Tough Economic Times

When a population has been informed, as Canada has been, that its government must take stringent steps to cut back on unnecessary expenses because it has become too difficult to balance the nation's books leaving us with massive deficits at every level of government, everyone is given to understand that this is a collective affair of mutual responsibility. 

Though we cringe at the thought of public servants losing their jobs and swelling the already large numbers of the unemployed.  Not only the low-paid clerical positions, but far more emphatically the positions held by academically trained professionals in the sciences.

And stated government cut-backs that threaten services we take for granted, along with cutbacks in vital departments dealing with science, technology, the environment, the Far North, Fisheries and Oceans, the National Research Council and others, leave a sour taste in the mouth.  On the other hand, it is well enough understood that governments become top-heavy and redundant services occur sparking unnecessary funding.

And then we come to a fairly touchy item for many people who see their country as a wealthy one despite its economic troubles that are still not comparable to those of other G8 countries, needing to retain and sustain its program of foreign aid to the international community of poor countries.  International assistance providing food and health services to millions of people abroad undertaken by government on behalf of their electorate is positively viewed by most voters.

We feel, as a wealthy, generously-resourced country, that there is an obligation imposed upon us by our moral values to provide a certain percentage of our wealth - and it is in fact modest enough - to giving assistance to those who need it most.  The sometimes-troubled, often criticized Canadian International Development Agency has been informed it must engage in funding cuts to various recipients.

Its own employees will also be cut, with 300 out of a total of 2,000 informed they will be soon unemployed.  Not to speak of those whom CIDA employs overseas, in their countries of origin.  Aid, like justice, is best served blind and objectively, given to those who clearly need it the most.  Five of Canada's major aid recipients - Afghanistan, Bolivia, Mozambique, Pakistan and Tanzania will be cut back.

It boggles the mind why Canada would be giving humanitarian funds to Pakistan, a country that prefers to place its treasury in nuclear technology rather than government service agencies and agricultural products to support its indigent populations.  Afghanistan, preparing in the near enough future to welcome the Taliban back to shared governance with the current Government of Afghanistan, is, like its neighbour Pakistan, weighted with corruption.

The schools, health services, training of civil servants and building of wells and dams may all be placed in jeopardy with the return of the Taliban who famously spurn anything in the way of social improvements that reflect decadent Western cultural imperatives, as they translate social advances meant to aid and improve the lives of women and children.

But the real mind-boggler as far as foreign aid is concerned is the CIDA funding in foreign aid to China for promoting human rights and environmental protection.  That Canada provides $30-million annually in assistance to China, the trading world's most successful representative, whose economy is growing in leaps and bounds, teeters precariously on the absurd.

When decisions are furthermore made to fund assistance to countries like Bolivia, Mozambique and Tanzania based on the reality that Canadian mining corporations and energy groups have interests there to uphold, is another form of Canadian corporate aid that this country and this government should be edging away from.

In searching for foreign funding efficiencies those might be a fairly good place to start from.