NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9307

Text File | 1992-12-14 | 3.6 KB | 61 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Roger Nathan 1WK23 x2570 MDA 604/278-3411 FAX [phone])
Subject:  Oppeosed to Canada's ODA budget cut
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Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 19:24:39 GMT
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     We were shocked to learn that on Dec. 2, 1992, the Hon. Don
Mazankowski said in his economic statement in the House of Commons that
spending on foreign aid in the form of official development assistance
(ODA) will be reduced by $642 million (Canadian) by 1995.  This represents
a cut of 10% over the next two years.
     We support the following statement which was made by Betty Plewes,
President of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC), as
reported in the Times Colonist on Dec. 3, "We are very concerned that these
cuts are not only an attack on the poor people in the Third World, but are
also very short-sighted.
     "Canada's future and our security are very much bound up with the 80
per cent of the people who live in the Third World.  Unless we work jointly
with them to solve environmental and social problems, we're going to see
the situation get worse."
     At the World Summit for Children in September, 1990, it was pointed
out that there is a quiet catastrophe in which 40,000 child deaths occur
each day from ordinary malnutrition and disease, and many of us saw images
of this in recent telecasts from Brazil and Somalia.
     According to the Canadian International Development Agency's (CIDA's)
1990-91 annual report, the number of absolute poor in South Asia surpassed
Africa, and in Latin America reached 500 million.  Massive foreign debt,
runaway inflation and persistent, growing poverty forced governments to
reassess their options.  In the same report, 70% of Canadians favoured
current or higher levels of aid.
     Canada's contribution to ODA in 1990 was 0.43% of its GNP.  In October
1991, a subcommittee of the Canadian Council of Churches published a report
called "Diminishing Our Future - CIDA: Four Years after Winegard," which
stated that other countries with which Canada has traditionally had much in
common on issues such as this have not reduced their ODA budgets to the
same extent.  The report cited the following levels of ODA:  Norway 1.04%
of GNP, Sweden 0.97% and the Netherlands and Denmark 0.94% each.  It ranks
Canada's contribution as tenth among twelve industrialized nations.
     We urge Canadian readers to write to the Hon. Don Mazankowski,
Minister of Finance, M.P., House of Commons, Ottawa, ON  K1A 0A6, and to
their local M.P. at the same address (no stamps required), to urge the
Canadian federal government to provide leadership for global development by
renewing its commitment to official development assistance, and to apply
budget cuts to other areas than social and human development programs.
     We suggest that readers in other countries might investigate their own
ODA level and write to their politicians.

Best regards, Orval Chapman and Roger Nathan
Richmond Interchurch Committee for World Development Education
c/o 6111 Twintree Place, Richmond, BC  V7C 2V2  Canada
Tel. Home [phone]  Off. 278-3411 x2570 FAX [phone]  Internet [e-mail]