QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Finance
International Development
May 14, 2019
Welcome back, minister. Canada’s commitment to agenda 2030 and the associated sustainable development goals, as well as the government’s Feminist International Assistance Policy are definitely worthy of praise.
The 2019 budget document states that Canada plays a leading role in the world by providing assistance to some of the world’s most vulnerable citizens. In his article, Budget 2019: Peanuts for International Development, Professor Stephen Brown of the McLeod Group and the Centre for International Policy Studies decries Canada’s underwhelming level of commitment to overseas development assistance. He comments that our current government is:
. . . the least generous toward impoverished peoples in developing countries in over 50 years.
Ranked 16 out of 29 of our OECD peers, Canada’s 0.26 per cent of its gross national income falls very short of the UN target, as you know, of 0.7 per cent for foreign assistance.
Minister, could you please let us know when Canada will join Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the U.K. and others to genuinely demonstrate our international leadership, which we talk about, by establishing a credible deadline to reach the 0.7 per cent UN target for our overseas development assistance and step up for the world’s most vulnerable? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. We should all recognize how important it is that we’re playing an important role in the globe.
I’m not familiar with the gentleman who wrote the report or the report. I am familiar with what we’ve done during the course of our budget. I would vehemently disagree with him in his characterization of how we have comported ourselves in terms of our contribution to international development.
Last year, Budget 2018 — people tend not to look back as far as they should, but it is not that many months ago — we made a significant increase in our international development budget. Again this year we added more money toward international development.
These are important steps. We think we need to continue on that path to being a contributor. The way we do it will be varied. The honourable senator was asking about our contribution to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. That’s a good example of an investment that will have a significant impact on development in Asian countries, countries that are significantly less developed than we are, and it will make a long-term difference.
I would acknowledge that there is always more to do. I would acknowledge that it is important for us to play a critical role.
Our approach of focusing on some of the least successful countries, to focus on the success of women and girls, is the right approach. Our approach of increasing our aid has been important. I’m sure we will have legitimate demands that we need to think about, and how we can continue to increase contributions over time.
One of the challenges of budgeting is we’ll have to consider all of these issues in a way that makes the most sense to Canadians. I’ll commit to doing that.
