Keep Foreign Aid Money in Canada?

Keep Foreign Aid Money in Canada?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDVZr7z2KVo&t=12s

In North America we have a tendency to want to help out the world. This in and of itself is a great and wonderful thing, as there are many less-well-off countries. The question presented then, is one I have heard a lot lately, since the economic downturn in Western Canada. Is Canada helping other countries at the cost of our own citizens? This is what will be looked into more fully in this article. It is a complicated and tough subject, let us see what the facts tell us and then you can let me know in the comments what you think. First, we can take a look at the Foreign Aid facts and stats, then a couple of places where the funds could go if they were kept at home. After looking at both options you can then decide which option you think is best.

In the 1950’s Canada started to realize that foreign aid was a necessary part of being a cog in the global neighbourhood. Thus, began the foreign aid funding and helping out many developing countries over the years. The percentage of the federal budget spent on foreign aid each year varies, somewhat based upon tragic events across the globe. According to Canada’s Foreign Aid Facts, in 2012 the budget for foreign aid was $5.67 billion, which worked out to 2.5% of the overall budget. Then in 2014 it was $4.9 billion, but if we fast forward to 2018, we see a budget of $6.1 billion, which is an increase of 8.9% from the $5.6 billion in 2017 (according to Canadian International Development Platform). The amount of money spent each year seems to be climbing, but where is this money actually going to? If we take the stats from 2018 and break it down we find that 33.8% went to some of the world’s most impoverished countries, 1.8% was provided to low-income countries, 18.2% can be accounted for lower mid-income places, and the rest has gone to sources that were not based upon the countries income status. If a closer look is given, certain countries consistently receive aid, sadly some of which ends up confiscated by corrupt groups or leaders, when this happens it is often terrorist groups stealing the shipments. The region that received the most money in 2018 was Africa with 38.7%, then Asia with 31%, South/North America 11.6%, and Europe 2.6%. Afghanistan is the country receiving the largest share of foreign aid, with $254 million received last year. If you want to check out these facts/stats and more, just check out the CIDP site as mentioned above.

Now that the numbers are clear, how are these dollars being spent? Foreign Aid money goes to a wide variety of areas. Humanitarian Aid to assist in times when disaster strikes, then governance and infrastructure, an example of which would be helping countries rebound, rebuild, and form proper governments after war. Refugees and debt relief take a big chunk of foreign aid budgets. Transportation, energy sectors and the environment fall into another portion of the budget. Education, health services, sanitation, and the general populations are an essential part of foreign aid efforts. Then setting up economic stability through supporting agriculture, finance, forestry, fishing, trade, and industry building, help countries fix their financial issues. All of these areas are important around the world with so many countries struggling to scrape by and recover from disasters and war times. The question then becomes are we ignoring our own citizens who are in need of these exact same services?

Foreign Aid money is important, but we do have many areas in our own country that fall into these exact same categories, yet we send the money overseas instead. I would also question why we are sending money overseas in a time of deficit and economic struggle in more than half of the country. One area that could benefit from added resources/financing, is the Canadian health care system, which I won’t spend a lot of time, as much of health care spending/funding comes from the province itself. According to CIHI-Canadian Institute for Health Information, the 2017 health spending was around $242 billion, which makes the foreign aid budget, seem like a drop in the bucket. One could still point out that the extra billions could mean a lot of extra equipment or research funding for hospitals, research centers, and universities. Which could ultimately save more Canadian lives, or at least extend life spans over the years of funding adding up. The issue comes when one looks at the huge increase in health care spending over the years, some can be credited to inflation, but certainly not the majority of it. The year 2000 saw a total of around $100 billion spent, while a jump to 2011 sees $200 billion spent, a fairly significant increase in spending. Much of this can be attributed to the baby boomer generation starting to become our elderly population, as well as an increase in those being affected by diseases and illnesses. The increase in spending, makes it seem like this may be a good place to be placing the foreign aid money, if it were to be kept at home, here in Canada.

The other area that could use the extra funding is our housing and homelessness. It needs to be understood that there is no one clear solution for homelessness, it takes a wide variety of approaches, not all government funded. This is a subject that is growing in importance for the country as a whole, but especially Western Canada, with the sabotage of their economy. Homelessness strikes many various demographics of Canadians. Let us look at some of the numbers according to The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. 35,000 Canadians are homeless on average per night. More than 235,000 Canadians will experience homelessness each year. Of these groups 27.3% will be women and 18.7% will be youth. Veterans tend to be hit hard by this due to lack of government support programs, and the mental/physical trauma they experience. In total approximately 2,950 veterans will experience homelessness per year. The elderly is another group hit hard. The number seems to be growing each year. Approximately 24.4% of people coming to shelters will be 50 and over. Families tend to stay in shelters almost twice as long as other shelter users, likely due to trying to keep their children safe. Although our country is made up of only 4.3% Indigenous People, they are over-proportionately represented in shelters, 28-34%, a sad and startling number.

Poverty tends to cost Canadians billions of dollars each year. Raising the Roof paints a picture of some of these costs in 2017. Homelessness Partnering Strategy expansion cost $2.1 billion, $241 million was used by CMHC to better their data collection and analytics program, and $11.2 billion over an 11-year period went, and currently goes to, the new National Housing Strategy. The National Housing Strategy funds research/initiatives that prevent homelessness, and they support the construction and renovations to affordable housing in Canada. Starting 2017 $39.9 million over 5 years and after that $6.6 million per year afterwards, will go to Statistics Canada for new Housing Statistics Frameworks. Next there is the $3.2 billion that is being invested in helping provinces/territories build and maintain affordable housing and rent programming. Extra federal land and buildings are now being made available to housing providers in the form of a $202 million investment. Another way that these budget funding are decided by, is looking at the populations that are the most vulnerable. Northern and Inuit communities struggle with housing, as it is so expensive for everything, a $300 million investment was made towards this. Indigenous people living off-reserve often face challenges with housing, so a $225 million investment was made to help housing providers who serve these people.

Since the start of the attacks on Western economics, poverty is a growing trend in Western Canada, according to Canada Without Poverty. 1 in 7 people in Canada live in poverty, but in Edmonton this stat is 1 in 8. Job fears and job loss has increased by more than 50% over the past few years. Who is most likely to fall victim to poverty? Those with disabilities are more than twice as likely. Nearly 45% of the homeless population consists of those who have mental illness or a disability. Children are also twice as likely to land in this category, living in homes that have social assistance. Canada has 1.3 million children currently living in poverty, 1 in 5, or 1 in 2 if they are a Status First Nations. More than one third of our people who show up at food banks in Canada, will be children, and 1 in 7 shelter-users will be children. With single mothers, 21% will live in poverty, compared to 7% of single fathers. As mentioned before Inuit and Indigenous groups fall into this category, and according to people who live on reserves, this has a lot to do with Tribal Leaders and Chiefs misappropriating funds to line their own pockets instead of helping their people that they are set in place to lead. Also as mentioned above, our elderly, are more likely to fall into poverty, 15% of single elders live in poverty. UNICEF has given Canada a rating of 17^th out of the 29 wealthiest countries with children living in poverty and Canada was ranked 26^th out of 35 for child inequality.

A lot of information, and a lot of numbers to mull over. If the foreign aid money was to be used on our own Canadians, it could make a difference in the country’s homelessness and poverty problem. It could provide additional funding for our veterans, indigenous communities, our homeless shelters, food banks, soup kitchens, poverty support, Inuit communities, and health initiatives. However, this would come at the cost of communities around the world not receiving help that they need. I only caution that if we are to use foreign aid, then more thought is needed. Aid should not be going to countries where terrorists will benefit from the assistance being given. I will let you make the call as to what you think should be done with foreign aid, now that you have the information you need. Remember to let me know in the comments section.

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