Humanitarian Aid From Canada

"As you consider your choices for the 2014 budget, please do not cut vital foreign aid funding that supports child vaccinations, promotes healthy newborns and mothers and helps life millions out of poverty."
"The world expects Canada to lead, and so do we."
15,000-signature online petition

"Sustainable, private-sector-led economic growth and poverty reduction are two sides of the same coin."
"Our government's commitment to helping people who live in poverty and responding to humanitarian crises remains strong."
International Development Minister Christian Paradis

"They're not spending even what they have, and that's very discouraging because this is money that could be used for fighting poverty overseas."
"We don't want the budget to be balanced on the backs of the world's poor."
Ariane Cartwright, Results Canada, co-sponsor, online petition

A coalition of NGOs, foreign aid advocates including the Canadian chapter of Engineers Without Frontiers and the Canadian Council for International Co-operation are hoping that their online petition will succeed in garnering at least 30,000 signatures to influence Canada's Finance Minister not to cut international humanitarian funding below what it currently stands at.

They shouldn't have any trouble gathering at least that number of Canadians willing, let alone eager, to add their names to the petition. The cause of humanitarian aid to those in dire need tugs at the conscience of most people living in relative comfort and security in Western countries. The government had earlier announced its intention to cut close to 7.5% of Canada's current $5.3-billion annual aid budget.

Canadian NGOS are concerned that the country's traditional commitment to global poverty alleviation may be taking a back seat to the pursuit of opening up new trade and investment opportunities on behalf of corporate Canada, within developing countries. Making that pursuit a focus rather than poverty-relief. The government claims that the two issues go hand in hand; succeed with one and you make headway with the other.

"They never get a thumb's up or a thumb's down, they just disappear into the labyrinth", claimed Stephen Brown, a professor at University of Ottawa, of the foreign aid proposals submitted in hopes that they may be approved by cabinet ministers.

It would be difficult to contemplate Canada cutting back in the areas which Prime Minister Stephen Harper specifically made a priority during his 2010 hosting of the G8/G20 groups, when the primary aid focus was to commit to ongoing aid to give desperately needed humanitarian assistance to mothers and children living in dire poverty in the developing world.