Essay/Term paper: Canada's aid to third world countries

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Economics

Canada's Aid to Third World Countries


What are some of the major problems faced by "Third World" Countries today?
Who should be held responsible for these problems? Why? What has Canada done
to help "Third World Countries"?

There has always been a dominant country in the world that sets the
economic standard throughout powerful countries. Canada has always been a top
rated economic country, usually behind the United States and other large
Commonwealth countries. Starting back in the early to mid 60's, Prime Minister
of Canada, Pierre Trudeau decided to use Canadian revenue as foreign aid. These
included "Third World".

Some of the major problems faced by "Third World" countries today include
poor towns which have had a lack of food sources due to the serious poverty,
lack of clean drinking water, lack of good sanitation systems, lack of good
living conditions, lack of jobs and there is no industry, therefore no import or
export revenue. The governments of the "Third World" countries have done
horrible jobs of creating good living conditions for their people and in all
have not tried to bring their country out of their economic slump.

As Canada entered it second century, Prime Minister Trudeau called for a
complete review of Canada's foreign policy. Starting in 1968 interested
Canadians including politicians, journalists, professors, business leaders,
financial experts, as well as church and labour leaders were invited to offer
opinions and advice in what was called the Trudeau Review. The ending of this
meeting brought about six foreign policy booklets which outlined the benefits of
Canadian foreign aid. Some of these benefits included to help the Canadian
economy grow stronger, to keep Canada independent, to work for peace and
security, to promote fairness and equality for everyone and to improve living
conditions for all people throughout the world.

The Canadian foreign policy review suggested that Canada strengthened it's
ties with Latin America. Trudeau visited Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela in 1976.
Canada's trade with Latin America increased from $1099 million in 1970 to $3418
million in 1976. Also Canada gave an increasing amount of development funds to a
number of Latin American countries.

Canada, in 1973 had a major concern about the middle east and made an
effort to bring about a lasting peace to the Arab-Israeli conflict. 1050
Canadian military specialists became part of the United Nations emergency force
where they tried to maintain a cease fire by providing supplies, transportation
and communication during the 1973 peacekeeping role.

The Trudeau foreign policy review recommended that Canada was to work hard
to support the United Nations and make it an effective organization for
international co-operation. Canada contributed heavily, and still does so, to
all the U.N organizations that are striving to help poor nations and are working
toward the disarmament of nuclear weapons and human rights. Canada contributed
the ninth largest share of the regular annual budget to the United Nations.

Another issue that faced Canada was the fact that China's membership in the
United Nations brought Canada into conflict with some other U.N members,
especially the United States. Since 1966 Canada had said that it was becoming
increasingly more important that China be represented at the U.N. At the time,
the U.N only recognized the former government of China which was established on
the island of Taiwan.

The Canadian government prides itself on sending foreign aid to developing
countries. In the 1970's there was an estimated 4.2 billion people on the earth,
more then 2.5 billion of them were starving. It was also estimated that by the
year 2000 the starving population could double. Canada tried very hard to
provide these needy "Third World" countries with the best possible aid.

Without the help of Canada as well as other "First World" countries such as
the United States and Australia the "Third World" countries would not be around
for this long and would have absolutely no hope of survival.