduled witnesses for that meeting are Christopher Alexander, the United Nations deputy special representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan. Joining him will be James Appathurai, a spokesperson from NATO. The meeting may be televised.
Is it agreed, honourable senators?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Acting Chairman: Before we begin today's meeting, I should like to thank Senator Segal on behalf of all members of the committee for the terrific job he did as chairman of the committee.
[Translation]
Welcome to this meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. This is our second meeting pursuant to our new Order of Reference which calls for us to study the effectiveness of Canada's promotion of democratic development abroad and the role of the Parliament of Canada in this context.
[English]
Today, we welcome Mr. Donovan, Research Director for the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Queen's University. He has published a number of articles relating to international democracy promotion, including The Democracy Canada Institute: A Blueprint, with Thomas Axworthy and Leslie Campbell, as well as articles on democratic transitions in Afghanistan and Taiwan.
We also have with us, by video conference from Washington, D.C., Mr. Leslie Campbell. He has organized election observation missions around the region and provided training in the skills necessary for political candidates, government officials and voters to participate in democratic life. Mr. Campbell is a fellow at the Queen's University Centre for the Study of Democracy, and was formerly chief of staff to the leader of the New Democratic Party.
David Donovan, Research Director, Queen's University, Centre for the Study of Democracy: Mr. Chairman and distinguished senators of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak today about Canada's promotion of democratic development abroad. I am filling in today for the chair of the Centre for Democracy, Thomas Axworthy. I coauthored the centre's research paper on democracy Canada, so I hope I will have something to contribute today to your important research on democratic development.
I will speak today about democracy promotion as an objective; Canada's role in democracy promotion abroad in a comparative context, highlighting different models of democracy promotion organizations — political party organizations, in particular; and Canada's role in democracy promotion.
Democracy promotion as an objective: It is one of the most contested concepts in political science, chock full of normative connotations. As such, aiding democratic development can be a tricky process, as an evaluation to a transition to democracy will necessarily leave room for debate regarding the democratic status achieved by a particular country.
Political theorist Robert Dahl argues that representation is an essential element of a democracy, and to have democracy in a meaningful sense, the political institutions that facilitate this representation must be established and entrenched. Dahl points to free and fair elections as a necessary component of representation. Political parties are typically employed to undertake this representative function.
In his latest book, entitled Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Parties in New Democracies, theorist Thomas Carothers has this is to say about political parties in democracies:
Although democracy is of course an evolving corpus of political ideas and practices that will take on new forms over time, it is difficult now to envisage a genuine democracy — with real political alternatives open to citizens and broad-based representation of citizens' interests — without political parties or some organizations very much like them.
Support for political parties, then, is an essential element of assisting a country in the midst of a democratic transition.
Over what has been termed the third wave of democratization, several international democracy promotion organizations have been created and strengthened in Europe, North America, and in many new democracies themselves. Now, beyond the third wave, democracy promotion has taken an even more prominent role on the international stage. Moreover demand for international democracy assistance remains high in developing democracies throughout the world.
I will now address the comparative context, how democracy assistance is structured in developed countries.
Democracy-assistance organizations can be placed into three main categories — specifically, political party institutes like the German or Swedish party models, international or multilateral organizations like the Stockholm- based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, IDEA, and national umbrella or multi-party institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States, NED, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy in Great Britain, WFD, or the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, IMD.
In democracy assistance, the political party foundation model is a prominent feature particularly in Germany, but also notably in Sweden, France, Spain and a few other countries. The German party foundation model, or stiftungen, has served as a model for all party foundations and represented a first phase for political assistance organizations that became active internationally through the 1970s and 1980s. The two largest German foundations have yearly revenues exceeding Euros 100 million each, although they divide resources between international and domestic initiatives.
The German party models were joined in the 1980s by the U.S. party institutes, the International Republican Institute, IRI, the National Democratic Institute, NDI, although because of its broad and multi-partisan scope of work, the NDI has many characteristics of a multi-party organization.
In international democracy-assistance projects, the political party foundations tend to work with sister parties with like-minded political views in partner countries. For example, Sweden's Olof Palme Foundation, from the Social Democrat Party, tends to provide political party assistance to sister parties within Socialist International in developing democracies.
Political party foundations generally have a significant degree of independence from their affiliated parties. Because of the nature of independent party foundations, coordinated democracy promotion efforts among political parties may be difficult to achieve.
I will now address the international/multilateral model. The field of democracy assistance benefits from mutual learning and international cooperation. Thus, it is useful to highlight the multilateral model. Prominent organizations include IDEA, the World Movement for Democracy, the United Nations Development Programme, the Organization of American States and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. International IDEA, for example, of which Canada is a member, is a multilateral organization with member states across all continents that seek to support sustainable democracy in both new and long-established democratic countries. It is important for Canada to be represented in multilateral democracy-assistance bodies such as IDEA to learn from and influence the best practices of other organizations. However, the creation of an independent democracy Canada institute would promote Canadian democracy-assistance priorities in a more direct way.
I will now turn to the multi-party and umbrella model. The organizations that best fit the model of the internationalization of democracy assistance and exemplify the cooperative model of working both with international partners and through indigenous organizations include the NED, the Netherlands IMD and the Westminster Foundation. If the German party stiftungen served as the model for all party foundations, so has the NED served as a model for the European and other umbrella organizations that have emerged in the past decade.
Multi-party organizations unlike political party foundations provide differing degrees of oversight to the democracy-assistance projects undertaken by political parties because of their multi-partisan makeup. IMD, for example, employs a proportional representation from the seven major political parties in the Netherlands to undertake program activities while maintaining a permanent non-partisan bureau staff to manage the institute's overall policy approach. The IMD approach has served as a model for the newest party organizations created recently in Norway and Finland.
Multi-party organizations receive core funding from public sources and maintain an arm's length relationship with government agencies. The multi-party model is particularly intriguing because it incorporates elements of political party independence in which political parties are free to work with and develop programs with sister parties in partner countries while at the same time having the benefit of broad oversight of an umbrella organization to ensure policy coherence.
In discussing Canada's role in democracy promotion, I will highlight a key feature of our democracy Canada paper — that is, the role of political party assistance in democracy promotion.
Based on our analysis of existing organizations in the Canadian democracy-assistance community, it is clear that no single organization does significant work in political party assistance. For instance, while CIDA has a large budget dedicated to democratic governance, none of this budget encompasses work with political parties directly. The parliamentary centre engages in support for legislatures in developing democracies, but because of its requirement to appear neutral, it cannot work formally with the political parties in those legislatures, which of course poses certain problems.
Furthermore, most Canadian organizations that provide democracy assistance abroad do not make this their sole focus, but rather make it one of their many objectives, and sometimes international democracy assistance makes up only a small fraction of their overall budgets. Specifically, Canada lacks an institution comparable to the Dutch Institute for Multiparty Democracy or the United States' National Endowment for Democracy. Parliament should consider adding this piece to the democracy promotion community in Canada.
I shall now address the subject of a role for Canada within the democracy-assistance community. I received a study grant to examine European models of democracy assistance in 2005. I have learned that not only are international political party assistance organizations thriving in many European countries, but also that their operations are expanding in the Netherlands and Sweden and that new organizations have been created in Finland and Norway. The democracy Canada institute proposal has received international attention, being referenced by organizations such as the OECD, the UNDP and International IDEA. CSD's — the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's University — international consultations made it clear when we were researching the democracy Canada paper that the democracy-assistance community would see the creation of democracy Canada as a very worthwhile initiative, particularly in the area of political party assistance.
I shall now address a role for Parliament. In democracy Canada, we proposed a Canadian-based democracy institution. I will highlight some of our main recommendations for democracy Canada: First, democracy Canada should be an independent organization reporting to and accountable to Parliament; it should not be made part of any department. Second, Canada's political parties should have a significant role in providing democracy assistance abroad. Third, the mission of democracy Canada would be to promote and enhance democracy abroad. Democracy Canada would employ a network of experts to provide practical experience in the areas of democratic development to their counterparts in partner countries. Democracy Canada's activities would focus on political party assistance, including training in campaigns, electioneering, media relations, which would introduce a tool largely absent from Canadian foreign policy today. Programs would also include enhancing democratic transparency, involve election monitoring, promoting civic participation, especially among women, and assisting the building of democratic institutions.
Fifth, and finally, democracy Canada would coordinate a Team Canada democracy delegation around key Canadian foreign policy objectives. With democracy Canada, coordinated assistance could be provided to a partner country, including elements of political party assistance provided by the parties, legislative assistance from the parliamentary centre, electoral assistance from Elections Canada, and so on. Democracy Canada would maintain the overall focus of the delegation and would be responsible for democratization programs in the partner country.
In conclusion, Canada has a wealth of experience in democratic institutions and processes that can be shared with emerging democracies. A Canadian-based democracy institution with expertise in a federal, ethnically diverse, multilateral and bilingual country would be welcomed into the international democracy-promotion community and have a significant impact in assisting developing democracies.
The Acting Chairman: Mr. Campbell, please proceed.
Leslie Campbell, Senior Associate and Regional Director, Middle East and North Africa Programs, National Democratic Institute: It is a pleasure to appear before you by video conference. I want to express my appreciation to the chair and the members of the committee.
Thank you for mentioning my Canadian connection. I was going to say at the outset that, even though I have been at the National Democratic Institute for 13 years, I was chief of staff to Audrey McLaughlin in the early 1990s. I also worked for Gary Doer, prior to him being Premier of Manitoba. I am from Manitoba originally.
It is my pleasure to speak to you about my two great passions — Canadian politics and governance — and today's topic, the importance of spreading good governance and democracy abroad.
Mr. Donovan mentioned the National Democratic Institute, NDI, which is an organization that can be described as a political party institute. We have a relationship to the U.S. Democratic Party, although that relationship does not include a day-to-day governance relationship; it is primarily through the presence on our board of directors of a number of prominent Democrats. We are chaired right now by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Rather than repeating some of what Mr. Donovan said — as was mentioned earlier, we coauthored a paper with Tom Axworthy — I will take a step back. Mr. Donovan already made a strong case for creating a new institute in Canada. I want to make the case for why it is important to think about issues of democracy and good governance, and suggest reasons for why Canada is uniquely positioned to do so.
There is an emerging international consensus that traditional development aid is more likely to be misspent or wasted in countries where democratic processes and institutions are lacking and where the basic tenants of good governance and the rule of law are not respected. I think all of us have heard many of these stories — problems of corruption, waste, bias toward certain ethnic groups in society, the problem of ``kleptocracies,'' as they are sometimes called, where the people at the top misappropriate development aid and projects for their own purposes.
Most development organizations, certainly including and led by organizations like the World Bank, have come to realize over time that having good governance — and not just good governance in the sense of good ministers or competent governance at the top, but democracy, including citizens having deliberative bodies like parliaments to provide oversight — is crucial to the proper use of aid.
The second thing that has come to all of our attention over the past four or five years, especially after the attacks of 9/11, is that the lack of democracy or the opportunity to participate in political systems can lead to the export of terrorism — in the case of September 11 — but also can lead to the export of many problems.
One of the basic analyses of September 11, an analysis I think continues to hold today, is that in countries — in terms of 9/11 we are specifically talking about Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, but the same could we said of many different countries — where citizens have very little opportunity to have input into the decisions that affect their lives, where resentment is built, where frustration builds over time, where repression and authoritarian rule is instituted and practised, those types of countries tend to export their problems. I do not want to make excuses for them, but extremists who have no possibility of influencing policy in their own countries try to influence other countries through acts of terrorism and so on.
As many of you know, one of the responses of many countries around the world has been to try to encourage more openness and the end of dictatorships and authoritative regimes in parts of the world, in the hope of giving people more chances to participate in their own systems of governance, which may reduce the temptations to take their crusades outside their own countries.
I should mention, too, that when I am talking about democracy, I am talking about very basic tenets of democracy. I am not talking about some kind of ideological crusade here. I am talking about elections as a way of periodically choosing leaders. I am talking about parliaments or elected bodies as an oversight mechanism, as a way to provide accountability. I am talking about basic ideas of freedom of information, where governments should provide information on decisions and on things like budgets to citizens.
I am not talking about a Western concept of democracy or one practice of democracy. In my work, and I have been doing this for more than 13 years now, there are all sorts of ways of accomplishing the objectives of accountability, oversight and alternates of power. There is no one way of doing that. I believe deeply that every citizen, every person in the world — and I think public research will bear this out — desires to have some control over the decisions that affect their lives.
Why should Canada be involved in this? I would argue that Canada is already heavily involved. For example, Canadians hold senior positions in the democracy offices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the OSCE, and in the Organization of American States. NDI, my organization, employs 30 Canadians in senior capacities in its overseas offices. Not only do we employ 30 Canadians, more than 350 prominent Canadians in political life have been involved in NDI programs at one time or another, including virtually all of the former party leaders in Canada.
Canadians employed at the World Bank and the United Nations play a lead role in governance and rule of law programs. We help set policy at a number of organizations. Many of you know that Mr. Jean Pierre Kingsley just accepted a position as president of a sister organization here in Washington, IFES — the International Foundation for Election Systems.
We are already playing a role as individuals. I would argue that it would be great to harness some of that expertise and give it more of a Canadian face.
Why are Canadians already so involved? I think there are many reasons. First, Canadians are well received abroad and Canadian motives, particularly in the sensitive area of political development, are seldom challenged. A Canadian organization would find great receptivity around the world in this field of democracy and governance. Our multilingual, multicultural, tolerant view tends to produce people with sensitivity to foreign cultures and people who thrive in foreign settings.
Canada's political parties have highly developed grassroots organizing models that are relevant to many developing countries. Unlike the large, publicly funded European parties, or the private, money-reliant American parties, Canadian parties are decentralized, volunteer driven, have modest budgets with public and private funding and operate under strict spending limits. Canadian political parties are valued and important members of the main- international groupings of political parties — Liberal International, Socialist International and Centrist Party International. As such, Canada's parties and party leaders are already part of an international network of political activists.
Canada's parliamentary system and the experiences of current and former Canadian parliamentarians are relevant around the world. Most emerging democracies have parliamentary systems, and the Canadian model is more applicable in nascent parliaments than the unique, expensive and unwieldy American system.
Quebec's National Assembly can also provide an example in countries where the political system resembles the French model; and Canadian provincial legislatures are similar in scale and budget to the legislatures in many developing nations.
Canada's federation is a model of decentralization, power sharing and respect for minority rights. There is a great deal we do to share what works in our federation.
Canada is world renowned for administering fair, efficient elections and for maintaining accurate voter registries. There are many more things in this list, but for the sake of brevity, I will cut it off at that. I have provided copies of my notes to the clerk and would be glad if he would distribute those.
Canada has many unique things to offer. However, despite the wealth of talent — as I mentioned, hundreds of Canadians are involved in this field — despite Canada's unique contributions, Canada's actual efforts remain disparate, underfunded and anonymous. Perhaps more important, there is little sense of Canadianness and almost no effort to promote Canadian contribution to democracy promotion as part of Canada's international identity. I suspect that some people may take issue with my comments in this regard, but I make these comments as a person who has been working abroad for 13 years for an organization for which I do not find many Canadian counterparts to what I do. While it is admiral that Canada has exported so many individuals who thrive within international organizations, little or no credit accrues to Canada as a result of their activities.
Before I finish my presentation, I wish to re-iterate some of the comments that Mr. Donovan made about what we might do to remedy this issue not only to take advantage of both the talents of Canadian politicians and parliamentarians but also to increase Canada's profile in this extremely important field of democracy in governance. We have promoted the idea of developing a new institute; and, in fact, we talk about two. One is a political party institute of some sort to harness the ideas and talents within our political parties. Canada does not have such an institute. As Mr. Donovan mentioned, Canada is one of the few developed countries without that kind of institute. He gave some details on what that might look like.
The second is what we have provisionally called ``Democracy Canada,'' an umbrella organization that takes into account all of Canada's many efforts in this area. Mr. Donovan mentioned the Parliamentary Centre of Canada, and there is the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development in Montreal, as well as other important organizations.
We are arguing that if there were a new institution, provisionally called ``Democracy Canada'', it would give much more form and credit to Canadian efforts in this field and would help us in this important field.
With that, I will end and thank you for your time.
Senator Segal: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Donovan and Mr. Campbell for making themselves available to appear today. I wish to focus on two aspects of their respective comments. The first is the relationship between the Parliament of Canada and what you would see as an appropriate structure for democratization efforts abroad, and how that would relate to the political party institute that you reference. In the research prepared for the committee by the Library of Parliament, there is a long list of the various aspects of the Canadian government that are involved in different democracy promotion activities in respect of human rights, women's participation and electoral process. One view is that these organizations are doing what they are doing, and let 1,000 flowers bloom. How do we improve the nature of our activity and its effectiveness if we have a consolidated body that operates based on political party activity, per se, or relates directly to Parliament, as the National Democratic Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy do in respect of the U.S Congress and the Westminster Foundation in respect of the U.K. Parliament?
I want to understand, from the perspective of both of you, the benefit of having a body that relates directly to Parliament. I have heard that if we see democracy as a way of bringing failed states and states that have deep polarities and divisions to the democratic option, instead of the armed option, sometimes we have to dialogue with people who might not be on official lists of acceptable interlocutors and are not state actors. Mr. Campbell, I would guess that that is what you do in your work in the Middle East. As we have seen in the phenomenon in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, at some point negotiations between legitimate state actors and non-state participants were necessary to bring them into the democratic process.
I want to understand whether the parliamentary option would increase the range of people on the ground with whom Canadians could work to try to broaden the democratic reach. I want to know how you would connect the parliamentary option to the part institute process, which focuses on the primacy of the political party as a source of compelling democratization — which, if it is not strong in a target country, then you are not likely to see any true democracy over time. I would ask that you reflect on that.
Mr. Campbell: In my opinion, there has to be some separation from the government and from government policy. In my experience of going into a country, a government, whether it is the U.S. or Canadian government, has good reasons to have an agenda. Yet, I have to work with all legal and non-violent parties. However, the government and its development agency, CIDA in Canada or USAID in the United States, the ambassadors, must have a relationship with the foreign government. Their interlocutor is the foreign government.
If the institute I was working for were reporting directly to a government department or trying to carry out government policy, then my natural partner would be a ministry or a prime minister. In that case, if I wanted to have a seminar or provide training to an opposition party, it would be difficult, not only in the view of the U.S. government but also in the view of the opposition party, who might not like U.S. government policy — I will talk about the U.S. for a second here, because I work for an American organization. The advantage of the arm's length relationship — and we are arguing that it should be with the Canadian Parliament and not with the Canadian government. The advantage of the arm's length relationship is that I can go into a country and say that I am not representing U.S. government policy. Rather, I am a Canadian political party activist and I have brought my colleagues who understand political parties. We are here to deal with you as political party colleagues. I am not here to promote any one kind of government policy — and that helps.
Second, as you mentioned, it gives a little more freedom in terms of partners. We at NDI are bound by various U.S. laws and rules. If an organization is on a terrorist list, we do not deal with that organization. However, we have paved, in working, for example, in the Middle East with legal Islamic parties, not the violent ones. For example, we have worked with the PJD in Morocco or the one in Yemen. We have the freedom as an arm's length organization to go in and establish those relationships, not with terrorist organizations but with organizations that are on the fringes that an official organization, the government organization, would not touch.
We have that freedom because we are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, which receives its appropriation from Congress. Ultimately, it justifies itself to Congress and has a lot of freedom. I would argue that the model of reporting to Parliament and having some distance from the government is important.
On the question of political parties and the importance of strengthening them, I often use the analogy of supply and demand. So much of development work is concentrated on the demand side. We teach citizens in developing countries to demand more from their governments and from their political systems. We do not work on the supply side — the people who make policies, decide on budgets, appropriate funds and, ultimately, decide how to spend those funds. We let them fend for themselves. We do not believe we have to develop the capacity of political parties — the political parts of parliaments — in terms of how to get bills through, how to look at a budget, how to make priorities and trade-offs around a budget. In the development community, we do not work on that side at all.
The only organizations that work on the supply side, the people such as yourselves who make allocation and prioritization decisions, are organizations like NDI or the party institutes. To my knowledge, Canada does no work on the supply side. We spend a great deal of development money on the demand side, bringing up citizen demand, and then governments in developing countries and parliaments are unable to respond properly to those demands.
Mr. Donovan: Unless an arm's length body is established, it is safe to say that working with political parties would be almost impossible. In our interviews during our research for democracy Canada, we spoke with people from CIDA, who said that a large portion of their budget is dedicated to democratic governance but that none of it can go to formally working with political parties because a government department has to remain neutral.
Similarly, I was at the Democracy Council's conference last week in Ottawa where there was a speaker from the Parliamentary Centre of Canada whose work is assisting legislatures in other countries. He said that you can only take your work so far, that you cannot formally interact with the political parties in the legislatures you are assisting but you must appear neutral. That is why we proposed an agency reporting to Parliament.
Senator Segal: What would you envisage in the ``Democracy Canada'' proposal to be the working relationship with the various groups other there right now, such as Rights & Democracy Canada, the Parliamentary Centre of Canada, all of which do good and substantial work? How would the organization you propose be funded, in a perfect world?
Can you explain why agencies have this toxic sense that they cannot interact with political parties abroad? What is it about political parties that makes them toxic to government departments engaging with them? Having been in the field, you may be able to speak about that.
Mr. Campbell: There are two ways of trying to figure out the relationship between a new institute, were it to be developed in Canada, and the existing organizations. First, an argument that I personally have made over the years, is that organizations such as the Parliamentary Centre of Canada and Rights & Democracy struggle for funding. They are small organizations. I would argue that if a democracy Canada-type of organization were developed, it should become an umbrella organization that would provide funding to the existing organizations. In other words, it would provide a structure and a policy direction. It would include on its board a wide range of experts as well as parliamentarians, political party activists and so on, and it would help to provide funding.
That is the roughly the National Endowment for Democracy model. The NED has core institutes under it, including the Center for International Private Enterprise related to the American Chamber of Commerce, and the International Center for Labour Solidarity, related to the AFL-CIO. It also provides funding to organizations such as the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy and the Women's Learning Partnership. A dozen more American organizations get funding from the National Endowment for Democracy.
It is not an overbearing organization; it is one that helps them. The fact that NED has on its board very high- powered political figures — senators, heads of the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, et cetera — gives more impetus to their work.
I would argue that the existing organizations should continue to do the great work they are doing, but a democracy Canada-type institute would be a huge help to them and should be the source of funding for these organizations.
In the U.S., there is the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the State Department. I think the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs has a similar type of bureau that has democracy as its focus. That bureau, in this case at Foreign Affairs, could have responsibility for a number of these organizations. That is another model that is equally good. It would be a specialized democracy bureau housed within a Canadian government department — probably Foreign Affairs — that has responsibility for these existing organizations.
My personal bias would be toward the model of an umbrella-type democracy organization because, again, it puts the issues on the map.
As to how this would be funded, my argument, to simplify it, would be that a new institution would be created that reports to Parliament. It receives significant funding — not American-style funding, but significant funding — and then it becomes a grant-making organization to the existing organizations in the field and also carries out programs on its own.
Senator Segal: Mr. Campbell, you did not talk about why government agencies do not want to deal with political parties.
Mr. Campbell: That is something near and dear to my heart. My flippant answer is that people are scared of politics. As I mentioned, I am a political animal. When I visit other countries, I find political parties to be the most relevant and interesting thing. I work in the Middle East, and many people are surprised to learn that there are thriving multi-party systems in places like Morocco, Algeria, Yemen and Jordan. However, to get a government development agency to deal with them is very difficult.
I believe that in a government-to-government relationship — in this case the Canadian or the U.S. government — an agency does not want to deal with parties. It is afraid that dealing with parties will somehow compromise its relationship with the minister of foreign affairs, the minister of planning or the development minister. However, in reality, be it in the Middle East or in places like Indonesia, Sri Lanka or Afghanistan, the political parties, as in Canada, are the intermediary between the citizens and the policy-making process.
It amazes me that so many governments and funders think they can do development, promote policies and promote women's participation. For example, they want to promote women's participation in politics but never want to deal with the parties. Yet, if you could convince the party leaders to come up with a system to get more women nominated, it would happen almost overnight.
One of the most successful things that NDI has done in Morocco is to convince the party leaders there to agree to a voluntary quota that eventually got 35 women elected to the Moroccan parliament in the last election. That happened because the political party leaders agreed to make it happen. We could have spent millions of development dollars getting organizations to do public awareness campaigns that would have elected five women. Getting the party leaders to agree resulted in the election of 35 women.
I cannot tell you why they are toxic, but they are. From 13 years of this work, I can tell you that dealing with political parties is a huge part of moving a development agenda forward.
The Acting Chairman: There were 35 women elected out of how many?
Mr. Campbell: There are close to 300 seats in total in the Moroccan parliament. The Moroccan parliament has the single largest proportion of women in the Arab world, with the exception of parliaments like Syria, where there is not even a semblance of democracy. Of the countries in the Middle East with any semblance of democracy, Morocco now has the greatest number of women.
[Translation]
Senator Dawson: First of all, former members of the House of Commons or of the Senate may be willing to offer their services, even though senators tend to retire at a later age than MPs. You have not said anything about this possibility. Their expertise could prove to be an effective asset when doing business with the Parliament of Canada.
Second, former provincial members of Parliament could probably be called upon to get involved when elections are held abroad. Here, I am also including members of provincial political parties.
Finally, how would we go about targeting those countries in which would like to get involved?
[English]
Mr. Donovan: We lay out an argument in one of the appendices of our democracy Canada paper that there should be an incorporation of the role of the organization of former parliamentarians. I did not mention it in the presentation due to lack of time, but that is one thing we recommended as a way to tap into resources.
If I am not mistaken, many of those former parliamentarians were involved in NDI missions.
Mr. Campbell: By addressing this question, I can show you why I find it so odd that Canada does not have an organization like this.
The current head of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians, Doug Rowland, was an NDI representative in Morocco. He was an NDI employee and has played a large role in getting former parliamentarians involved in NDI. I do not have the list in front of me, but I would say that NDI itself employs at least six former parliamentarians, as we speak, as full-time employees, either former members of Parliament or former members of provincial legislatures. For example, our current director in Morocco is a former member of the Quebec National Assembly, and we have a number of other former parliamentarians working for NDI.
My argument would be that, if Canada creates a democratic development institution, former parliamentarians, former members of the legislatures are prime. These are the people you want involved because you want their practical experience, both on the party organizing end and on the legislative end. We already employ a number of former parliamentarians, and this would be a huge priority for a new Canadian institution.
In terms of target countries, that is a big issue, obviously. I have my own ideas. I would say, right off the top of my head, because I work in the Middle East, that there is a crying need for Canada in the Middle East. Just as an example, NDI works with Fatah and other smaller political parties in the Palestinian territories — the West Bank and Gaza. I can tell you right now that a Canadian organization working in political development is sorely needed in the Palestinian territories. Places like Zimbabwe come to mind. I think we could expand what we are doing in Afghanistan in the political development arena. One could come up with target countries, but it is a controversial subject as well.
Senator Dawson: Mr. Chairman, even though you are only temporarily in that seat, could we invite Mr. Rowland and the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians Association of Canada to be here?
The Acting Chairman: Yes, of course, we could.
Senator Dawson: That being said, we do miss Senator Segal being in the chair.
The Acting Chairman: Senator Segal is the person who brought this study forward. We will do it.
Before I call on Senator Andreychuk, in terms of having NDI personnel in place, if I am not mistaken, you had one killed in Baghdad recently. Is that really a safe environment for people to work in? Did you not have a young lady killed about six weeks ago?
Mr. Campbell: Yes, we did. On January 17, a young woman along with three other personnel was killed. It is the first time it has happened in NDI history — although this is a dangerous business. We have sent people into Gaza, into Yemen, and we have an office in Beirut. Baghdad is more dangerous, though. Almost by definition, we are working in countries where there is conflict or instability, and there is a measure of danger to this.
Senator Andreychuk: I want to go back to the premise of why we would have an institute. Is it to support debate, party process, development of democracy in Canada, which is one thing, as opposed to then exporting it elsewhere?
With NDI, if there have been critics, and there have been, of the process, is that it is identified with the Democratic Party in the United States. I do not know if NDI apologizes for that or takes comfort in that. When NDI is involved in other countries, they are faulted for exporting a point of view, where, in fact, what the Canadian government has tried through Rights & Democracy, the Parliamentary Centre of Canada and through the initiatives in DFAIT, is to build some multi-party structures.
I am a little confused as to how we would operate the Canadian component, if I can call it that way, and then the international component. The third layer is this: If it is to report to Parliament directly, inevitably you come into the party politics of the day. How do we truly make it representative of all Canadians?
Mr. Campbell: I would respond in several ways. One is that you are right, senator, that a danger in this work is that an organization can be seen as partisan or seen as affiliated with one point of view and as exporting a model. Even though they actually do seek ideological partners, the German party foundations, which have existed since the end of World War II, do not seem really dogged by that problem. We have tried to deal with this at NDI by being multi- partisan. We do not seek like-minded party partners. We will work with all parties across the spectrum. We are very international in how we present ourselves. The majority of people working for NDI abroad are non-American — not that we do not like Americans, but it is important to show that we are not promoting one particular system and particularly an American system because there would be a lot of resistance to that.
I would argue that designing the institution is important. In other words, how you design it would have a big impact — because you are absolutely right, namely, that you would not want a Canadian organization to come across as promoting one political point of view or seeking only like-minded partners.
The model that Mr. Donovan has talked about that I would agree with is something along the lines of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, which is an organization that has all the Dutch parties involved. I would argue that that is what Canada should do as well.
Senator Segal and I have had many conversations about this, and I have dealt with people from other party backgrounds, and we all agree that once we leave the borders of Canada we should leave the ideology and partisan identification behind.
I believe it would be entirely possible to have a multi-party Canadian institute and we would not have this problem of looking like we were seeking only like-minded partners.
Mr. Donovan: I agree with Mr. Campbell about the Dutch IMD. I want to mention that Mr. Campbell's point of view has been echoed by Thomas Carothers, for example, and other democracy theorists who have said that the Dutch IMD has been able to avoid many of the trappings of older political party foundations that are independent, such as the German models, if there are any problems there. The Dutch IMD can work independently and without as much political pressure; they employ a proportional representation of all the political parties. The governing party has more representatives in IMD. It is focused that way. How Canada would set something up could be different, but that is the way the Netherlands IMD does it. They use all their political parties to promote democracy abroad working with all the political parties or roughly all the political parties in the developing democracy.
Senator Andreychuk: In terms of the political parties represented in our Parliament, there is a question of whether our system leads to fair representation of Canadians by the party structures and the parliamentary structure we now have.
The other point we often come down to, and I am overseas on these issues in teaching, is that the only true lack of democracy lies within the parties themselves, so who are they to go to other countries to talk about how to be democratic and how to allow women and minorities to move forward? We had better get some more democracy within our own systems before we start exporting our ideas.
Mr. Campbell: I can respond by describing the types of activities I think an institute like this would carry out. That might help answer the question.
Things this institute might do would include: training of political candidates and campaign managers; advice on developing mechanisms for internal party democracy and transparency — a very important issue around the world; seminars with political party leaders and activists on volunteer recruitment; fundraising advice. By the way, this organization, in my opinion, would never provide funding to parties. It may give them advice on how to raise funds, but it would never provide funding, because that is a dangerous road to go down.
The proposed institute could also provide message development and communication with voters, development of written materials describing political party constitutions, bylaws, structures and outreach activities. The organization could facilitate research on party financing laws and regulations. The Canadian organization could attach foreign political activists to Canadian election campaigns in internship-type capacities, and it could also contribute political practitioners, for example, former parliamentarians, to international election observation missions.
I do not think the institute we are talking about would have any domestic role at all. My opinion is that it would try to do all these things abroad. I take your point about the shortcomings domestically, but that would beyond the brief of a democracy Canada-type institute.
Senator Corbin: Is it possible to substantiate or qualify results for money spent in this area? Could you give me an example of one or two success stories? Could you give me an example of worst-case situations, where nothing came out of the effort?
Canadians are concerned with the expense of money in the area of good governance. Our briefing notes tell us that, in the period 1999 to 2004, funding in the area of good governance accounted for roughly 20 per cent, or more than $380 million, of CIDA's overall annual disbursements. That is from a DFAIT briefing note of April 2006. The Minister for International Cooperation told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs on October 18, 2006, that CIDA spent over $375 million on ``democratic governance programs'' in the year 2005. Canadian taxpayers obviously would want to know what we receive in terms of results for all that money.
Mr. Campbell: I have a few responses to that, and Mr. Donovan may want to jump in on specifically the Canadian issues.
NDI — as well all the organizations associated with National Endowment for Democracy — submits proposals that are very detailed. They have evaluation and monitoring plans included in them. They are gone over with a fine-tooth comb. We follow all of the U.S.-government procurement rules and so on. This is a very well-watched field. We submit ourselves to independent outside evaluations. In fact, we often organize them. A number of independent outside audits are done either by government departments or by independent auditors. As with any public activity, these activities must be subject to full scrutiny and results must be shown. There is actually a lot of literature in the U.S. in terms of the efficacy of democracy funding, because it is a rather large amount of funding.
I can give you some quick success stories. NDI goes back many years, but I will throw some out that may be well known. You may not have thought of democracy organizations being involved in these examples.
The Chilean plebiscite in the 1980s, which resulted in the end of the Pinochet government, came as a result of advice and consultations with Chilean activists by NDI primarily but also other organizations who were able to convince the Chileans and provide them training that made them realize that a peaceful plebiscite was a way of sending a message to the Pinochet government.
Prior to that, in the Philippines, the People Power Revolution of Corazon Aquino, which included a large component of what we call domestic election monitoring, in other words, thousands of citizens volunteering to look at the election, eventually led to the end of the Marcos regime. That came about as a result of democracy programs, this whole idea of domestic election monitoring.
I mentioned the example in the Middle East of Morocco, where 35 women were elected in the last election. That came as a result of not just one organization — it was very much an indigenous issue as well — but as a result of the support of international organizations like NDI.
There have been many examples of success stories, but for every project we do, whether it is $100,000 or $1 million, we submit quarterly reports. In every quarter, we quantify results in that quarter and justify whether or not we are moving toward the ultimate objectives in the original proposal. I think it is important to quantify this work and to move toward the ultimate result.
Mr. Donovan: Getting back to the role of democracy Canada as a coordinating body in democratic promotion abroad, currently there are several organizations active in democracy promotion and democratic governance — but, like we said, none in political party work. Many of these organizations are funded through CIDA, by Foreign Affairs or through other government grants. One possible benefit of having a coordinated ``Democracy Canada Institute'' that would send out funding to these organizations would be that you could go to one place to check up on accountability.
It is clear that there is a need internationally for more work to be done in democratic development, particularly in political party development. I just came from a meeting this morning at the IDRC with the Secretary General of International IDEA from Stockholm speaking about a recent project they have completed, which was a needs assessment of developing democracies in terms of political party support. They did the most extensive study I am aware of. They looked at about 30 different countries in every region of developing democracies and came to the conclusion that most of those countries required greater support in political party development.
Senator Di Nino: Let me start with a question of clarification. If I understand correctly, we are talking about a need to increase, in effect, democratic promotion internationally. We are talking more about international contribution as opposed to national. Am I correct?
Mr. Donovan: Yes, I believe that is correct.
Senator Di Nino: We are not talking about the need to increase the promotion and effectiveness today, at least, of national democracy. I just want to clarify that.
Mr. Donovan: Yes, that was my understanding.
Senator Di Nino: Having read your material, and having read the briefing paper that was prepared for us, a large number of organizations are serving that market or that need internationally. Am I hearing from both of you that that myriad of organizations is not doing an effective enough job or does not have enough resources to be able to do the job that needs to be done out there for the promotion and development of democracy?
Mr. Donovan: Yes, I think that is precisely what we are saying, or that there are components missing from Canada's efforts in international democracy promotion and they could be better coordinated.
Canada has many organizations active in civil society, legislative elections and these sorts of areas of democratic development, but no significant work in political party development, which we have argued is a key piece.
If you look internationally, new political party organizations are being created in Norway and Finland and they are being strengthened in Sweden and the Netherlands. Their budgets are increasing and they are doing more work internationally. Canada does not contribute much in the way of political party assistance except, as Mr. Campbell mentioned, through other international organizations or through other countries' democracy promotion organizations.
To speak to the point about funding, Elections Canada does elections monitoring abroad, but that is not their core function. I do not know exactly what their budget is, but it is not a significant amount. I think the budget of Rights & Democracy is $5 million a year. I do not think anybody would say that that is enough to do political party programming abroad. Even though it is called Rights & Democracy, they have focused on human rights development and the link to democracy and have not engaged with political parties.
What we are saying is that more work can be done, particularly in the area of political party support internationally.
Mr. Campbell: Sometimes it is deceptive because you can come up with the names of a large number of organizations, but as Mr. Donovan mentioned — and the last time I talked to Mr. Kingsley about Election Canada's international budget, it is something like $1 million. Rights & Democracy's total budget is something like $5 million or $6 million, but the democracy promotion part of that may be something like one third of that, so it may be less than $2 million. Those are the two biggest organizations in this field.
We were talking about earlier where CIDA said that about 20 per cent of their budget was in democracy and governance. I am not sure what they are counting, but it is not in the field we are talking about today, which is the development of parliaments, political parties, advocacy as it relates to influencing national policy elections support. It is not in those fields for sure; it may be in other fields that are broadly associated.
There may be a lot of organizations involved, but we are talking amounts that probably come out to a total of less than $10 million Canadian. I do not want to make the comparisons to the U.S., but just so we know the scale, $1.5 billion is devoted to this topic in the U.S. per year. We are talking $10 million compared to $1.5 billion.
To provide another example, the budget of one of the German party foundations is about 120 million Euros a year, just one of the organizations. I am not arguing that Canada should do things on that scale, but Canada's contributions are minuscule compared to other countries, even small compared to the Netherlands or Sweden.
Senator Di Nino: Whether the budget for these things is sufficient or not, what I understand you are saying, is we have not put enough money into this. It is not necessarily that we need a new institution or new entity. I think both of you said that Canada has not committed sufficient resources to this issue. Is that correct?
Mr. Donovan: We are saying that there have not been enough resources committed to democracy promotion abroad from Canada's perspective, but the way that the resources are channelled is probably more important than the actual amount, or at least as important as the actual amount of resources allocated to democracy promotion. As I said, we are missing a key component of democracy promotion, and that is supporting political parties.
To touch on what Mr. Campbell said a minute ago, perhaps Canada could be looking at a model, something like the Dutch IMD or countries of that size. Dutch IMD spends about Euros 10 million a year on just political party support. If we take Mr. Campbell's estimate that Canada spends about $10 million in the whole field of democracy promotion, that is not even what the Netherlands, a comparable country, spends on political party support.
Mr. Campbell: I think more resources for the existing organizations make sense. The Parliamentary Centre of Canada and Rights & Democracy do great work. They have had very small funding levels. A lot of things have changed in the last year or two. I know the Department of Foreign Affairs has established a democracy council and is spending more time and effort on these issues. The Canada Corps at CIDA, I thought, had great leadership and started to do great things. Great things have happened in the last few years, but I would echo what r. Donovan said in that perhaps what is more important than the absolute numbers is how this assistance is delivered.
Most people abroad, and I suspect most Canadians, would not be able to describe what Canada does in the democracy field. I think some coherence is needed as well.
Senator Di Nino: Would our two guests comment on whether we could accomplish the same objective being suggested under the creation of the proposed democracy Canada institute by increasing our contributions to organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme or the International IDEA.
Mr. Donovan: I will echo something that Mr. Campbell said in his presentation earlier. That is a possibility, but the problem is that you cannot necessarily get out of Canadian foreign policy objective because you are working through a multilateral organization. Membership in those sorts of organizations is important. For instance, I can speak to my personal experience. I worked at IDEA for a while in 2005, and it is a great organization that has a lot of member states from different countries. You meet a lot of different people working in the field of democracy, so you learn, from their perspective, best practices and those sorts of things. However, their policies and programs are determined by International IDEA and not by Canada or any other member state on its own. Canada has a lot of expertise in the field of democracy, political parties for instance. If you want to support political parties abroad using Canadian organizations, then it does not make sense necessarily to only work with multilaterals. That is why we propose the creation of a new institute.
Mr. Campbell: Very briefly, my answer would be no. I am all for strengthening our contribution to the UNDP and others. It is interesting talking to Canadians within the UNDP. I know they would argue that Canada needs to have a bigger footprint. They would welcome a bigger contribution.
Being in this field, it is a horrible shame, in my opinion, that an American organization is going to be headed by Mr. Kingsley. I love him, but the fact he is going to the U.S. to run this election organization I think is a shame. The fact that so many Canadians find an expression of this work in foreign organizations, I think, is a shame, not because every Canadian has to work for a Canadian organization, but because Canada has so much to offer and we do not have the vehicle for it. My advice would be to create the Canadian vehicle and also contribute more to UNDP and others.
Senator Di Nino: We will talk to Mr. Flaherty about that.
Senator Merchant: This is a good subject. It is difficult to define what exactly democracy is. Within our own country, the application varies from one situation to another.
We are used to working in a democratic system. We elect student presidents at the Grade 3 and Grade 4 levels, so this is a concept that is familiar to us, and yet it does not always work the way we would like it to.
I am wondering how we decide to enter a certain part of the world to export this idea that we want to promote. How much time do we give a project before we feel we have accomplished our objectives? Do we stay there indefinitely?
Are there certain parts of the world in which you visit to promote democracy that you find resistance from the governing party? I cannot imagine that in every part of the world the governing party wants you to try to strengthen their democracy by organizing the opposition parties.
Mr. Campbell: That is a great question. I am the director for NDI's programs in the Middle East, and I often joke about this. If I go to a country like Algeria and say to the government, ``I am here to strengthen your democracy,'' the way they hear that is that I am there to basically limit their days in power. No government or regime wants to hear that.
The National Democratic Institute has been in Yemen since 1993. I met with the president of Yemen not long ago and he said to me, ``If I understand correctly what NDI is doing here, and if it all works out, I will not have a job.'' I said, ``That is true, unless people re-elect you. We are not trying to get rid of you and we are not a regime-change organization. We resist anything like that. Yes, you are right. Ultimately, there should be transference of power, a free election, and someone else should run. Probably after a couple of terms you will be defeated and you should move on. I am not making a secret of that.'' He laughed about that and said that I was right, that it should happen. I do not think it will happen there, but he said it should happen.
I do not want to make light of this, because it is a very serious question. These days, I have to say that President Bush and the Iraq war have not helped. President Bush, unfortunately, has made democracy sound like an ideological crusade where the West wants to impose its vision of the world on others. That is absolutely not the way I see democracy and the idea of democracy promotion.
To me, democracy is a universal concept, just like human rights. A long time ago, with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we decided that there are universal concepts, that individuals have worth and value, and that developed countries were going to try to protect that worth and value through policies and programs.
I would argue that democracy, the basic idea that people deserve a chance to have an influence on the decisions that affect their lives, is just as universal as the idea of human rights. It is a perfectly legitimate policy aim for a country. I would argue that the way to pursue that, as we do with human rights, is to have not just government policy and action but to also have non-governmental action, where people like you and I and other activists can go abroad with public funding to try to share experiences about how people can have a greater influence on decisions that affect their lives.
Mr. Donovan: Mr. Campbell summed that up well.
Senator Merchant: Canada is well positioned because we have so many people from so many different countries living in our country. We can sometimes facilitate the promotion of democracy by having immigrants — those who have come from other cultures and who have developed some kind of an understanding of our system — go back and promote democracy in their own societies.
Would you promote those sorts of individuals going into other countries, as well as us, as outsiders?
Mr. Campbell: Yes, absolutely. I think it is important. There are sometimes sensitivities. I have had occasions where I am hesitant to send a national of a country back to his or her country.
I would not necessarily hire a Moroccan-American to work on our Morocco program. We have a Moroccan working on our Kuwait program. NDI works in Afghanistan, and we drew heavily on the Afghan-American community before we started there, to get their advice and to draw them into our programs. We rely heavily on the immigrant communities in drawing employees, expertise and advice. I think it is crucial, and I think Canada would have much to offer in that regard.
Senator Downe: Mr. Campbell, in an earlier answer, you pointed to Chile as an area where you have had success. Were the citizens of Chile perplexed by the problem that they were being counselled in democratic reform when they were under military dictatorship only because the CIA overthrew the government? Did they not find that strange?
Mr. Campbell: I think they did. There was a lot of skepticism.
The National Endowment for Democracy was formed in 1983 specifically in reaction to events such as the CIA involvement in Chile and the Nicaragua situation. There was a sense that interfering in other governments' politics was wrong. Those involved in the formation of the National Endowment for Democracy were people like Lane Kirkland of the AFL-CIO and a number of prominent Democrats, as well as Republicans, who said: If we are to pretend that we care about democracy, we cannot pick and choose. We cannot be overthrowing a person here because we do not like him and supporting a person there because we do like him.
The National Endowment for Democracy was created to put all of this into the open. If you visit the NED website, you will see that every single grant they give is on their website for the public to see.
That is a good question. A number of the Chileans were skeptical, but in the end, the coalition of Chileans that organized the plebiscite crossed all the ideological boundaries. They were Christian Democrat, Social Democrat and Liberal. They accepted outside help, not just American help, and I think they were glad for it.
Senator Downe: I appreciate that answer, but it could be argued that it was an unnecessary expenditure. Had the CIA not gotten involved in the country in the first place, there would have been no need for follow-up and the people of Chile would have avoided that military dictatorship for years. I imagine the argument could be advanced for other countries as well.
Are we funding activities, through whatever means, through what you and others are trying to do, and if we just left well enough alone, we would not have the expenditure and the people would not suffer as much in these countries?
Mr. Campbell: That is debatable. There are probably cases where that is true. Foreign interference, particularly when it involves a superpower, does create problems that we then perhaps try to solve through this type of work. I would argue that that is probably the exception and not the rule, but your point is well taken.
The Acting Chairman: This is particularly pertinent to this committee's work on Africa, because we know that the dreadful situation in the Congo and Angola was very much caused by the competition between the United States in the Congo supporting the Mobutu and the Cubans in Angola supporting whatever groups were roaming around. The catastrophe we have today, we actually brought about ourselves.
Thank you very much to our witnesses. This was very interesting and instructive. We thank Senator Segal for having the idea.
We will meet again on Tuesday, when we will have an interesting group on the Afghanistan-NATO issue.
The committee adjourned.