Thank you for the coverage of the G20 meetings.
The agenda for the current G20 meeting in France was originally to be about helping the poor and hungry of the world. Of course all the headlines now are about Europe and Greece. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose government has decided to freeze Canada’s development aid, will hear from French President Sarkozy and even Bill Gates that aid reduction is not the way to go.
Canadians are a generous and compassionate people but the government is allocating only 0.32 per cent of our national income in development aid. That’s less than half of the 0.7 per cent Mr. Harper keeps promising to give and then failing to deliver. Donor nations agree that 0.7 per cent is the amount necessary to make serious progress towards alleviating extreme poverty to 1 billion people in the world.
There are great things happening with the money Canada is sending. If we could just live up to our own promises we could be part of the solution to eradicate mortal hunger in our lifetime.
Paul Ingram, Dartmouth, N.S.
