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Inconvenient Charities

McLeod Group Blog, January 26, 2015

What do birdwatchers in the Kitchener-Waterloo Field Naturalists Club and human rights activists in Amnesty International have in common? Well, they are Canadian charities and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) seems to have all of them in their sights for their political activities.

Shortly after the bird watchers wrote a letter to two federal cabinet ministers complaining about government-approved chemicals that damage bee colonies, they received a letter from CRA objecting to political material on the ...

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Haiti Five Years On: Canada Loses Interest

McLeod Group Blog, January 19, 2015

 January 12 marked five years since the earthquake that devastated Haiti, killed over 230,000 citizens and rendered over three million people homeless, almost 30% of the country’s population. Since 2010, Haiti has received a great deal of media attention, been the subject of many promises of help (some of which have been honoured). It also experienced two major hurricanes in 2012 as well as an outbreak of cholera, believed to have been introduced by a ...

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Signal Failure: Canada’s ‘Signature Projects’ in Afghanistan

Guest blog by Nipa Banerjee

January 5, 2015

The NATO combat mission in Afghanistan ended in December, while Canadian participation concluded a few months earlier, in March. Seven years before, in 2007, the Harper government dispatched a five-person panel to review Canada’s participation in the war. Led by former Liberal finance minister John Manley, the panel noted that Canadian aid to Afghanistan was largely unknown to both Afghans and Canadians, and proposed that CIDA create ‘signature projects’ that could be used to showcase ...

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Ignorance is Strength: Good Financial Management at Work

Ignorance is Strength: Good Financial Management at Work

McLeod Group Blog, December 22, 2014

According to George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, ‘War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.’ In the Harper government’s brave new world, bad financial budgeting is good financial management.

That’s the only conclusions you can draw from government departments that planned and over-budgeted so badly in 2013-14 that they were able to return $7.2 billion in lapsed funds to the treasury. Treasury Board President Tony Clement calls this incredible mess ‘a sign of good ...

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Iraq, ISIL and Canada’s Role

Iraq, ISIL and Canada’s Role

McLeod Group Blog, December 15, 2014

It has been several weeks since the deployment of Canadian military assets in Iraq, primarily aged CF-18 fighter aircraft, to be part of the anti-ISIL coalition. It is not clear how Canadians feel about this latest projection of ‘Canadian values’ through the Harper government’s ‘principled’ foreign policy. It is clear, however, that the government’s claim that this is to be a six-month engagement cannot be taken seriously.

One especially murky aspect of the deployment is the ...

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Another One Bites the Dust

Another One Bites the Dust

McLeod Group Blog, Oct. 15, 2014

Earlier this month, the Canadian Literacy and Learning Network (CLLN) announced that it was closing its doors. Like the North-South Institute and dozens of now-defunct Canadian organizations that depended on the federal government for basic core support, the CLLN was a victim of the Harper government’s slash-and-burn approach to anything it doesn’t like.

The CLLN’s board cited “a shift in federal funding priorities.” A more pointed reason for the cut to the CLLN and many other ...

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Canada at the UN: Vacuum Cleaner Salesmen with Attitude

Canada at the UN: Vacuum Cleaner Salesmen with Attitude

McLeod Group Blog, Sept. 26, 2014

After several years of pointedly snubbing important UN General Assembly gatherings, Prime Minister Harper deigned to appear this year. His speech was full of his familiar platitudes about maternal and child health care, but without any reference – as always – to the reproductive health issues that kill so many young women and mothers. This deadly oversight notwithstanding, Mr. Harper has developed a proprietorial attitude towards maternal and child health, as though it is ...

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North-South Institute Ends with a Whimper

McLeod Group Blog, September 11, 2014

The pain and suffering of the North-South Institute is over. After almost 40 years of high-quality, award-winning work, the NSI has capitulated to its Canadian government tormenters and is shutting down. The official communiqué announcing the decision said that the Institute “has not been successful in diversifying and growing its funding sources to the extent required to ensure financially sustainable operations.”

This is polite shorthand for what really happened. The NSI depended for most of ...

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Out of Focus: Canadian Aid Merry-Go-Round

Out of Focus: Canadian Aid Merry-Go-Round

McLeod Group Blog, July 4, 2014

To the extent that any of them take Canada seriously as an aid donor, our ‘focus’ countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America must be tearing their metaphorical hair out. Long criticized by the OECD for spreading Canadian aid too thin and over too many countries, the Harper government cut the number in 2009 from 25 to 20. Out went eight very poor countries in Africa and two in Asia. Perhaps thinking nobody was watching, ...

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Slip Sliding Away Democracy and the Silencing of Civil Society Organizations

McLeod Group Blog, April 12, 2014

It may come as a surprise to many Canadians who follow global civil society issues to learn that Canada chairs the Community of Democracies’ Working Group on Enabling and Protecting Civil Society, a group that believes,

An active, pluralistic civil society is an essential ingredient of a vibrant democratic political system. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are the primary vehicles through which people organize themselves to promote shared objectives and values and to convey their interests. ...

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