PUBLISHED March 5, 2012, THE HILL TIMES

Two years ago, Myanmar’s National League for Democracy opposition party didn’t have access to phones to campaign because the military-led government cut them off. Today, the party has email, and its leader, Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi who had been under house arrest for more than two decades, is free to travel and meet the public in order to campaign in upcoming byelections.

“We have been able to reconnect with our people,” Ms. Suu Kyi told an audience at Carleton University last week by internet videoconference.

CBCNN’s Power and Politics’ Evan Solomon hosted the event on Feb. 29 at Carleton’s Porter Hall. He asked Ms. Suu Kyi, who received an honorary doctorate from Carleton last year, about Canada’s role in helping to democratize Myanmar, previously known as Burma.

She replied that she is “grateful for what Canada has already done,” noting Canada’s sanctions have been effective in pushing the current government into making reforms. “Canada has helped us greatly with regard to our movement towards democracy,” she said.

Ms. Suu Kyi said, however, that although the government is now civilian-led, the majority of the government is still dominated by the military.

“Until we have the military behind the democratization process, we can’t say there’s no danger,” she said, noting that although she believes President Thein Sein is sincere about wanting reforms, she will wait to see the outcome of the April 1 byelections to see if real change has happened.

Ms. Suu Kyi’s party won the 1990 election in a landslide but the military did not hand over the reigns for her to form a government. The NLD was then banned as a political party, and she was put under house arrest. She was released in November 2010. The federal Conservative government granted her honorary Canadian citizenship in 2007.