Canada's foreign aid spending way down but bafflegab designed to hide that fact is way up

The Ottawa Citizen has an embarrassing story about Canada's failure to meet its foreign aid commitments.

Apparently the only OECD country whose foreign aid budget is shrinking more rapidly than Canada's is Portugal, which has been wracked by economic crisis and austerity for five years.

Now have a gander at the load of bafflegab that the Minister of International Development, Christian Paradis, dropped on his government website just a couple of days before the Citizen story came out;

“Canada recognizes and supports the vital role that civil society plays in reaching development objectives. Civil society engages citizens in their countries’ decision-making processes that affect them. Empowered by the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, association and assembly, civil society enables citizens to hold their governments to account, providing legitimacy to the governing institutions, which in turn ensures growth and sustainable development and reduces poverty.
“Nearly 2.4 billion people around the globe continue to live in regimes where they have little or no say in who leads their country or in how they are governed. Recently, we have seen an increasing trend of states attempting to close the democratic space and restrict the rights of free of expression and assembly—introducing laws and regulations that undermine civil society's independence, restricting access to foreign assistance, limiting the scope of activities and ability to organize, and imposing prohibitive registration and reporting requirements on the community.
“Canada has committed to “deepen, extend and operationalize the democratic ownership of development policies and processes” and to make multistakeholder partnership models the norm. Inclusive development, underpinned by democratic ownership, is essential to building a Post-2015 Development Agenda that delivers results.
“Canada has a strong track record of support for civil society, one that is recognized around the world and can serve as a model to other nations. As recently mentioned by His Highness the Aga Khan, ‘Canada is uniquely able to articulate and exemplify three critical underpinnings of a quality civil society—a commitment to pluralism, to meritocracy, and to a cosmopolitan ethic.’
“It is because of these values that Canada is working hard to protect and promote a democratic space for civil society around the globe. Since 2009, Canada has participated in the Task Team on CSO Development Effectiveness and Enabling Environment and has chaired the multistakeholder Community of Democracies’ Working Group on Enabling and Protecting Civil Society.
“Through its role as Chair of the Working Group, Canada coordinates global actions to counter legislation that restricts civil society. By engaging in principled diplomacy, advocacy and technical assistance activities, we will continue to oppose the adoption of restrictive laws that target civil society, and to support the development and implementation of enabling laws that empower civil society to thrive.
“Going forward, we will continue our commitment to advancing freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law around the world by protecting and promoting an enabling environment for civil society—in law, in policy and in practice. To that end we recognize the need to:

• Ensure that civil society is included in the development, reform, implementation and monitoring of legal, policy and regulatory regimes that target civil society.
• Promote, protect and respect fundamental rights and freedoms, particularly the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, the right to free association, the right to freedom of expression, and the freedom to communicate and cooperate with others in all sectors, within and across borders. This right includes cooperation in coalitions and networks using all forms of communication.
• Ensure the judicious application and monitoring of the rule of law, preventing human rights abuse and protecting human rights defenders against harassment and violence, taking account of special circumstances of human rights defenders for religious freedoms, women and children.
• Protect the democratic space to ensure that civil society can operate free from unwarranted state intrusion in their affairs; pursue a broad range of self-defined objectives; and seek and secure funding from domestic, foreign and international sources.
• Support civil society to strengthen their own development effectiveness, consistent with the Istanbul Principles, including enhancing their transparency and accountability.

“Canada believes donors have a responsibility to promote an enabling environment for civil society. Canada intends to provide predictable, equitable and transparent funding opportunities through different modalities that support the diverse roles of civil society; and to promote a multistakeholder dialogue to inform and facilitate a diversity of perspectives and approaches.
“Canada is focused on delivering results for those in need around the world. We will continue to pursue inclusive and sustainable development worldwide by promoting and protecting an enabling environment for civil society. We will encourage other development partners to do the same. And we will ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable people, including women and children, are at the core of the Post-2015 Development Agenda.”
Christian Paradis
Minister of International Development and La Francophon

What the hell does any of that mean?

I'm not sure, but you'd never guess that the guy whose name appears at the end of it oversaw the folding of CIDA into Foreign Affairs last year, and presided over the move to tie "foreign aid" to the foreign projects of major Canadian mining conglomerates, would you?

Canada pledges more "foreign aid" to Canadian mining conglomerates

This tidbit in the Globe and Mail today is remarkable for its complete lack of irony in reporting the latest ramp-up in Canada's orwellian policy of subsidizing Canadian mining multinationals and calling it "foreign aid."

Indeed, this is simply Harper trying to distinguish himself from the platforms of the Liberals (legalize pot) and the NDP (tax pot) in the next election. Since neither of the other parties have anything remotely this clever in their playbooks I think it's fair to call it a home run.

Apparently when Canadian-based (it's a bit of a stretch to call most of these companies "Canadian"; they are domiciled here for a variety of reasons around liability and access to capital markets) operators make billions in some of the most impoverished countries on the planet, they "support thousands of well-paying jobs across this country", which is a bit of a stretch, if not technically a "whopper."

What Dan Gertler's shake-down of First Quantum might have to do with this policy is unknown, but nevertheless Canadian officials seem to believe that it's their duty to spend tax-payer money on "improving the investment climate abroad" for the mining companies.

But why is it called "foreign aid?"

World fired up about Canadian mining companies

They're fired up in Romania.

They're pissed off in Athens, and they're pissed off in Peru.

In fact, no matter where you go in the world, chances are you can find pissed off locals protesting yet another Canadian mining venture.

That's why the recent Harper government initiative to tie foreign aid to Canadian mining companies is guaranteed to destroy what little is left of the goodwill that the "Canada" brand enjoyed on the world stage as recently as a generation ago.

That was then.

Now we're a nation state in name only, one that exists to provide legal cover to some of the most rapacious mine operators on the planet.

But what do we care? As long as they pay a little tax here and leave their toxic mess somewhere else, everything is hunky-dory!

And labeling subsidies to those mining conglomerates "foreign aid" is what's known as a win-win in neo-liberal political circles.

Why protesters target Canadian mining companies; they're stupid

Who in their right mind would even think about objecting to a Canadian mining company coming to their neighborhood and destroying the local eco-system in return for creating a few temporary jobs?

Apparently folks in at least ten countries are doing exactly that. How is such a thing even possible? Haven't those people heard that Canadian mining conglomerates are so overweeningly generous in the blessings they bestow on their hosts that they have been made the official bearers of Canadian foreign aid?

Yes, the Fantino-Harper brain trust recently decreed that henceforth Canadian taxpayers will only fund foreign aid that is piggy-backed on the foreign operations of the mining sector. This is a sly way of of subsidizing the mining sector and calling it "foreign aid."

That's bound to make the locals suspicious, especially if they catch wind of stories such as the billion dollar tax-payer funded cleanup of the Giant Mine in Canada's north. The inescapable conclusion for folks in Colombia or Peru or Panama can only be; if those Canadians are willing to foul their own nest to get at the gold, what kind of a mess are they going to leave here?

That's the kind of stigma the good folks at Eco Oro are facing at their operation in Colombia. In spite of every reassurance from the Canadians, the misguided locals continue to protest the mine, leading a company spokesperson to exclaim, " We believe the people marching must take action to educate themselves..."

I think they already have!

Mining with Jesus

Now there's a match made in heaven! The "followers of Jesus" at World Vision and the disciples of Mammon at Barrick Gold, together bringing "development" Canadian style to the benighted indigenous communities of Peru.

That's a pilot project referenced by Canada's International Cooperation Minister Julian Fantino in his speech to the Economic Club of Toronto on Friday.

The Harper gang wants to get more bang for the buck out of it's foreign aid budget. Specifically, more bang for Canadian corporations out of taxpayers bucks, and what the hell, if you can get away with calling it "foreign aid" so much the better!

Alas, not everyone is impressed with Barrick's humanitarian initiatives in Peru. In fact, people have died resisting Barrick's development plans.

Shame on Fantino and the rest of the Harper gang for trying to fob off  such egregious bullshit as foreign aid, and shame on the good folks at CIDA for playing along with it.