by PATRICK LEJTENYI

On Wednesday, Feb. 15, federal NDP leader Jack Layton and Foreign Affairs critic Alexa McDonough issued a call to the Prime Minister to respect the commitment to foreign aid he agreed to last year. It came nearly a year to the day after Layton, Harper and Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe sent a letter to then-PM Paul Martin urging him to “introduce legislation which established poverty reduction as the aim for Canada’s Official Development Assistance (ODA).” It’s needed: it’s estimated that extreme poverty is linked to 50,000 deaths worldwide every day. What they want is a commitment to increasing foreign aid by eight per cent a year over a period of four to five years.

The letter reminded Martin, none too gently, that the Trudeau Liberal government of 1969 was the first to commit to dedicating 0.7 per cent of Canada’s gross national income (GNI) to foreign aid by the mid-1970s, an internationally agreed-upon target. It was a lofty goal, and Canada didn’t come close. In the past few years, however, several countries, notably Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, have surpassed the 0.7 mark. When Paul Martin, as Finance Minister, slashed foreign aid in the 1995-96 budget, Canada dropped further behind.

Hey big spender

“It seemed like a no-brainer to remind the Prime Minister that we’re coming up to the anniversary of this initiative,” McDonough tells the Mirror in a telephone interview.

It seems almost counter-intuitive for proponents of increased foreign aid to put their hopes on a Conservative rather than Liberal government. But it is worth noting that Canada topped 0.5 only twice since 1949, according to a statistical report by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA): in 1975–76, when it reached 0.53 under Trudeau, and in 1986–87, when it reached 0.5 under the Conservative Mulroney government. In 1995, the percentage of GNI going to foreign aid dropped sharply, when Finance Minister Paul Martin slashed it from 0.42 to 0.36. It reached a nadir in 2003–04, when it accounted for a mere 0.23 of GNI. In dollar terms, ODA went from $2.55-billion in 1986-87 to $2.72-billion in 2003–04. That’s a $170-million increase, not accounting for inflation or Canada’s economic boom, over 18 years.

“Our past behaviour has been just appalling,” says McDonough. “It was humiliating to see testimony after testimony, whether it be international policy experts, former ambassadors or UN agency heads, saying that Canada’s position in the world of foreign aid has slipped badly because of our lack of commitment.”

One of those critics has been Stephen Lewis, the Canadian UN envoy on HIV/AIDS and tireless advocate of increasing foreign aid. He notes that Harper, in signing the 2005 Layton letter, has publicly committed himself to increasing foreign aid. He says he’s “guardedly hopeful” that he will remain true to his promise.

“It reminds me of Mulroney, who was way better than Trudeau in terms of foreign aid,” he says. “We won’t know until Parliament sits, but the signs are auspicious. I want to work on the assumption that this is all honourable. I don’t know if I’m living in a dream world of naïveté, but I do rely on Mulroney as a precedent.”

Guns and butter

No one but Harper’s inner circle has any idea yet how much funding for international aid will be allocated in the first Conservative budget. Over at CIDA, the federal agency that administers the lion’s share of money allocated to foreign aid, the attitude, like everywhere else, is wait and see.

“It’s too early to tell” what the new government’s priorities will be, says CIDA associate vice-president Syed Sajjadur Rahman. CIDA development projects are determined in consultation with aid-receiving countries, with 25 countries, 14 of them in Africa, being top priority. But if the Harper government decides to embark upon a more muscular foreign policy, more money could go to crisis-stricken countries with so-called 3D assistance—defence, diplomacy and development, like Afghanistan, Canada’s single largest recipient of foreign aid. Since 2001, Canada has spent over $100-million in Afghanistan, and pledged over $600-million to 2009.

“There is a difference between development partners and countries in crisis,” says Rahman. “Once a country gets out of crisis mode, we can consider long-term development.”

But if Harper does agree to set a timetable that would eventually increase Canada’s foreign aid to 0.7, says Lewis, “It will bolster Canada’s reputation, which has been considerably scarred around the issue. But I am finding smidgens of hope.”