Fall is a great time of the year to travel … and since I’m still healthy enough to do … I’m off again! 🙂
The Blog will be down the month of October … back Nov 6, to once again raise important issues, encourage democratic discussions … and, occasionally, raise hell with our politicians!
Enjoy the break.
Ho
Canada is a well-blessed country: ranked third among 87 nations in latest quality of life rankings published by US News and World Report. (Sweden topped the list, followed by Norway.)
Factors weighed in the survey: “access to food, housing, quality education, health care and employment; quality of life also may include intangibles such as job security, political stability, individual freedom and environmental quality.”
(You can read the full rankings here: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/quality-of-life.)
Yes, we still have stresses, problems, shortcomings and even failings … but most Canadians have much to be thankful for, compared to so many people struggling and suffering in so many other countries.
Foreign aid is how we, as a country, try to help others, on top of individual/organizational donations/charities/volunteerism.
But, you may be shocked at how so much of Canada’s International Assistance now goes to some terribly corrupt, human rights abusing regimes!
Topping the list in Canadian aid in 2022: more than $206 Million to Ethiopia … a country where Human Rights Watch reported not just rebel groups, but “government forces and allies committed forcible displacement, large-scale massacres, widespread sexual violence, indiscriminate shelling , pillage, and attacks on schools and hospitals.”
“By mid-year, these abuses had left an estimated 350,000 people facing starvation. After government forces withdrew from many parts of Tigray in late June, it imposed an effective siege on Tigray, blocking virtually all humanitarian aid from reaching the region, violating international humanitarian law and possibly committing the war crime of using starvation as a weapon of war.”
That’s the TOP recipient of Canada/s Foreign Aid under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal federal government???
Seem strange? Well, it gets even worse!
According to the government agency in charge, Global Affairs, in second place for Canadian Foreign Aid in 2022: Afghanistan … $201 Million!!
Afghanistan! Where women are treating like chattel, almost slaves, not allowed to show their faces in public, can’t go to school or work almost anywhere … and, compared to the treatment of others, that’s nothing!
“Peaceful protesters faced arbitrary arrests, torture and enforced disappearance. The Taliban conducted extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests, torture and unlawful detention of perceived opponents with impunity, creating an atmosphere of fear.,” according to Amnesty International.
How can Afghanistan receive Canada’s second-highest amount of Foreign Aid!
In fact, among the rest of Canada’s Top Ten recipients are these other scandalous human-rights-challenged countries: Sudan; Democratic Republic of Congo; Nigeria; Mozambique and Pakistan.
(You can read the full Global Affairs Annual Report on Financial Assistance here: https://www.international.gc.ca/transparency-transparence/international-assistance-report-rapport-aide-internationale/2021-2022-toc-tdm.aspx?lang=eng.
And that Top Ten doesn’t include $3.8 Billion in aid Canada has provided India over the past three years … despite that country
Give me a break!!
And give the world better examples of Canadian-focussed largesse.
Canadians care. Since the beginning of 2022, Canada has provided Ukraine $9.5 Billion in aid and the only reaction I’ve heard from others is that we should do more!
We are a generous people who want to help honest, legally-elected, human-rights-respecting governments struggling in the face of adversity.
But sure looks to me like Trudeau/Liberal government’s Top Ten are way out of whack.
Harv Oberfeld
(Follow @harveyoberfeld on “X” (Twitter) for FREE First Alerts to all new postings on the Blog.)
