Abstract
Reviewed by: Hunter McGill, Senior Fellow, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Hunter.Mcgill@uottawa.ca
With the change of government in Canada in late 2015 and the proclamation by the new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, that “Canada is back” on the world stage, it is very timely to be able to consult Rethinking Canadian Aid as we await the outcome of the international assistance review, underway at the time this commentary is being written. The book’s editors and contributors have had much to say over the years about Canada’s performance as an aid donor, and those interested in development assistance may be reluctant to pick up this volume given the existing supply of critiques of Canadian aid—as noted by the editors in their introduction—especially of the period of the Harper government. This compendium deserves attention, however, in preparation for a new Canadian international assistance policy framework in 2017.
Rethinking Canadian Aid is a valuable counterpoint to the claims—especially during the Harper government—that Canada has been a global leader in aid. As the government, and other Canadian actors in the national development cooperation effort, wrestle with the challenge of preparing a plan setting out how they will contribute to the global effort to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, David Black provides a useful reminder in chapter 1, “Humane internationalism and the malaise of Canadian aid policy,” of the twists and turns over the decades in the articulation of a rationale for Canadian development assistance. In chapter 3, “Revisiting the ethical foundations of aid and development policy from a cosmopolitan perspective,” John Cameron brings that challenge into focus for current policymakers by highlighting the importance of policy coherence for development (57–60) and the need to respect the “Do no harm” principle.
Stepping down one level from this macro level of consideration, Ian Smillie in chapter 5, “Results, risk, rhetoric and reality: The need for common sense,” reminds us that the purpose of aid is poverty reduction, which is supposedly the aim of Canada’s aid, if the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act of 2008 (passed unanimously by Parliament) has any meaning. Smillie’s comments, together with Molly den Heyer’s examination of aid effectiveness in chapter 4 and Rebecca Tiessen’s critique of Canada’s performance on gender equality (chapter 10, “Gender equality and the ‘Two CIDAs’: Successes and setbacks 1976–2015”), illustrate how political leaders have used distorted language to conceal the reality that Canada was departing in no small measure from international good practice. Den Heyer pertinently closes her chapter by saying (wistfully?) “The question is whether Canada will slip into old patterns or take advantage of the opportunity to rethink Canadian aid” (84).
The thematic and geographic analysis provided in the later chapters of the book is a helpful complement to the earlier discussions of rationale, strategy, and aid in the context of North–South relations writ large. Not surprisingly, aid to fragile and conflict-affected countries gets extensive treatment by David Carment and Yiagadeesen Samy in chapter 12, “Canada’s fragile states policy: What have we accomplished and where do we go from here?,” by Stephen Baranyi and Themrise Khan in chapter 13, “Canada and development in other fragile states: Moving beyond the ‘Afghanistan Model,’” and by Justin Massie and Stéphane Roussel in chapter 8, “Preventing, substituting or complementing the use of force? Development assistance in Canadian strategic culture.” Massie and Roussel’s approach will likely provoke interesting reactions with their event-specific analysis, which seems to ignore the need for a long-term engagement in fragile states—as current evidence and theory call for—in order to reduce instability and contribute to development progress. Carment, Samy, Baranyi, and Khan rightly cite the importance of a coherent, consistent, and coordinated approach across the many components of an engagement with fragile and conflict-affected states if Canada is to make a meaningful contribution to stability and security in those countries.
The examination by Gabriel Goyette in chapter 14, “Charity begins at home: The extractive sector as an illustration of the Harper government’s de facto aid policy,” and Stephen Brown in chapter 15, “Undermining foreign aid: The extractive sector and the recommercialization of Canadian development assistance,” provides additional evidence, if it were needed, of how Canada’s aid was distorted to support a narrow, selfish, and short-sighted political objective—giving advantage to Canadian private sector interests. These chapters also illustrate how development assistance programmed and disbursed in an ad hoc fashion, in the absence of any global policy statement and strategic framework, does not lead to sustainable and systemic progress and in fact may contribute to the Canadian public’s skepticism about the value of foreign aid. There are other more appropriate instruments at the government’s disposal to support Canadian companies’ efforts to pursue business internationally. A new aid policy framework should explicitly exclude this use of development assistance funds in order to be consistent with the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act of 2008.
There is much stimulating, pertinent material in this book. One could wish for more coverage of Canada’s retreat from supportive multilateral engagement over the 2005–2015 period, and recognition of the important, distinctive role Canadian civil society organizations have played, and could play in future, in a whole-of-Canada approach to development cooperation, as partners with—not contractors to—the government. On the other hand, that would have made it a rather intimidating read. In chapter 2, “Refashioning humane internationalism in twenty-first century Canada,” Adam Chapnick calls for development cooperation education in Canada (48), a call that political leadership at the highest level ought to heed.
As noted in the introduction to this review, the current government has proclaimed that “Canada is back” on the world stage. Let us hope that in demonstrating how Canada is back, the government gets past the narrow statement of purpose set out in the mandate letter of the minister for international cooperation, Marie-Claude Bibeau, and develops and implements development cooperation policies and strategies drawing from the thoughtful, useful perspectives set out in Rethinking Canadian Aid.