McLeod Group blog by Lauchlan T. Munro, July 20, 2020

Collateral damage from the WE student volunteer program scandal continues to pile up: allegations of racism and white saviourism, a board in meltdown, questions about “complex” and “unusual” organizational structures where money flows from the charity to the privately held for-profit business… The situation is so dire that WE’s founders, Craig and Marc Kielburger, ...

McLeod Group blog, June 30, 2020

Julia Sánchez, the former President-CEO of the Canadian Council of International Co-operation (CCIC), recently took up her new position as head of ActionAid International, a major global development NGO that fights poverty and inequality through a combination of program delivery, research and advocacy. As she was getting ready to leave Ottawa, the McLeod Group interviewed her about her past work at CCIC and upcoming challenges. Yesterday’s Continue Reading →

McLeod Group blog, June 29, 2020

Julia Sánchez served as President-CEO of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC) from August 2011 to July 2018, a tumultuous time for international development NGOs in Canada. A few days before she took up her new position as Secretary General of ActionAid International on March 1, 2020, the McLeod Group sat down with Julia to talk about her reflections on that period.

When Julia took over the position ...

McLeod Group blog by Stéphanie Bacher and Stephen Brown, June 24, 2020

It is shameful enough for a Canadian museum to deliberately hide its LGBTQ2+ content from certain visitors. However, when the museum in question is dedicated to human rights, such a decision is ten times more offensive and actually betrays the museum’s raison d’être. The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity ...

McLeod Group blog by Hunter McGill and Lauchlan T. Munro, June 22, 2020

To no one’s great surprise, Canada did not win a seat on the United Nations Security Council for the 2021-2022 term, losing out to Norway and Ireland. A flurry of prime ministerial phone calls, visits from cabinet ministers, and even the announcement one week ahead of the vote of $16.5 million in new aid money for women affected by COVID-19 and ...

McLeod Group blog, Hunter McGill and Lauchlan T. Munro, June 15, 2020

Amid the masses of reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian media have shown little interest in the consequences of the pandemic in developing countries, especially those already experiencing humanitarian crises. The United Nations humanitarian office (UNOCHA) reported at the beginning of the year – before the global COVID-19 outbreak – that 160 million people would be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2020 and that US$28.8 billion ...

McLeod Group guest blog by John Cameron, June 8, 2020

There are powerful tensions between effective marketing and the ethical representation of global poverty and development. The recent controversy over an online campaign by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC) and the Canadian Network for Women and Children’s Health (CanWaCH) to generate support for Canada’s global COVID-19 efforts highlights the urgent need to scale up the debate in Canada about the balance between effective and ethical communications ...

McLeod Group guest blog by Adrian Murray, June 3, 2020

Will the COVID-19 pandemic pit countries against each other or will it promote global solidarity? Despite frequent public statements to the contrary, Canada’s actions would suggest that unfortunately we are not all in this together.

In early April, Minister of International Development Karina Gould insisted that: “The COVID-19 virus knows no borders. This has been a wake-up call for the world to stand in solidarity and work together. ...

McLeod Group blog by Kirsten Van Houten and Em Mijares, June 1, 2020

Around the world, many governments and other actors are using the cover of COVID-19 to perpetrate human rights abuses. In response, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne stated that “while the need to protect public health is vital, it is imperative to ensure that these measures are not used to undermine the fundamental civil liberties and human rights of all people.”

Since then, the Canadian ...

McLeod Group blog by Stephen Brown, May 21, 2020

[Postscript: The website discussed in this blog, AidHelpsCanada.ca, was taken offline at the end of May 2020.]

Two prominent umbrella groups of Canadian development organizations – CCIC and CanWaCH – recently launched a COVID-themed campaign to drum up support for Canadian foreign aid. In doing so, they have embraced a nationalistic, threat-based case for aid that verges on xenophobia, reinforces outdated stereotypes and risks undermining ...