Fountain on Foreign Aid
Our candidate in Ottawa-Centre said the following today:
I think Keith would know a little bit about it too. He's spent a lot of time outside of Canada including most recently in Afghanistan.
Canadians need to look outward more - especially our leaders.
And aid is not charity. Like spending on the military and the foreign service, it's a tool for achieving our foreign policy objectives. In the case of aid, the main purpose is to help other countries to become secure, prosperous and democratic, which in turn improves our own security and prosperity. It also increases Canada's influence among our allies by demonstrating that we are a player internationally, which in turn helps us achieve our other international objectives. In other words, aid pays for itself.
If we want to be serious about making a difference in the world and helping Canada in turn, we need to put up the money. This means we should increase our aid to 0.7% of GDP, not in 2015 or 2010, but in 2006. But that's only half of the story; we need to change how we spend our aid money, and make sure that it directly connected to serving the interests of Canada, not those of a few well-connected Canadian NGOs. But that is a story for another day.
I think Keith would know a little bit about it too. He's spent a lot of time outside of Canada including most recently in Afghanistan.
Canadians need to look outward more - especially our leaders.
