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Canada's contribution was less than a 10th of a per cent of the total

Canada left other OSCE members to pick up the slack:

• First, the wealthy, reliably globalist states among which Canada likes to count itself: in 2017, Germany funded 192 OSCE election observers and France funded 79.

• Secondly, and perhaps surprisingly, states that were perceived to have rejected multilateralism: in the first year of the Trump presidency, the U.S. contributed 179 OSCE election observers while the U.K., fresh off its “Brexit” referendum, contributed 51.

• Thirdly, and most shamefully for Canada, small OSCE member states whose tax bases are a fraction of the size of ours, such as the Czech Republic (51 observers), Poland (41 observers) and Romania (20 observers).

For its part, Russia funded 99 OSCE observers in 2017. That is a problematically large contingent if you believe, as some do, that Russia uses election observation to try to legitimize friendly incumbents who win votes by restricting the media, imprisoning opponents or otherwise abusing state resources.

Photo by Justin Tang/CP

As the OSCE explains, “the diversity of countries from which the observers come protects the observation mission from being dominated” by any one nationality, and member states are discouraged from contributing more than 15 per cent of the observers on a given OSCE election mission.

In this context, where a range of nationalities is needed, Canada’s abandonment of international election observation has forced allies, including relatively poor ones, to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden of democracy-promotion. It has opened the door for adversaries to subvert free and fair elections at the very moment when autocrats increasingly threaten international peace and security.

Global Affairs Canada should re-engage with what is arguably the simplest, most cost-effective means of democracy-promotion, through participation in OSCE election-observation missions. It should do so on a scale commensurate with Canada’s wealth and historical standing on the world stage.

Tim Wood is a lawyer and was legislative assistant to retired Liberal MP Irwin Cotler. He has served on international election-observation missions of the OSCE, OAS and EU.