Prime Minister Stephen Harper has announced that Canada will be giving over $203 million dollars to the Muskoka Initiative, part of a $1.1-billion commitment to improve maternal, newborn, and child health in developing countries.
Meanwhile, at home in Canada, Harper has eliminated funding for the National Association of Women in Law, cut the funding for Sisters in Spirit, and closed more than half of the Status of Women offices across the country.
Last year Harper cut funding to National Aboriginal Health Organization, four years after he apologized, on behalf of Canada, for the treatment of First Nations peoples in residential schools. Years after Harper’s mechanical apology for residential schools, documents were released detailing horrific nutritional experiments performed on First Nations peoples within the residential school system.
The point is that charity should begin at home. Our government cuts and disables resources that aid marginalized women and children in Canada and dole it out to global initiatives that they believe will help women and children in other nations.
This is a high price to pay for Canadian conservative impression management. Harper should be focusing on the people of Canada, in particular those that are in living in jeopardy due to various intersecting social forces.