Posts Tagged 'Harper'

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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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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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Guile, Ambiguity and the Cult of Mediocrity

Guile, Ambiguity and the Cult of Mediocrity

January 21, 2014

On December 5, 2013, Canada’s International Development Minister (yes, there still is one) Christian Paradis spoke to the Montreal Board of Trade about the Harper Government’s approach to foreign aid. The speech was chock-full of myth, urban legend, half-truths and what can only be described as a bunch of whoppers.

Mr. Paradis began by saying, “I want us to be recognized as a world leader in poverty reduction and humanitarian assistance.” That may be what he wants, but ...

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The Harper Government’s Foreign Policy Record

October 22, 2013

There has been a lot of noise about a new realism in Canadian foreign policy—principled, not going along just to get along—and it seems a great deal of rushing around the globe by the energetic Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird. But what do we have to show for all of this? There has been a flurry of comment in the last few weeks about Mr Harper not addressing the United Nations General Assembly fall session, unlike many ...

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On Libya, Environmental Protection and Canadian Prisons Twelve O’Clock High

August 2, 2011

So, another Canadian foreign minister has visited China, presumably to sell more Canadian raw materials – as if that were a problem. The media seems satisfied that John Baird mentioned human rights – though what he said is left to conjecture. And who might care is another matter entirely. There was also the ritual nod to Canadian values, whatever those might be these days.

In a hawkish July 5 Maclean’s interview, Stephen Harper did talk a bit about Canadian ...

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The Harper Government and Civil Society: The CCIC Debacle

August 3, 2010

Not satisfied making Canada a foreign aid laughing stock among its G8 and G20 peers, the government, led by CIDA minister Bev Oda, is now hunting down any organization it doesn’t like, and is doing whatever it can to put them out of business. The latest victim is the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, the well-respected umbrella organization that represents the interests of hundreds of Canadian organizations delivering aid programs to poor countries. CCIC’s failing? It went to ...

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