Foreign Aid

Foreign Aid

Five point six BILLION dollars! That’s what we spend on foreign aid every year. That ain’t no chump change an’ that’s a fact! An’ we’re about halfway down the list of donors.  Altogether there’s about a trillion bucks leaving our collective coffers every year to help somebody do somethin’ or other.  Here’s the thing. Nothin’ ever gets better for the receivin’ nations an’ yet we keep on dolin’ it out. It’s like they’re on some sort of a pension or somethin’. I can’t help but think it’s somethin’ like the senate. Ya sit around doin’ nothin’ an’ wonderin’ when it’s payday.

Well here’s what I’m thinkin’. A recent study shows that sixty percent of Canada’s northern population doesn’t have enough to eat. They go hungry every day. An’ when they do get something to eat, it’s just fast food junk anyways. That’s a pretty good gig for the food suppliers, the truckers an’ the airlines. An’ we already know there’s no drinkin’ water up there, no sewage systems no schools, no hospitals, no roads or nothin’. We been too busy buildin’ them things in places like Afghanistan. So what’s wrong with our northern population lobbyin’ the International Monetary Fund for foreign aid money to provide them with the necessities the same as them other countries we’re dolin’ out our money to?  When Lester Pearson suggested seven percent of our GDP go to foreign aid, he wasn’t countin’ on it bein’ taken away from Canadians in need. As it stands, we’re only givin’ three percent, so we’re rippin’ EVERYBODY off. I guess you could follow the money trail to where the rest goes.

I suppose you could paint an analogy of an itinerant father leavin’ his children to show off his benevolence to the world, except that he’s a cheapskate an’ doesn’t do much showin’ off except in his own mind. The upshot is that the father’s neglected children suffer in silence while the recipient others are somewhat disgusted with his tight pockets.

What the northern community needs to do is to mobilize the “Idle No More” gang to take up the cause and make as much noise as possible. There is enough evidence of its third world status and pressure needs to be brought to bear on the world for Canada to mend some of its fences at home before goin’ off into the wild blue yonder to flash it’s benevolent smile to the world. After all. A country that can’t look after its own affairs has no credibility in looking after the affairs of others. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.