OTTAWA—The transformation of Myanmar from dictatorship to democracy—and how Canada can help smooth the road ahead—will be the subject of discussion as the three executive members of the Canada-Myanmar Parliamentary Friendship Group meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s state counsellor and foreign minister, on June 8.
During her three-day visit to Ottawa, the de facto leader is also scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Gov. Gen. David Johnson, and members of the Myanmar community.
Suu Kyi, who was held under house arrest in the South-East Asian country formerly known as Burma for 15 years for her political activism, won the admiration of the entire free world as a strong woman leader and a tenacious fighter for democracy and human rights.
A Nobel Prize winner in 1991, she is on her first visit to this country after receiving a certificate of honorary Canadian citizenship in 2012 from then-foreign minister John Baird.
Her star power and the esteem with which she is still held were palpable on June 6 as she walked into the Fairmont Chateau Laurier Hotel through the Governor General’s entrance. About 30 of her supporters—mainly members of the Myanmar diaspora—were on hand, despite the pouring rain, to greet her with flowers and words of welcome.
Conservative MP Bruce Stanton, chair of the parliamentary group, said he and the two vice chairs, Liberal MP Larry Bagnell and Senator Thanh Hai Ngo, will exchange information with Suu Kyi on Myanmar’s democracy—a work in progress—and Canada’s experience in helping to strengthen democratic institutions.
Once hailed as the icon of democracy in her country and an international media star, Suu Kyi’s image has been somewhat tarnished since her election in 2015 to Burma’s National Assembly, for her perceived inaction on the human rights abuses of ethnic minorities in her country.
