Three ways to pay for aid commitments
EMBASSY – Canada’s Foreign Policy Newspaper

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Stephen Harper’s announcement that child and maternal health will be the signature theme of June’s G8 meeting is certainly timely.

Every day 1,400 women die of pregnancy-related causes.  Every day 24,000 children under the age of five die of what are largely preventable causes. Progress on improving child and maternal health is the furthest off-track of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) UN member states committed to in 2000. This focus gives MDGs four and five, on child and maternal health, the push they need ahead of September’s United Nations High Level Meeting and ten year review of the MDGs.

But funding the initiative comes during difficult days – a global crisis and a budget deficit. Resources are tight.

1st February 2010

Ref: Immediate debt cancellation for Haiti

Dear Ministers Flaherty and Cannon,

We are writing to commend the government’s efforts to date to mobilise emergency assistance for disaster relief in Haiti and for speaking to the urgency and importance of debt cancellation for the country. The call to cancel Haiti’s remaining multilateral debt, including last week’s highly concessional $102 million loan from the IMF, benefits from a strong Canadian voice. We urge you to keep demonstrating such leadership in the government’s interventions at the Bretton Woods Institutions, and at Haiti’s largest multilateral creditor, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

CSOs push for Common Approaches revamp
Members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are currently reviewing a 2007 Council Recommendation regarding export credit agency (ECA) operations. The Recommendation on Common Approaches on the Environment and Officially Supported Export Credits (Common Approaches) is a “gentlemen’s agreement” that seeks to establish a level playing field regarding ECA environmental practice. CSOs argue that the Recommendation’s impact is undermined by the lack of effective accountability mechanisms to ensure consistent and effective application by member governments.

Julian Paisey
OECD, Export Credit Division, Trade Directorate
2, rue André-Pascal
Paris Cedex 16 - France
Brussels, 12 January 2010.

Dear Julian,

Further to your letter of December 2009, you will find below the elements that ECA-Watch and Amnesty International would like to see addressed and revised in the review of the 2007 Revised Council Recommendation on Common Approaches on the Environment and Officially Supported Export Credits (Common Approaches). We believe that the 2010 Common Approaches Review must consider these issues in order to improve ECA standards and practices and to meet the objectives set out in the Recommendation.

Corporate Accountability Hearings Heat Up
Things were hopping this month in Parliamentary hearings on Bill-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries (see IU February 2009). The Bill was presented before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development by MP John McKay on May 25. This month Committee members heard riveting testimony from diverse witnesses (see JUST THE FACTS). Speakers included: Romina Picolotti, former Secretary of the Environment for Argentina and winner of the prestigious Sophie Prize for environment and sustainable development; Stephen Hunt, former mine worker and current Director at the United Steelworkers union; Marketa Evans, the federal government’s new Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor; and mining companies Barrick Gold, Goldcorp and Kinross.

November 11, 2009

Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Managing Director
International Monetary Fund,
700 19th Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20431

Dear Mr. Strauss-Kahn:

Re: Request for civil society participation in IMF study on how the financial sector can help pay for the bailouts 

In September, the Group of 20 (G20), at their summit in Pittsburgh, mandated the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with preparing a report ahead of the next G20 summit in June 2010 to consider “how the financial sector could make a fair and substantial contribution toward paying for any burdens associated with government interventions to repair the banking system.”

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Honourable James Flaherty
Minister of Finance
Department of Finance
140 O’Connor Street
Ottawa, ON  K1A 0G5

Dear Finance Minister,

Re: Making it easier for developing countries to secure the benefits of a new cooperative tax environment

In the run-up to the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting in St Andrews, civil society organisations from around the world are writing with regard to the G20 Heads of States’ commitment at the London Summit in April to 'develop proposals by end 2009 to make it easier for developing countries to secure the benefits of a new cooperative tax environment.'

Hon. Stockwell Day
Minister of International Trade

Hon. Lawrence Cannon
Minister of Foreign Affairs

Hon. Lisa Raitt
Minister of Natural Resources

Hon. Beverley Oda
Minister of International Cooperation

November 3, 2009

Re: Withdrawal of civil servants from corporate accountability conference

Dear Ministers Day, Cannon, Raitt and Oda:

On October 29, civil servants from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency suddenly withdrew their participation from a conference jointly organized by the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA) and the Mining Association of Canada (MAC), which is taking place today. These civil servants withdrew not only as speakers on each of the conference’s panels, but also as registered participants.

Experts address missing pieces of crisis response ahead of Canadian 2010 G8/G20 meeting
On October 19th and 20th the Halifax Initiative co-hosted a conference with The North-South Institute and the University of Ottawa on “What’s missing in the response to the global financial crisis?” The conference sought to engage the Canadian government in discussions with national and international academics, activists and policy-makers ahead of next year’s G8/G20. The conference touched upon a range of issues related to the causes of the crisis, policy and regulatory remedies, governance of the international financial institutions, tax havens and unfettered private capital flows, an emerging debt crisis, alternatives to the renewal of the Doha trade round, and the respective roles of the United Nations and G20. A policy brief with clear recommendations for the government is forthcoming.