Liberal changes to foreign aid bill raise ‘red flag,’ say Grit MP, critics, aid groups
A Liberal MP says he’s “skeptical” a provision tucked in the government’s massive budget implementation bill that makes changes to a law governing foreign aid accountability is as harmless as it appears. Opposition critics and foreign aid groups also say the proposed change to the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act found in Bill C-86 is […]
Pakistan: dammed if you do, damned if you don’t
“India is shrinking the flow of water into Pakistan,” Pakistan’s chief justice Saqib Nisar reportedly said on Saturday, renewing a ban on showing Indian TV shows and Bollywood films on Pakistani television. “They are trying to [obstruct the construction] of our dam and we cannot even close their [television] channels?” On the face of it, […]
Canada, Slovenia see ‘eye to eye’: new envoy
Slovenia’s new ambassador, Melita Gabrič, says she sees many parallels between Canada and her country—priorities such as a feminist foreign policy that speaks to her history working in human rights and equality. “I very much appreciate the focus of Canada on empowerment of women,” said Ms. Gabrič in an Oct. 3 interview at her downtown corner office […]
A Canadian mother’s plea for Venezuelans
Pa’ lante es pa’ alla. That translates to: “don’t look back, keep going.” It’s a saying embedded in every Venezuelan arriving in Colombia looking for safety. This is what I heard when I met pregnant women, sick children, and the elderly, all with gaunt faces during my recent two-month emergency deployment with the UN Refugee […]
Canada, Turkey could alleviate global humanitarian crises together
OTTAWA—Turkey has traditionally been a land that offered safe haven to many people from different religions, races, and languages throughout history. Turkish people have opened their homes and hearts to those forced to leave their homelands for various reasons, including violence. Turkey’s open-door policy will continue. The Turkish nation’s attitude towards migrants, refugees, and asylum […]
Time for global collaboration to address sexual, reproductive health and rights
Parliamentarians from more than 150 nations are gathering in Ottawa this week to tackle one of the most serious challenges facing humanity. At the International Parliamentarians’ Conference on the Implementation of the ICPD Program of Action, or IPCI, a forum for all global regions, political leaders will work towards collective action on issues related to population […]
Help needy Canadians, but don’t let that stop foreign aid
A recent report from the OECD shows that despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s rhetoric, Canadian aid to the world’s poor has fallen to the lowest in a generation. Many support this, believing we need to help our own citizens first. But there is no recognized morality that says the accident of birth location determines if […]
Europe’s latest upheaval, in Sweden, is ample warning of racism’s power
OTTAWA—Sweden, long a beacon of successful democratic socialism, has in the past few weeks seen its political establishment thrown into chaos by the rise of the Sweden Democrats, a right-wing anti-immigration party. Although the party polled below some expectations in the recent election, it took 17.6 per cent of the vote and became the potential […]
Canadian funding doesn’t measure up to lofty foreign-aid goals
When Emchjargal Dambii surveys the small slipper factory she’s managing in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia she can hardly believe her eyes. When she signed up for an urban gardening project supported by the Canadian government six years ago, she never thought it would radically change her life. “I just wanted to plant vegetables,” she says with a […]
Canada can truly ‘be back’ on the world stage by giving to Global Financing Facility: reader
For too long, our federal Liberal government has hidden the ugly fact of deeply inadequate aid funding behind its “sunny ways” rhetoric, preferring parade snapshots of the prime minister instead of real changes from the parsimony of the earlier administration. Just recently, the OECD publicly lambasted this government for having a dismal assistance contribution compared to […]
