MAKE POVERTY HISTORY - 2005

News Release

For immediate release: September 16, 2005

Prime Minister Fails to Announce a Canadian Plan for More and Better Aid

Canadian NGOs are deeply disappointed that the Prime Minister failed to announce, at the United Nations Special Summit today, a timetable for Canada to live up to its international commitments to help end global poverty.

The goals of the special summit were threefold: UN reform; peacebuilding and security; and progress made towards the Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, while the Prime Minister substantially addressed the first two, he had nothing new to offer the world's poor.

“How can the Canadian Prime Minister come to a meeting like this and not use the words 'Millennium Development Goals' in his speech?” says Gerry Barr President-CEO of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation and the co-chair of the Make Poverty History Campaign. “The Prime Minister has missed a key opportunity to re-assert Canadian leadership on the international stage. Instead, we have no additional aid resources. No commitment from Martin to move towards the 0.7% UN target for aid spending. And no commitment for legislation focusing Canadian aid on ending poverty.”

The Prime Minister should, however, be congratulated for the role Canada played in securing the “Responsibility to Protect” language and for saying that the new Peacebuilding Commission should have been made operational.

The Human Rights Council also rightly received the Prime Minister's strong endorsement and he expressed his “profound disappointment” that world leaders could not agree on how to make it both effective and operational.

“We share the Prime Minister's disappointment with the lack of movement on both the Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council,” says Barr. “But, as a country, we also need to come up with new aid dollars beyond our current commitments to ensure that the poor can claim their human rights, and the most vulnerable receive protection.

For more information:

Katia Gianneschi
Make Poverty History
(613) 241-7007 ext. 311
media@makepovertyhistory.ca