Kudos to Trudeau for education funding
Full kudos goes to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals for their recent pledge to the Global Partnership for Education of $180-million over three years. This couldn’t have come at a better time, with United States President Donald Trump’s recent slashing of more than half of America’s funding to the United Nations agency that runs schools for Palestinian children. […]
How Canada can return to democracy-building abroad
“Is Canada an essential country at this time in the life of our planet?” asked Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in her major foreign policy address to the House in June. There is one area where opportunities to demonstrate this abound. In November, Robert Mugabe, the widely detested president of Zimbabwe, was forced from office. His […]
Canada is missing an opportunity to help women
Lillian Wambui has a passion for passionfruit. She runs a successful business selling the nutritious fruit and other excess produce from her farm in the Maai Mahiu region of Kenya, near Lake Naivasha. With food from her farm and income from her market business, Wambui’s six children are well-fed and healthy—and she looks to the […]
G7 is Canada’s chance to ‘galvanize’ action on feminist policy: World Vision
When Canada takes the stage as host of June’s G7 Summit, the Liberals should take advantage of the “international moment” to encourage action on education of girls in crisis, according to the head of World Vision Canada. But opposition critics warn any promises made would be coming from a government with a history of “not […]
Only the poor die screaming
LONDON, U.K.—If you had a million dollars to spend (but not on yourself), where would it do the most good? Well, the cost to cover morphine or a morphine-equivalent pain-relief treatment for all the sick children younger than 15 years who are in serious pain in low-income countries would be just $1-million per year. About […]
The other Myanmar
MYITKYINA, MYANMAR—Scrambling past crippled dogs is a legless beggar approaching a table of people dining at a restaurant. Hands outstretched, with cataract-filled eyes, he looks up as he’s handed a dirty 50 kyat note, the equivalent of about a nickel. It’s lunch hour in this city of a few hundred thousand in Kachin state, in […]
Investing in grassroots women’s groups is our best hope for global peace
During the recent UN peacekeeping defence ministerial conference in Vancouver, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada’s Elsie Initiative to employ more women as “boots on the ground” in peace operations. While the idea of more female peacekeepers generated interest, the government’s recently announced Feminist International Assistance Policy could have more far-reaching and longer-lasting positive impacts for global […]
When it comes to foreign aid, Canada’s a deadbeat
There’s a lot in the news lately about wealthy Canadians avoiding their fair share of taxes by using offshore accounts. Ordinary Canadians are rightfully outraged, but they need to know that our own federal government has being doing the same for years. Official development assistance (ODA) is the money that countries contribute to help the […]
Canada not ready to walk the talk with development financing without increase to foreign aid
Canada’s new development finance institution will be operational as of January 2018, and, if set up effectively, can help bring economic growth and stability to some of the world’s most volatile regions, promote sustainable development, and create new business opportunities for the private sector. Development finance has broad political support across parties, and yet, it […]
Climate action: economic opportunity with social justice
Re: “Canada misses opportunity for climate justice,” (The Hill Times, Nov. 27, p. 17). Who apart from the coldest heart could not agree with Shaughn McArthur? But he misses the key point. The big picture here is that we are just in the early phase of catastrophic changes due to climate change, and already governments […]
