Dear Halifax Initiative Rapid Response Network,

Please note that this coming month is a critical time for the campaign to cancel the debt of poor countries.  We are asking you to take action to help make 100% debt cancellation a possibility for the poorest countries, with no conditions attached.

What you can do? 
1) Call Prime Minister Martin, Minister Goodale and your MP and tell them you want Canada to support cancelling the debt (see note below and attached)

Calgary Herald June 15, 2002
 
Give Africa more of a say in its own future: coalition
By Allison Auld - The Canadian Press
 
Group of Seven countries must cancel soaring debts that impoverish African nations and revise aid programs to better suit the needs of people in countries that languish under heavy financial burdens, a coalition of activists said yesterday.
 

Export credit agencies (ECAs) are public agencies that provide government backed loans and insurance to corporations. G7 governments all own export credit agencies, which support G7 companies to do business abroad.
 
Export credit agencies (ECAs) are public agencies that provide government backed loans and insurance to corporations. G7 governments all own export credit agencies, which support G7 companies to do business abroad.
 

Open letter to the G7 finance ministers

When the G7 heads of government met in Halifax in June 1995, leaders made a commitment to a series of measures to reform the Bretton Woods Institutions. The G7 called for the provision of multi-lateral debt relief for the poorest countries, the promotion of environmentally sustainable development and the reduction of poverty.

Seven years later, these promises are unfulfilled. The crisis of legitimacy confronting the World Bank and the IMF at the 50th anniversary of their creation led to the G7 to take up the reform of the international financial institutions (IFIs) in Halifax. As the G7 finance ministers return to Halifax, this question of legitimacy continues to haunt the institutions.

A growing chorus of critics from around the world have increasingly questioned the efficacy of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)-promoted economic policy reforms. As a result, the two institutions renewed vows to fight poverty at their annual meetings in Prague 2000. Uganda is viewed as pivotal to the success of much-publicized efforts to reform the institutions and their policies. Over 41 countries are in the pipeline for the adoption of similar policies, but is Uganda a success?

The G7 drives the engine of neo-liberal globalization and controls the most powerful institutions of global finance and trade. It is impossible to speak of the impact of the G7 without discussing the impact of the Bretton Woods financial institutions: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Wealthy countries and the World Bank are forcing the privatization of public services and natural resources in Africa and elsewhere as a condition for development assistance. Impoverished countries are required to turn their public services and natural resources over to private owners. If they want the aid money, they have to sell off their oil, gas, mining, electricity, telecommunications, transportation and water companies. Investors say privitization brings efficiency; opponents say it hurts the poor.

KANANASKIS G7 SUMMIT ISSUE BRIEFS (June 2002):
What’s Shutout of the G7? – The Tobin tax and Mountains of Money for Development

KANANASKIS G7 SUMMIT ISSUE BRIEFS (June 2002): Extractive Industries and the Role of the World Bank
One of the most controversial areas of World Bank involvement is the financing of oil, gas and mining projects in developing nations. This brief describes World Bank involvement in these extractive industries, specifically the devastating effects of these projects on local people and the environment and the solutions put forward by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to correct these problems.

The Problem
The on-going debt crisis of developing countries is integral to the perpetuation of an unjust economic system, one that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few. EVERY SINGLE DAY in 1999, $128 million was transferred from the poorest countries to the richest in debt repayments. For every one dollar in aid to developing countries, more than seven dollars comes back to rich countries in the form of debt servicing.