Well, we have done it. Our national flirtation with participatory democracy in Ottawa has come to an end for at least four years. Having a minority government was certainly a stressful time for the Stephen Harper party, but at the same time Canadians from the full range of political persuasion had the opportunity to have our voices taken into account whenever a national decision was made. That era was ‘unnatural’ as Canadians usually elect one political party to run the country. As a nation, we generally trust our elected citizens to do the right thing. Unlike our southern neighbour, we have few constitutional political checks and balances in place. Prime Minister Harper will now eliminate as many as possible, starting by politicizing appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Which brings us to our place in the world. In the year 2000, world leaders set out UN Millennium Development Goals for tackling extreme ravages of poverty. Canada chose to focus on governance, health (especially HIV/AIDS), basic education, private sector development and environmental sustainability. Rather than continue to make funds available to about 150 countries that had previously been able to apply to Canada for foreign aid, our donations are now targeted at 25 of the world’s poorest countries. Funding is also subject to the recipient countries being determined by the Canadian government to be well governed. The decision has been internationally controversial but the approach to target our contribution to the most needy where we are assured the money will be spent as intended makes a lot of sense.
The most worrying problem however, is our actual commitment to narrowing the gap between the world’s richest and the poorest. Lord knows that the most disadvantaged have become the most dangerous threat to world peace and security. Helping the folks of these countries is in all our best interests. Canada ranks eighth in the world in terms of wealth as measured by our Gross Domestic Product (GDP. It is the internationally accepted standard for assessing a country’s standard of living. Canada’s GDP is $1.4 trillion. The world’s annual GDP is about $65.6 trillion. Canada, with 0.5 per cent of the world’s population, accounts for 2.1 per cent of the global GDP. We are very wealthy. And we are very stingy.
We weren’t always so. Foreign aid as a percentage of GDP approximated 0.5 per cent from the Pierre Trudeau to the Brian Mulroney years. In 1988, Canada made an international commitment to raise the amount to 0.7 per cent GDP by 2000. That commitment still stands but factually we have been in full throttle reverse. Canada now budgets 0.28 per cent GDP for foreign aid. This amounts to $3.9 billion annually whereas we should be donating $9.8 billion if our word was worth anything. And we actually donate less than the $3.9 billion as some of the money is tied to buying Canadian goods and services.
Remember the cost of the G20 meeting in Toronto? And we wonder why India voted for Portugal to have a seat on the UN Security Council. Shame on us.
Alan Murdock is a local pediatrician.
