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The official sponsors of the Government of Canada A total of $57.4 million is being spent on next week's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Vancouver, in which Canada will play host to such leaders as U.S. President Bill Clinton and Chinese Premier Li Peng. But a trip to the government's APEC Web site (www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/~apec/english/menu.htm) reveals that the people at Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) have come up with an ingenious way of defraying the cost: corporate sponsorships. The 1997 Corporate Sponsors of APEC are classified into five different groups: Diamond sponsors (donations of $500,000 or more), Benefactors ($250,000), Partners ($100,000), Patrons ($50,000) and Contributors ($25,000). The list of nine diamond sponsors includes General Motors of Canada ("Official Vehicle Supplier of APEC '97") and IBM Canada ("Official Computer Supplier"). All told, DFAIT has raised just over $9 million in sponsorship dollars. >> "For the business community, APEC is like the Olympics," DFAIT spokesperson Rajeev Chowdhury told the Mirror, noting that most of the official sponsors already have important business interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Chowdhury, however, denied that the sponsors' going business concerns or their sponsorship money would in any way affect Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's stand on human rights abuses in the region. >> "The Prime Minister recognizes that, in a time of restraint, we need to find new ways of financing these kinds of meetings in order to keep taxpayer costs down," Chowdhury said. >> What about the old way we used to do it: corporate taxes? At least then we knew who was in charge. -- Philip Preville
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