May 11, 2011
On April 6th, the Canadian International Council hosted a “conversation” on the “three D’s” among two senior Conservatives, Derek Burney, former Ambassador to the US and Chief of Staff to the PM, Senator Hugh Segal, former Chief of Staff to the PM, and Paul Heinbecker, former Foreign Policy Advisor to the PM and Ambassador to the UN on the subject of Diplomacy, Defence and Development.
What was disturbing about the session was that the two senior Conservatives equated international development assistance – they repeatedly referred to it as “aid” – with charitable handouts – and humanitarian handouts at that. This level of awareness relates back to the 19th century image of “Lady Bountiful”, and has not even become as “modern” as the 1950s Marshall Plan vision of economic growth as the engine of “Third World” development. These two Conservatives are viewed as leaders of their party’s thinking on international development, as evidenced by Senator Segal’s role in the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee’s report on Africa (“Overcoming 40 Years of Failure: A New Roadmap for Sub-Saharan Africa”).
Little wonder that the third “D” – development – took up little air space in the conversation. This underlying and extremely inaccurate perception of development assistance runs counter to what development practitioners have learned over the past 50 years. Stable, prosperous, healthy societies are built through a combination of transparency and accountability – “good governance” – between citizens and the state, accompanied by a sound fiscal framework and the provision of services like health, education, public safety and basic physical infrastructure. Handouts generate resentment and dependency. Wealth for the few and poverty – or debt – for the many is both destabilizing and unsustainable.
Many Conservatives seem not to have learned these hard-won lessons of development cooperation experience: they search for simplistic solutions like “focus”, moving the deck chairs on the CIDA Titanic, or reverting to head-in-the-sand Victorian thinking. If the government listens to advice like this rather than searching out evidence-based direction, it risks continuing Canada’s slide into irrelevance in international development cooperation. The development pillar of Canada’s foreign policy is dangerously weakened by immature discourse, and a foreign policy built only on defence and diplomacy, with primacy to the former, ill serves Canada’s interests in the world and the interests of those we purport to help.