Canadians tend to believe that democracy is a given in this country, as inevitable as snow in winter. There is good reason for this. With a score of 98/100, Canada places fifth in the ranking of democracies compiled yearly by Freedom House, an organization devoted to the support and defence of democracy around the world.
But we only have to look south of the border to see what happens if we become complacent. The United States’ score on the same ranking has plummeted from 94 to 83 in 10 years, placing it among the 25 countries that have suffered the largest declines during this period. And the consequences of the past few years’ events are still unclear.
Thus, the country that has been the world’s standard-bearer for freedom demonstrates how fragile democracy really is. Indeed, according to Freedom House, countries experiencing deterioration of their democracy have outnumbered those with improvements every year since 2006.
Credible media reports indicate that the growth of fringe groups dedicated to undemocratic ends such as destabilizing elected governments, our economy and the Canadian state itself has been greater than anticipated in Canada. These groups thrive when civil discourse, democratic debate and respect for the government and our institutions lose ground. They consider violence and anarchy as acceptable means to advance their ideas, and describe their adversaries as intrinsically evil, thereby justifying the limitation of their civil and political rights.
This process is less advanced in Canada than in the United States, but recent events indicate that Canada could very well go down the same path if it is not checked.
Public relations professionals have a specific role to play in democracy. Because free, informed public debate is both a precondition to the existence of democracy and cannot exist without it, modern, professional public relations are intrinsically linked to democracy.
Modern public relations are predicated on codes of conduct based on the values of freedom of expression, human rights, dignity and worth of the human person set out in the United Nations’s Charter of Human Rights and other major international legal instruments.
The
CPRS Code of Professional Standards states that our members “shall practise the highest standards of honesty, accuracy, integrity and truth, and shall not knowingly disseminate false or misleading information.”
The
International Public Relations Association Code of Conduct specifies that PR practitioners shall “seek to establish the moral, cultural and intellectual conditions for dialogue, and recognize the right of all parties involved to state their case and express their views.”
The
Global Alliance for public relations and communications practitioners’ code of ethics states as a guiding principle the “acceptance of duties to a broader society than merely one’s organizations/employers—we accept that the balance should tip in favour of the broader public interest.”
It is thus our professional responsibility to ensure truly open communications between the parties, based on respect, even where goals and interests might be opposites.
Democracy really boils down to this: people holding common values who give more importance to what binds them together than to what sets them apart.
In Canada, democracy is still strong, but it is under attack. As citizens, all of us must be aware that through our personal conduct, we can either strengthen it or weaken it.
As PR professionals, we have a greater responsibility than the average citizen towards the health of democracy, we must not take it for granted, and we must participate in public dialogue in a manner that reinforces it rather than weakens it, ethics basically making the difference between the two.
Cam McAlpine, APR
National Board President
cam@earnscliffe.ca
Guy Versailles, PRP, ARP, FSCRP
National Board
guyversailles@videotron.ca