Mother’s Day in the Developing World
By Keith Martin, May 08, 2010

As we prepare to celebrate Mother’s Day, the future doesn’t look so bright for women in the developing world.

This week, some of the world’s top doctors met in Vancouver to share their extraordinary research on how we can save lives and improve the future of the world’s most vulnerable people. But a dark cloud hung over the meeting. It was impossible to miss the deep concern, fear, and shock these scientists felt about the Canadian government’s position on maternal and child health.

Only a few months ago, these same physicians were overjoyed when they heard that Canada was going to make maternal and child health a priority at this summer’s G8 summit in Ontario. They understand very well the interplay between the fate of a mother and that of her children. Their joy, however, turned to shock when this life and death issue turned political and regressive.

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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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May 4th, 2010

How to Save Nearly 10 million Lives
G8 Nations Should Each Champion One of the Key Inputs in Primary Care

OTTAWA – “Time is running out for the world’s most powerful nations to articulate a plan of action that will reduce the horrific loss of more than 340,000 women and the nine million children who die every year from entirely preventable or treatable causes,” said Dr. Keith Martin, Member of Parliament for Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca.

Dr. Martin is in Vancouver today attending the world’s largest meeting of pediatric academic researchers as part of the Pediatric Academic Societies’ Annual Meeting.

Although it is deeply regrettable that Canada’s International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda confirmed at the G8 meeting in Halifax last week that the Canadian government would not fund access to abortion as part of its plan to reduce maternal mortality, there is still a way forward to implement a plan that will save lives.

“In order to get the job done, each G8 nation should take a leadership role in one of the key inputs needed to provide primary care in developing countries. For example, the Americans could be the lead country in training health care workers, Canada could take the lead on access to clean water and sanitation or food security and micronutrients, and the French could champion people’s access to a full array of family planning options, including access to safe abortions in countries where it is legal. In this way G8 nations could coordinate their efforts with each other, with recipient nations, NGOs, foundations, and large multi-lateral organizations,” said Dr. Martin.

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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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Oda to push for G8 strategy during Halifax meetings
Heather Scoffield, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA – Defining a maternal and child health strategy for developing countries is the least of the G8′s challenges on the aid front right now.

At a key meeting of G8 development ministers in Halifax this week, Canada’s Bev Oda is confident she’ll find enough common ground to announce progress on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s signature G8 agenda item.

“Development ministers are going to agree on a way forward,” said Oda’s spokeswoman Jessica Fletcher.

Oda is also expected to add some clarity to Canada’s own approach to improving the lives of mothers and their young children in poor countries, amidst criticism Ottawa is trying to sidestep inclusion of abortion and family planning. More problematic, however, is Canada’s goal to make sure countries are living up to their substantial – and expensive – promises of the past.

The meeting, to prepare for the June summit in Huntsville, Ont., comes at a time when government funding is in short supply around the world, and the very case for any international aid at all is being called into question by a growing pile of publications and high-profile critics.

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Mother of all issues
MPs can distinguish themselves by championing worthy causes

WALTER ROBINSON

Given present happenings on Parliament Hill, these are not good times to be a federal politician, or as Michael Ignatieff poorly mused, a member of the so-called political class.

Sadly, Canadians have become blase if not immune to political scandals — imagined, overblown or real — and just accept them as the same old, same old.

This is a dangerous situation with Canadians across all age groups, professions and income groups tuning out, according to pollsters, of the daily happenings in Parliament, from the absurd theatre of question period to the more substantive work of committees.

At the risk of belittling the role of our 308 MPs, much of it is routine, from EI concerns to passports to immigration issues. An MP is very much an ombudsperson for their constituents, helping them navigate the complex federal bureaucracy. Much of this can be competently accomplished with the assistance of a great staff team on the Hill and in their riding offices. (more…)

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