Carney attends G20 summit with aim to boost trade — and as Canada cuts foreign aid
CBC
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to South Africa for the G20, which will include a meeting with the country’s president, comes as Canada prioritizes boosting trade with other continents and plans to scale back foreign aid.
A senior Canadian official said the Carney government’s first phase of diversifying trade away from the U.S. is heavily aimed at Europe and Asia.
The official added that the government’s commitment to Africa isn’t diminished, but “it’s not what the prime minister’s focus is on right now.”
The recent federal budget doesn’t mention Africa or allocate any new money for Canada’s long-awaited Africa strategy to boost engagement with the continent, which launched in March.
Edward Akuffo, a political science professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, said it’s the first time in Canada’s more than 70-year relationship with Africa that there’s a strategy like this for the continent, but he hasn’t heard Carney talk about it.
Carney could face questions at the G20 about why he isn’t promoting the strategy and where Africa fits into his foreign policy, he said.
“I think Mr. Carney seems to be missing the opportunity to actually take ownership and the implementation of this strategy from the previous Trudeau government,” said Akuffo, who writes about Canada's strategic approach to Africa.
“The government needs to step up to the plate.”
The senior Canadian official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed Ottawa is still pursuing Canada’s Africa strategy. The official said when the document was written there was a significant budget for international assistance in Africa which “largely remains.”
But the official said the government is now looking at how it can align funding with Carney’s priorities and African countries’ needs.
Canada has invested about $4.5 billion in assistance to Africa over the past five years to help build economies, respond to humanitarian needs and support education and health, according to Global Affairs Canada.
The Carney government’s budget, which narrowly passed a key confidence vote in the House of Commons on Monday, plans to cut foreign aid broadly by $2.7 billion over the next four years. The fiscal plan said those cuts would hit development funding to global health programming and transfers to international financial institutions, but didn’t detail what countries will be impacted and by how much.
But one of the first cuts was made public on Friday. Carney scaled back support for a major fund that helps fight infectious diseases including in Africa.
Before Carney arrived in South Africa for the summit, the government announced a $1-billion contribution to the Global Fund. That’s a 17 per cent drop from its last contribution in 2022.
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