McLeod Group Blog, May 12, 2016
According to a recent article in the Toronto Star, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has “acknowledged Ottawa has no intention of meeting the international goal to spend .70 per cent of gross domestic product on foreign aid anytime soon.” The article goes on to say that he is “scaling back Canada’s support of a key UN goal to boost international aid spending, calling it ‘too ambitious.’”
In fact what Trudeau said—a bit deeper into the article—was, “I think it’s too ambitious for this year and probably for next year as well.” That seems to suggest that the 0.7% target, first proposed by Lester Pearson almost half a century ago, is not exactly off the table, and that the Liberal government might actually entertain the idea of reaching it in the not so distant future. This could be wishful thinking, given that he also said, “We just know that throwing buckets of money indiscriminately at a problem isn’t necessarily the best solution.” But the fact that Trudeau has just pledged a new, unbudgeted amount of $785 million to fight HIV, TB and malaria is an excellent step in the right direction.
Cue the naysayers: whenever the 0.7% target is raised, a predictable band of cynics says that size doesn’t matter; the issue is quality. Typically, the finance minister will mumble a platitude or two and the prime minister of the day says that we’ll get to 0.7% when the economy turns around. That has been Canada’s mantra since the days of Trudeau the Elder. The economy frequently “turns around”, but the target remains steadfastly aspirational. Tomorrow is always a day away.
Despite all its hoopla about maternal and child health, the Harper government was relentless in its cuts, and in its manipulation of the aid budget for commercial and political purposes. The result? In 2015, Canada spent 0.28% of GDP on foreign aid. That places us below the OECD average, and about half of what Britain, Finland and the Netherlands spend relative to the size of their economies. Sweden is five times more generous than we are.
Canada, in fact, can do a lot better on both quality and quantity. We should stop “throwing buckets of money” at middle-income countries and focus more clearly on the poorest and most fragile states. If Canada could get to even 0.5% of GDP within the mandate of the current government, that would actually be quite an achievement. Ditto a target date for reaching 0.7%.
What’s needed is a clear plan, a credible time frame and the political will to bring it to fruition.