CIDA'S GENDER SEEKING OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD

Many Canadians have never heard of CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). According to a government poll, only 11% of Canadians know it's a federal agency established in 1968 whose purpose is to distribute Canada's foreign aid. Canadians should know about it, however, since it spends annually $2 billion of their money. It has a large bureaucracy (1,211 employees) who administer thousands of projects in more than 120 countries. In 1993, only 125 of these employees, however, were actually overseas monitoring projects -- the rest were comfortably ensconced in their offices in the Ottawa-Hull area. Moreover, only 1/3 of CIDA's budget is spent on humanitarian causes, such as clean water, medicine and shelter. The rest (2/3) goes to bring about "institutional reform" in Third World countries. These reforms include promoting a feminist agenda in these countries.

For many in CIDA, the rule of thumb appears to be: never fly economy if you can get away with business class! For example, in 1994, a CIDA program analyst for Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics paid $6,000 for trips to South Asia, though return trips to that point were advertised at the time for only $1,200.

There are tremendous perks for CIDA employees living abroad, too. Being posted overseas as a CIDA field representative is like winning the jackpot. According to one former employee, "I never met a Canadian working overseas whose standard of living was not better than that enjoyed at home". When he was posted as a CIDA counsellor to the Canadian Embassies in Burkina Faso in the early 1990s and Algiers in the mid 1980s, he recalls, "We lived like kings -- We had a swimming pool and servants. My salary doubled -- I was earning a premium of $3,000 per month -- tax-free". He added: "It's a wonderful job for people who have an interest in an exciting, adventurous and well-paid way of living where you don't have to work too hard. It certainly solved my poverty problem. In terms of helping the poorest of the poor, however, I don't think it accomplished anything."

Feminist Programs Sponsored by CIDA

CIDA issued a request for proposals for a six-month contract to produce "gender strategies for Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa." The value of the contract? $75 million. The budget for the contract included 30 days of overseas travel expenses. This project was not only an expensive junket for a Canadian consultant to travel to southern Africa, but is also an attempt to impose Canadian government federal policy on developing countries. While many families in these countries cannot provide the necessities of daily life such as food, shelter, clothing, education and jobs, our government wants to help them with "gender strategies"!

$25,000 -- the equivalent of annual federal tax bills for two Canadians -- financed a 'planning meeting', or a meeting about a meeting, of the African Women's Task Force in Kenya.

Grants totalling $34,595 -- the taxes paid by three Canadians in a year -- were given to the Arab Women's Solidarity Association in Egypt to translate and publish the proceedings of a women's conference and the works of three Egyptian feminists.

In Senegal in 1995, the Social Change Awareness program received $10,200 from CIDA -- about the equivalent of federal taxes for an ordinary Canadian -- to support "awareness sessions for women's groups and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) using themes treated in local poems which discuss rights issues ..."

At a cost of $11,720 CIDA flew Glenda Simms, former Chairwoman of the disbanded Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women and her Communications Director, Marcia Brown, to the Philippines to attend a conference about affirmative action. Ms. Simms' penchant for lavish spending at the public expense is well documented.

Radical feminist, Bella Abzug, and her organization, Women's Environmental Development Organization (WEDO) received $100,000 from CIDA in 1994, and $40,000 in 1996 for her work on behalf of feminism at UN conferences. WEDO is one of the main influences at UN meetings against which pro-family delegates such as REAL Women must constantly struggle.

Canadian Business with Liberal Connections Profit from CIDA

Some of CIDA's biggest recipients are profitable Canadian businesses, many with connections to the Liberal Party. Saskatchewan Reform MP and foreign affairs critic, Lee Morrison (Swift Current - Maple Creek - Assiniboia), discovered that 14 of the top 20 Canadian companies awarded multi-million dollar service contracts from CIDA in 1995 were Liberal Party contributors the year before.

For example, in 1994, SNC-Lavalin Inc., the largest engineering company in Canada, and one of the largest in the world, gave $81,000 to the Liberal Party. In 1995, the company led a consortium that received an $8 million development contract from CIDA.

Leading chartered accountant and management consultant firm Coopers and Lybrand donated $38,000 to the Liberal Party in 1984; the following year CIDA responded with a $9 million contract.

In 1994, Tecsult Inc. and its subsidiaries gave the Liberal Party $18,000. In 1995, they netted a $5.5 million CIDA contract.

"Less than one percent of all Canadian companies donate money to the Liberals, but 70% of the top 20 CIDA supplies have made such donations," observed Morrison. "This remarkable coincidence is a little too much to swallow."

Please write to object to CIDA's vast abuse of taxpayers' money to:

The Hon. Diane Marleau
Minister Responsible for International Cooperation
House of Commons
Room 256, Confederation Building
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Fax: 613 995-2569


The Hon. Lloyd Axworthy
Minister of Foreign Affairs
House of Commons
Room 418-N, Centre Block
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Fax: 613 953-2867
and


Your MP
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6