I have recently been thinking about foreign aid and the amount that the government spends abroad of our money. So I looked up to see where our money was going. The CBC has a cool interactive map that shows where and how much money was sent to each country. The most up to date information that is posted at this time is the 2009-2010 fiscal year. I was shocked that there was 150 countries that Canada gave money to during that year. What was more shocking was that we were giving money to China. China is currently on course to be the largest economy in the world in the next few years and we are giving them money for local inititives and regional programs. I feel that this in unacceptable to be giving money to these countries. Now there are lots of countries that I believe that do need some assistance, but I have not seen any evidence that government foreign aid is actually beneficial to the people in these countries. My wife states that likely one of the reasons for foreign aid is for signalling to other countries on how nice we are to developing nations.
I propose that the government gets out of the foreign aid business. From the Government of Canada CIDA data the 2010-2011 data shows how much money was spent in each country. The total foreign aid spent was a little under $5.7 billion. From the expense report for the same fiscal period Canada had $270 billion in expenses. Foreign aid accounts for a little more that 2% of those expenses. Now that does not seem like a lot of money overall, but do China, Russia and India need our financial aid. If they do not then we could send that money to other countries that may need it more.
If the government got out of the aid business and cut both corporate and personal taxes by the 2% and allowed the people and corporations to donate money to private charities that they felt would benefit the appropriate people that wold be better. Also, the government to signal to other countries that they care about these developing nations they could reduce tarriffs and import duties so that they could sell their commodities into Canada easier and they could give a greater tax benefit to corporations and individuals that do give to charities.
So in conclusion the government no longer gives foreign aid to countries, but they can reduce taxes by the same amount that they give out so there is no increase in revenues or expenses. They can reduce tarriffs to promote those countries to produce commodities to sell into our markets, they can also make it more favourable tax benefits to those that give to charities. Individuals will choose the charities that they feel will do the greatest benefit to the people that they serve. They will be able to use the money from the taxes that are no longer being collected by the governemnt to give.
Share your thoughts on how to improve foreign aid to the world.
