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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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Mr. Harper’s Maternal and Child Health Summit, Part 5: What’s still missing?

Mr. Harper’s Maternal and Child Health Summit, Part 5: What’s still missing?

By Rieky Stuart and Stephen Brown

The Canadian government’s recent Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Summit in Toronto has not lacked for cheerleaders, especially NGOs receiving funding under the MNCH initiative. Prior to the summit, only a few critical voices were cited in the media (mainly from the McLeod Group) and most journalists, such as Paul Wells, initially set aside their cynicism and were won over by the cause. However, the government alienated many by excluding the ...

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Mr. Harper’s Maternal and Child Health Summit, Part 4: Is it divisive to care about the 47,000 women who die yearly from unsafe abortions?

Mr. Harper’s Maternal and Child Health Summit, Part 4: Is it divisive to care about the 47,000 women who die yearly from unsafe abortions?

By Diana Rivington and Elizabeth McAllister

More maternal and child health funding is welcome, but the lack of focus on the human rights of women and girls is not.

In taking stock of last week’s maternal, newborn and child health summit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets kudos for pledging more money to achieve UN Millennium Development Goal 4, to reduce child mortality, and Goal 5, to improve maternal health. But the second target of Goal 5, ‘achieve universal access to reproductive health,’ ...

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Mr. Harper’s Maternal and Child Health Summit, Part 3: Delusions about International Leadership

McLeod Group Blog, May 27, 2014

Once again Canada’s development cooperation policies are being driven by domestic interests, not the development outcomes and the results the government claims to be seeking. We are going it alone and indeed this time even pretending that everybody else is following our lead. In truth, maternal and child health has been both a global and Canadian priority for decades, with an accelerated focus on reproductive health and rights following the 1994 UN Population conference in ...

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Mr. Harper’s Maternal and Child Health Summit, Part 2: The Hole in the Donut

Mr. Harper’s Maternal and Child Health Summit, Part 2: The Hole in the Donut

McLeod Group Blog, May 25, 2014

The Harper government’s Muskoka Initiative is based on the fact that “women and children in developing countries are significantly more likely to die from simple, preventable causes, due to lack of proven, affordable and cost effective solutions that most Canadians take for granted,” as  the Canadian government puts it.

The idea was—and is—that by committing major funding, Canada and other donor governments can significantly reduce child mortality and the number of women who die during ...

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