Canada’s foreign minister John Baird said the continuation of democracy in Egypt is essential after the country’s first democratically-elected president Mohammed Morsi was ousted Wednesday in a military coup.
While U.S. president Barack Obama avoided categorizing it a coup, which would trigger automatic funding cuts to America’s long-time ally, Canada faces no such restrictions.
“Significant amounts of crowds were encouraging it. Perhaps you could say it was a popularly-inspired military coup,” Baird told Global News.
Baird said that unlike the U.S., Canada doesn’t provide a lot of bilateral assistance to Egypt.
“We don’t have many cards to play there,” he said.
If Obama were to similarly declare Morsi’s displacement a coup, the bulk of $1.5 billion in American aid to Egypt’s military would disappear, along with that country’s long-standing ties to U.S. authorities.
However, both Canada and the U.S. are calling for a quick return to a democratic system and a new leader that is committed to calling an early election.
Baird said Canada hopes to see the premature stages of democracy continue to develop.
“Obviously Egypt is going through some fundamental transformations in terms of its governance,” he said. “Our hopes are for calm and restraint and we want to discourage violence. We obviously want to see the development of freedom of a civil society and of respectful pluralism.”
Baird warned of approximating Morsi’s ousting with a democratic collapse, stating that the political unrest is a natural part of the early stages of democracy.
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