Pie Palace

Remember Live8? A whole bunch of public figures got together, told people to tell their elected leaders that it’s time to start giving Africa the aid it needs. At the time, I wasn’t impressed. The commitment seemed weak. It sounded like a one-off.

Then I saw DATA. It’s an organization dedicated to holding the G8 countries accountable to the promises they made in 2006. They released an extremely readable report earlier this year. After reading that, I’ve changed my mind about the Live8 people. They’re doing their homework. Sadly, the G8 isn’t.

According to the Live8 website, the G8 countries committed to:

• $50 billion more aid per year by 2010
  
• AIDS drugs to all those who need them, and care for all AIDS orphans
  
• debt cancellation for 38 countries, with 18 benefiting this year
  
• Free, quality primary education and basic healthcare for all children.
  
• AIDS drugs for all who need them, and care for all AIDS orphans.
  
• Treatment and bed nets to halve deaths from malaria.
  
• Vaccinations to eradicate polio.

Of those goals, the only one that is close to being met is debt forgiveness for 18 countries. Everything else is falling behind.

And where is Canada in this mess? A quick search through the DATA report makes me embarrassed to be a Canadian:

• In 2005 we reduced our paltry aid to Africa by $10 million, while we should have increased it by over $100 million.
  
• Canada is not giving enough money to fighting AIDS.

As a whole, the G8 is falling behind in some specific ways:

• The G8 isn’t doing enough to cut our export subsidies.
  
• The G8 isn’t doing enough to lower agricultural tariffs.
  
• The G8 must increase the level of AIDS treatment in Africa.

Oh yeah. For Canada to keep our Live8 promise, we have to increase aid to Africa a paltry $144 million. That’s 2.8% of the money the money Harper recently threw away on the GST cut. That’s 1% of the money that Harper is promising to spend on the military. It works out to $5 per Canadian.