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CIDA'S PHONEY CONSULTATIONS ON LIBERAL PARTY SLUSH FUND

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) held a series of "consultations" in several cities across Canada in September at which REAL Women was a participant.

Over 1100 individuals and organizations, many of which were organizations funded by CIDA, submitted their views at these consultations, which were based on the CIDA document "Strengthening Aid Effectiveness: New Approaches to Canada's International Assistance Program."

One of the participants at these consultations put his finger on the trouble with CIDA when he quoted a predecessor of the current Minister responsible for CIDA as saying: "The great thing about Canadian aid is that none of the money ever leaves the country." What a true remark!

REAL Women pointed out in our presentation the basic problems with CIDA - namely, that CIDA has operated without adequate controls since its formation in 1968 by an Order-in-Council, passed at the whim of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. There has never been any public debate on the merits of the organization and there are no built-in checks and balances controlling its activities, such as use of its funds. CIDA is not even required to table an annual report in Parliament.

Over the years, CIDA has been criticized by successive Auditors General and government committees for its lack of accountability and ineffective administration. Current Minister Maria Minna admitted in the House of Commons that CIDA has only a 20% success rate with its projects (Hansard, February 23, 2000, page 3928, and REALity, Sept./Oct. 2000, page 14).

However, nothing has ever been done to control the Minister for International Co-operation responsible for CIDA and as a result, Maria Minna, as have her predecessors, reigns as an absolute monarch.

CIDA a Liberal Party Slush Fund

We also stated in our presentation to the Consultation Committee that CIDA's $2 billion annual budget is consistently used as a slush fund for the Liberal Party. For example, in 1995, although less than 1% of Canadian companies donated money to the Liberal Party, 70% of the top 20 CIDA suppliers (holding multimillion dollar contracts) made such donations. (See REALity, Mar/Apr 1998, p. 11, and Western Report, Jan 25, 1999.)

REAL Women recommended that CIDA implement performance targets, progress reports, in-depth analysis of results, and the withholding of money until mandatory work has been completed. We also emphasized that aid should be given in accordance with the priorities of developing countries, not the interests of Canadian suppliers.

We also pointed out to the Minister, who chaired the Consultations, that CIDA's social development priorities are so unpopular that the agency must use euphemisms to describe them. For example, the terms abortion, contraception and sterilization are so unsavoury, CIDA calls them "reproductive health services." The CIDA document claims that "broad agreement" on "reproductive health" as a developmental goal was based on outcomes of UN World Summits in the 1990s.

As an NGO with special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, and having participated at every World Summit during the 1990s, REAL Women was able to inform the Minister that the issue of "reproductive health care" has been a matter of intense discord among UN delegates and is an issue on which no consensus has been reached.

Exporting Failed Feminist Ideology

Feminism is so unpopular that CIDA and other government bureaucrats cannot bring themselves to refer to it in public. They call it "gender analysis." This failed feminist ideology is being exported as a "Canadian contribution" to unsuspecting women in developing countries. We objected to this and reminded the Minister that Canadian bureaucratic definitions of "gender" and "gender equity" have not been accepted by the UN and especially not by the developing world. CIDA's requirement that each project be subjected to a "gender analysis" is also totally unacceptable to most Canadians. Although women should be equal partners, we recommended that Canadian foreign aid funding should be determined by the project's impact on the community as a whole in the developing country, not solely by its impact on women.

We also asked that the practice of tying aid to population control measures be ended. CIDA is a major donor in the international population field and generously supports UNFPA (UN Fund for Population Assistance Agency). UNFPA is closely aligned with China's persecutory one-child population policy requiring mandatory sterilization, birth control, and abortion for second children.

CIDA Funds Phoney NGOs

Some of the representatives at this consultation assumed they were "reinventing society" with CIDA grants. One participant suggested that NGO's "must establish grassroots structures." This confirmed REAL Women's position that very often NGO's, many of them feminist, funded by CIDA and other western nations, are in fact simulated grassroots organizations put forward to make a public show of democratic support when none actually exists.

Flawed Document Defended

The document, "Strengthening Aid Effectiveness" is merely a repackaging of CIDA's political activities abroad and does not change, in any substantial way, its fundamental flaws in ideology, mismanagement and pork barrelling, which is an integral part of CIDA's programming. For example, according to the Globe and Mail, October 23, 2001), Minister Minna was revealed to have issued two untendered CIDA contracts worth $75,000 to two long-time political supporters in Toronto in breach of government guidelines.

Minister Minna's Hostile
Reaction to Criticism

Despite the fact that the CIDA document calls for a "healthy civil society" to represent a "wide range of interests", Minister Maria Minna reacted in a hostile manner to our presentation at the consultation and to the press release we had previously distributed. Ms. Minna assisted by two male bureaucrats dutifully taking notes on her behalf, was not amused by our contribution to the dialogue. She denied Liberal patronage and dismissed our concerns about respecting the cultures and religions of third world countries. It was ironic that following the September 11 terrorist attack, however, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien publicly requested that Canadians respect all faiths. The Minister never contested any of the facts we presented, but rejected our recommendations to make Canada's foreign aid more responsive to the true needs of disadvantaged nations. She also spoke angrily against organized religion (which rejects abortion and population control measures).

Taxpayer Dollars Fund Terrorists

In a follow-up speech given at a breakfast a few days later, Minister Minna emphatically stated that the purpose of the consultation was not for CIDA to do more with less money. "We need more money," she said, the Prime Minister has promised more money, and she indicated that she intends to hold him to that promise. She also stated that, "Canada's foreign aid program is an important weapon in the fight against terrorism". She identified the roots of terrorism as "poverty, economic disparity, exclusion and social justice".

CIDA Funds Terrorist
Organizations

This was a most interesting statement in that the federal government has given $11 million dollars in immigrant aid over the last seven years to a Toronto Tamil organization linked with FACT (Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils, (Ottawa Citizen, October 4, 2001). The U.S. State Department has listed FACT as a front for the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE), which, in 1997, the U.S. designated as a foreign terrorist organization (Ottawa Citizen, October 4, 2001).

Minister Minna and Finance Minister, Mr. Paul Martin, both attended a Tamil fund raising dinner in Toronto in May. When an Opposition Alliance MP raised questions about the support of the organization, Ms. Minna responded by claiming the questioner had made a "racist" remark which was "un-Canadian."

On the United States' list of groups suspected terrorist ties are two charities also partly funded by CIDA: Global Relief Foundation, and Ottawa-based Human Concern International. The latter received more than $300,000 from CIDA until its funding was cut off in 1996 after the arrest of its director in Pakistan on suspicion of financing a terrorist bombing (National Post, October 4, 2001).

In October of this year, the director's assets were frozen by the US government. He was identified as "an aide to Osama bin Laden" and an "operative" in his terrorist organization al Qaeda, by a US Treasurer report (National Post, October 13, 2001).

REAL Women of Canada will continue to re-affirm that foreign aid (taxpayer dollars) must be closely monitored to ensure that the funds benefit the truly needy and is not misdirected to Liberal patronage or to terrorist organizations.

Our presentation certainly did not make us popular with Ms. Minna, but we felt we had to speak the truth about CIDA.

Please write to:

The Right Hon. Jean Chrétien
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington St., 2nd Floor
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A2

Tel: (613) 992-4211
Fax: (613) 941-6900

The Honourable Maria Minna
Minister Responsible for
International Cooperation
Place du Centre, 12th Floor
200 Promenade du Portage
Hull, Quebec
K1A 0G4

Tel: (819) 953-6238
Toll free: 1 (800) 230-6349
Fax: (819) 953-2903

Your MP
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

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