Can do: Canada in international democratic development

This paper explores how the creation of a new Canadian Centre for inclusive governance can enable Canada to succeed as a global champion of human rights and good governance under the rule of law. Specifically, the Centre should draw on Canada’s comparative advantages such as bilingualism, multiculturalism, bijuralism, and an inclusive culture of participatory policy-making, to deliver sustainable development and effective aid internationally.This means delivering assistance in forward-looking, citizen-centred practice fields, which are not now well-resourced by development agencies. It also means building on national and international networks, to deploy expertise from academia, civil society, and government, in addition to law and international assistance practice. With a Canadian knack for teamwork, we should favour cost-effective projects delivered in partnership with organizations with an established field presence. Finally, the Centre should be managed with representatives of the partner sectors – civil society, field practice and university policy and research centres – and the design of the Centre should be led by a core team representing those sectors.