National (and International) Security

Both the Liberals and Conservatives have been falling all over themselves recently promising to spend more money on defence, threatening to distort our priorities even further. We currently spend $13.5 billion a year on defence and only $3.4 billion on foreign aid, about 1.3 per cent and .3 per cent of our GDP respectively. The Liberals are promising another $12 billion over the next five years and the Conservatives promise to top that. If you believe as I do that the world's security will be better served by spending on health and education rather than on guns, this is topsy-turvey. We should spend at least as much on aid as we do on the military.

If we sought a balance, without spending another nickel our contributions to aid and defence would be .8 per cent of GDP each. We would finally have met the international standard of .7 per cent for foreign aid, a standard we invented. Prime Minister Paul Martin's comment that we simply cannot commit to that target is nonsense, a sordid insult to the world's 6.000.000 children who die needlessly every year from lack of proper health care, to say nothing of the millions of others whose lives are stunted by lack of education.

We can do better. Much, much better.