Tim Naumetz, THE CANADIAN PRESS

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OTTAWA - Opposition parties say an obscure two-sentence pledge in the recent Conservative election platform could lead to U.S. Republican-style interference in the affairs of other countries.

Liberal and New Democrat MPs say the reference to a new "non-partisan democratic promotion agency" may also reflect Prime Minister Stephen Harper's open hostility toward Elections Canada, which has long been involved in democratic development abroad.

The Tory campaign promise also appears to ignore the existence of an independent democracy-promotion agency Parliament itself established under the Brian Mulroney Progressive Conservative government in 1988.

But senior Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai, parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, insists the idea came from recommendations made by the Commons foreign affairs committee last year.

The pledge to establish the agency was barely noticed when Harper announced his party's platform six days before the Oct. 14 election.

"A re-elected Conservative government led by Stephen Harper will make the promotion of Canada's democratic values on the world stage a major focus of our foreign policy," the document says.

"We will establish a new, non-partisan democracy promotion agency that will help emerging democracies build democratic institutions and support peaceful democratic change in repressive countries."

The Conservative party and the government declined to disclose details of the plan.

"The details of the democracy promotion agency that was announced in the 2008 platform will be announced in due course," Catherine Loubier, a spokeswoman for Cannon, said in an email.

"Meanwhile, our government continues to be fully engaged in helping emerging democracies build democratic institutions and support peaceful democratic change in repressive countries."

New Democrat MP Paul Dewar says the proposal came out of the blue, and appears perilously close to the kind of foreign interference that became a hallmark of the Ronald Reagan White House in the 1980s and of U.S. policy under President George W. Bush.

"It should be done without exporting our, quote, values and being ideological," said Dewar.

"What we should be doing is supporting the capacity for fledgling democracies for democratic development on their terms, not saying we're going to export, quote, Canadian democracy.

"That's more of the Bush doctrine than it is the Canadian ideal."

Liberal MP Bob Rae said the proposal indicates the Conservatives continue to hold a grudge against Elections Canada after the agency refused to recognize $1.3 million worth of advertising in the 2006 election as legitimate campaign expenses for more than 60 Tory candidates.

"The trouble is, because of their narrow, partisan bickering with Elections Canada, they can't bring themselves to support this great institution of international, democratic governance," said Rae.

Elections Canada has organized more than 400 international democratic development missions around the world since 1980, its website says.

Spokesman John Enright says the agency does the work as a member of the Democracy Council, co-chaired by representatives from the Canadian International Development Agency and Foreign Affairs.

CIDA spending on democratic development assistance abroad grew from $223 million in 1996 to $477.9 million in 2006, the government said in a response to a Commons foreign affairs committee report on the subject in July 2007.

At that time, prior to the controversy over Election Canada's decision to challenge the Conservative advertising costs from the 2006 election, the government ignored a committee recommendation calling for the establishment of an arms-length "Canada foundation" for international democratic development.

Obhrai says the campaign commitment to establish a new agency has nothing to do with the dispute with Elections Canada, and stems exclusively from the committee recommendation the government originally ignored when it officially responded to the committee in Parliament.

"Elections Canada is an independent body and therefore it does its international obligations when it is requested by other countries to provide that non-partisan election process," Obhrai said.

"That has nothing to do with this."

The International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, founded by Parliament under the Mulroney government in 1988, receives $9.2 million in base funding annually from the federal government, with project funding taking the total up to $12 million.

But a spokesman for the centre, also called Rights and Democracy and once led by former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, said it would not comment on the Conservative election promise without studying it.

Conservative party spokesman Ryan Sparrow said he could not disclose who drafted the platform other than saying the party had a "policy team" that prepared the document.