Competing Rationales for Canadian Development Assistance

Abstract

ETHICAL VALUES AND CANADIAN DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCEAfter 1945, a cosmopolitan dimension gradually became a feature of the political cultures of most industrialized societies as they came to accept that they had obligations to promote basic human rights beyond their borders and to aid the development of the world's poorest peoples and countries. However, the attachment of most governments to these obligations has never been other than fragile,(f.1) and their impact on public policy has often been overshadowed by national interest imperatives, both economic and political. Nevertheless, from a human perspective, the emergence of a cosmopolitan ethic that asserts in particular an international obligation to advance basic human rights and to promote the development needs of the poorest is a significant development.(f.2)By the mid-1960s, Canada had begun to respond more than minimally to these newer obligations, and, until quite recently, the official rhetoric of the Canadian government located the objective of its development assistance squarely within the emerging cosmopolitan ethic. Both major cabinet-endorsed policy statements on Canadian aid between 1975 and 1993 defined the primary objective of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in humanitarian rather than commercial, political, or security terms.(f.3) This was also the judgment of Canadian parliamentarians on the four important occasions between 1980 and 1994 when committees of parliament gave detailed consideration to Canadian aid policies.(f.4) During the same period, public opinion overwhelmingly held to the view that the primary purpose of aid programmes should be to help the development efforts of the poorest countries and peoples.(f.5) A recent professionally sophisticated poll demonstrates that public support for development assistance remains surprisingly strong, and for essentially ethical reasons.(f.6)Those who embrace the humane internationalist perspective have always recognized, indeed stressed, that development assistance was in Canada's long-term political and economic interest. Foreign aid can reasonably be expected to contribute to a healthy global economy and to a less strife-riven world, both of which are clearly to Canada's advantage. Nevertheless, the primary motive behind foreign aid was and should remain humanitarian rather than the pursuit of any national interests, economic, political, or security. Mitchell Sharp made the point over 25 years ago: 'if the purpose of aid is to help ourselves rather than to help others, we shall probably receive in return what we deserve and a good deal less than we expect.(f.7)DOMESTIC INFLUENCES ON CIDA POLICIESThe emergence of a substantial Canadian aid programme did not happen in isolation from domestic politics in Canada. The programme simultaneously reflected the major shift in social values that had, in the same era, led to the development of extensive social welfare programmes in Canada without, however, challenging that particular responsiveness of public policy to corporate interests which is a feature of the Canadian political system.(f.8) The interaction of these influences meant that transplanting liberal welfare values to foreign policy through an expanded aid programme quickly encountered powerful pressures from within government and from the corporate sector for the aid programme to promote other foreign policy objectives, including, in particular, the advancement of Canadian trade interests. Thus from its early years, CIDA was, in the words which open the most comprehensive parliamentary review of Canadian aid policies ever undertaken, 'beset by a confusion of purpose.(f.9)For many years there has been a struggle inside government between those who want to ensure that CIDA is ever more responsive to trade and other foreign policy objectives and those, primarily within CIDA, who want to limit the erosion of CIDA's putative primary focus on helping the poorest peoples and countries. …