‘Democracy vs. authoritarianism’ at G7 talks
OTTAWA • Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland sees the clash between the forces of democracy and authoritarianism as a defining conflict of our time, and she blames one country that she knows well — Russia.
That world view will form the frame for Freeland and her fellow G7 foreign ministers as they meet Sunday in Toronto to tackle the security threats imperilling the planet, and she’s placing the disruptive Vladimir Putin at the centre of that picture.
The collapse of democracy in Venezuela, the possible war crimes being committed against Rohingya Muslims being driven out of Myanmar, the ongoing Syrian civil war and Middle East crisis, and the nuclear standoff with North Korea will all be up for discussion.
But Freeland made clear recently that Russia — a country she knows well from her previous career as a journalist, and one that has attempted to vilify her in her political life — will be her main focus. She is convening the meeting under the banner of “building a more peaceful and secure world” as part of the slate of ministerial level gatherings in the run-up to the leaders’ summit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will host in June.
In Freeland’s view, the road to building peace and security means confronting “one of the defining debates of our time — which is the debate between democracy and authoritarianism.”
“I think that is very much an issue that is relevant and important for the G7 to take on,” Freeland told a recent student gathering at the University of Toronto.
A Ukrainian Canadian, Freeland described the formative influence of travelling to Russia as a freelance journalist in the early 1990s and witnessing the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Actually observing the collapse of the vastest communist regime in the world and then observing the effort to build something in its place has profoundly shaped my thinking, including about this new challenge of democracy versus authoritarianism.”