Mandy @ POLI 333D

“Former Rights and Democracy president Remy Beauregard died of a heart attack after a heated meeting. – Julie Oliver / Postmedia News files”

When I first learnt from this National Post’s article that Canada has decided to shut down the federally funded International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (known as Rights & Democracy), I was slightly frustrated because I felt like Canada is isolating itself from the larger world again. However, as I read on, I realized that this Rights & Democracy has indeed been dysfunctional, especially after the Conservative government began its partisan appointments to the agency’s board of directors in recent years. Therefore, it seems to me that closing the agency is a right thing to do.

Nonetheless, I cannot help to develop this conspiracy theory that, this is the government’s strategy to first seed the agency with problems, and then to legitimize the closure of the agency as these problems manifested.

In fact, I feel like my cynicism is confirmed by this Globe and Mail’s article, which suggests that not only Rights & Democracy, but other Canadian human-rights promotion efforts, have to be closed down due to limited funding.

While I think Canada should be condemned for unwilling to contribute to human-rights promotion, I wonder if Canada’s isolationist foreign orientation is what makes it friendly to other (democratic and non-democratic) nations. This is always a puzzle and irony to me. Although Canada’s international isolationism may cost “its position and its reputation in the area of democracy promotion,” my travel experience has told me that Canada is viewed differently in local contexts. From my experience, people in other countries tend to see Canadians as “people with not much threat” and therefore “people whom you can make friends with”. (I also hold a Canadian citizenship but still, please forgive me if you find this offensive my Canadian friends.)

I do not mean that it is right for Canada to stop its human-rights promotions, but somehow the country’s lack of participation in the international realm has prevented it from projecting itself as an interventionist, which is often detested by everyone.

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