Uneasy about loss of CIDA

Re

Tories put quiet end to CIDA, March 22 This is a dark day for Canada. We have lost the Canadian International Development Agency, an institution that is a part of who we are as a people. Growing up in Canada, I learned this was a compassionate country because the people I met cared. Not just about each other, but the world around them. When Haiti, my father’s home country, was devastated by an earthquake, Canadians reacted with an outpouring of support. Up until March 21, 2013, we had a federal agency that appropriately reflected Canadians’ compassion. The government’s decision to merge CIDA with the Department of Foreign Affairs is a selfish act that will sadly distort the way we are seen in the world.

Christophe Elie, One has to admire the skill with which the Harper government has undermined and subverted CIDA, in part by the antics of Bev Oda and, more recently, those of Julian Fantino, so that by the time it comes to be abolished, it is hardly worth protesting about. Brilliant, too, the imaginative redefinition of foreign aid as “how foreign countries can aid Canada.”

John Warden, I’m uneasy about CIDA’s integration into the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Does this mean that Canada’s legislated commitment to global poverty reduction and human rights will take second place to trade considerations? The government needs to prove this isn’t the case. And concerned citizens, both native-born and those from developing countries, need to be vigilant and demand accountability.

Kim Malcolm,

Ottawa

Scarborough

Ottawa