Demand grows for international reaction force

Peter Goodspeed, National Post Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010

As Pakistan struggles with the biggest natural disaster in its history, complaints are increasing over the slow international response and demands are growing for the creation of an international reaction force to cope with catastrophes.

“When you look back at disaster after disaster, we are confronted with the same problems,” said Dr. Keith Martin, a Liberal MP for the British Columbia riding of Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.

“The co-ordination of logistics on the ground always starts from square one. From the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia in 2004, to the earthquakes that killed thousands in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the devastation Hurricane Katrina inflicted on the southern United States, to the Haiti earthquake and now the floods in Pakistan, it is obvious we have learned very little.”

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By Olivia Ward Foreign Affairs Reporter
June 7, 2010

WASHINGTON—The cavernous halls of the Washington Convention Center are awash in colourful djellabas, shalwar kameez, saris and African print cottons as the world’s biggest maternal health conference opens Monday with a speech by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

But missing in action is Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who, as host of the G20 conference in Toronto later this month, has made saving the lives of the half-million women who die each year din pregnancy and childbirth his core theme.

The Washington meeting, titled Women Deliver, is timed to bolster the G20 agenda for pumping up funds for maternal health. There are 3,300 advocates and politicians attending from 140 countries, including the heads of major UN agencies, government ministers, parliamentarians, celebrity campaigners and former heads of state.

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MP Keith Martin could save initiative for women in poor countries and give Stephen Harper a way to avoid enraging his anti-abortion constituency

By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun June 6, 2010

A maternal health care initiative aimed at saving the lives of 9.1 million women and children in developing countries each year is in danger of being torpedoed — or at very least watered down — by Prime Minister Stephen Harper when the G8 and G20 leaders meet later this month in Ontario.

It needs someone to rescue it, and Keith Martin is both a perfectly logical and the most unlikely person to do that.

The MP for Saanich-The Islands has worked abroad as a physician and used his parliamentary position to push for more and better-targeted foreign aid at conferences and forums all over the world. (more…)

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Thursday, May 20, 2010
G8/G20 Global View

In the lead up to the G20 summit, Kevin Carmichael will provide a running commentary on the critical issues facing the global economy that will be dealt with at the meeting.

This space has probably become a little heavy on banks and bank taxes. (If the Canadians and the Germans would stop talking about it, we could move on!) So as an antidote, and an apology, I offer a decent proposal from Liberal member of Parliament Keith Martin in an attempt to refocus the debate over Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s maternal health initiative, an excellent idea that unfortunately the federal government has allowed to get bogged down in abortion politics.

Not all critics are created equal. Dr. Martin is a voice from the opposition side of the House of Commons that is more reasonable than most, especially when it comes to thinking how the privileged can improve life for the poorest. (more…)

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Abortion: Shut up or keep the debate alive?

May 5, 2010, By Anca Gurzu

‘We’ve got five weeks or whatever left until the G8 starts. Shut the f–k up on this issue,” Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth told a number of women’s rights groups on Monday. “If you push it, there’ll be more backlash. This is now a political football. This is not about women’s health in this country.”

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada would champion maternal and child health at the G8 summit, foreign aid groups felt their efforts had paid off. They had long been asking the government to put the issue on the top of its agenda, and now the government had acted. But for the last few weeks, one debate has been dominating both political circles and the media: abortion funding. The abortion debate has now quickly sparked another debate within itself: one of pragmatism versus principle. And the battle lines are anything but clear as NGO goes against NGO and opposition party vies with opposition party.

Those in favour of pragmatism fear that the abortion debate is not only taking attention away from what is a hugely important issue in the developing world, but will scuttle the government’s appetite for the initiative. This is what Ms. Ruth, who was quoted by the Toronto Star, was trying to say on Monday: Be happy the government has identified the issue as a priority or risk repercussions with constant criticisms. “Let’s stop politicizing this and let’s get on with the work that needs to be done to measure the progress of lives saved,” said Chris Dendys, executive director of Results Canada. Results is one of seven NGOs that comprise the Canadian Coalition for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. These organizations were largely responsible for the initiative in the first place, and have been working with the government to push it along. “To me it feels like our sister’s house is on fire and we are debating the volume of water it takes to put out the flames,” she said, referring to the millions of mothers and children who die in poor countries every year because they do not have access to proper health care.

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MP Dr. Keith Martin is advocating a national turnoff day for children and adults.

That’s turnoff, as in turn off the TV and computer once a week as a way to confront a dangerous trend of physical inactivity among Canada’s children and youth.

“In our country, what is quite shocking is that for the first time in history the generation of our children today is expected to have a shorter life span than their parents,” said Martin, a medical doctor, noting that diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular problems are cropping up in young people.

“It’s entirely preventable. It’s just kids are not physically active. They’re sitting down for an appalling length of time. We weren’t designed to live like that as human beings. (more…)

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We don’t go in for that sort of thing
Elizabeth Payne, The Ottawa Citizen
April 29th, 2010

The federal government’s “No sex please, we’re Canadians” approach to foreign aid is not limited to maternal health, it seems.

A new Children and Youth Strategy for CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency) is also drawing criticism for its failure to address the sexual health of young women in the developing world, despite the fact that sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and the dangers of pregnancy loom large in their lives. As with maternal health, those who work in the field say improving the health and well-being of young women and girls must include reproductive health care.

In both cases, it is foreign aid tailored to be inoffensive to the Conservative party’s core voters. It is part of a pattern that seems designed to make sure that no one gets the wrong idea about Canadians. From removal of references to gay rights in the new citizenship guide, to the removal of the International Planned Parenthood Federation from the list of foreign aid agencies Canada supports, the message is clear. In the Great White North we don’t go in for that sort of thing. No hanky panky here. And don’t expect sex to factor into our foreign aid dollars (such as they are) either.

Except that, of course, sex does happen here. Canadians can easily get access to birth control or abortions if they need to. And yet when it comes to foreign aid, the Canadian message is both hardline and hypocritical.

It may play well to certain voters back home, but help for pregnant teenagers in Guatemala and sick mothers in Indonesia should not depend on the perceived whims of Canadian voters. Playing domestic politics with foreign aid is wrong — especially at a time when Canada’s already meagre foreign aid budgets are being cut.

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Feds spike abortion funding
Won’t be included in family planning for developing countries

LAURA PAYTON, PARLIAMENTARY BUREAU
April 27, 2010

Canada could pay for family planning in developing countries, but that doesn’t include abortion, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said Monday.

Family planning and abortion were bound to resurge in the news as Oda convenes a meeting of G8 development ministers this week in advance of the leaders’ meeting in June.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in January that Canada — this year’s G8 host and chairman — wanted to make maternal and child health a priority. It soon led to questions about whether that would include family planning funding for women in developing countries.

Harper finally said he didn’t want to reopen the abortion debate and blamed the opposition parties for stirring the pot.

Oda said the internationally accepted definition of family planning, used by the World Health Organization, UN and G8, includes contraception but not abortion.

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‘No division’ between member nations despite conflicting approach to funding of maternal health

Joanna Smith in Halifax Susan Delacourt in Ottawa
April 27, 2010

The Conservative government has stated Canada will not spend any humanitarian dollars on abortion as part of its signature G8 initiative to improve maternal and child health in developing countries.

“Canada’s contribution will not include funding of abortions,” Canadian International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda told reporters Monday after arriving in Halifax for a meeting of G8 development ministers.

The declaration – coupled with a similar statement from her parliamentary secretary, Conservative MP Jim Abbott, in the Commons about an hour earlier – came as a surprise after months of vague back and forth without a categorical stand on whether its new foreign-aid focus on maternal health included access to safe abortions.

“Canada’s contribution to maternal and child health may involve various interventions, including family planning, which includes the use of contraceptive methods,” Oda said.

The announcement puts Canada at odds with the United States and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – who spoke out for financing abortion when she was in Canada last month – as well as several of Canada’s G8 partners.

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April 26, 2010
Joanna Smith

HALIFAX—The upcoming meeting of G8 development ministers is unlikely to top the scolding U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave the Conservative government for trying to keep abortions out of its maternal health project as far as headlines go.

That is probably just as well, because the main players will have enough to do trying to convince the rest of the world — including the protesters expected to sound their disappointment on the streets of Halifax — they are still serious about keeping promises made years ago.

“We’re hoping the development ministers will acknowledge that their governments have fallen short and if not announce things at least push their leaders to announce new assistance when they meet (at the G8 leaders’ summit) in June,” said Mark Fried, advocacy coordinator for Oxfam Canada.

The three-day ministerial meeting that begins Monday evening is supposed to lay the groundwork for proposals that will be the focus of the main G8 event in Huntsville, Ont. and Bev Oda, the Canadian minister for international cooperation, appears confident she will be able to find enough agreement among her counterparts to get that job done.

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