World's economic titans shrug at Canada's pleas to help world's poorest moms and kids

The signature initiative for this year's G8 summit is Prime Minister Stephen Harper's maternal and child health initiative. Yes, we've had lots, and will continue to have lots, of debate on the seeming hypocrisy of a federal government refusing to fund a medical procedure in developing countries that thousands of women in its own country use every year. But the fact is that when it comes to medicines, clean water, training for nurses and doctors, and key public health infrastructure that could save the lives of millions of women and children who lack some basic medicines and medical help, Canada ponied up.

Before the weekend summit opened, Canada had said it would spend $1.75 billion over five years on what Harper is calling “the Muskoka Initiative”. Then today, it said it would kick in another $1.1 billion. But the other G8 countries — many with economies that absolutely dwarf Canada's — couldn't even come up with $1 billion a year between them!

Harper, asked to break down the contributions from each of the other partners, tried to be gracious:

“As is always the case with these initiatives, some countries pledge relatively more than others, at least relative to the size of their economies. [But] the differences in pledges has to do with differences in priorities but also, I think just as importantly, with differences in financial situations. As we all know, Canada has far and away the strongest financial position, fiscal position of any country that's sitting around that table today and, of course, this has been our flagship initiative for this particular conference so I thought it was more than appropriate that Canada lead with a disproportionate contribution. I think this will be strongly supported by the Canadian public. As long as people can see their money being used on things that are important, that really change the lives of people, that make a difference, money that is used effectively — people will support that. Of all things we could spend our money, who wouldn't want to spend a little bit of money to save the life of a mother that might otherwise die or ensure a child for only a few cents or a few treatments or a few vitamins is able to live a healthy life and grow up to adulthood. All people need to see and all people need to be convinced of is that the money they're giving will make a difference.”

Gracious, yes, but I think it lets some of Canada's allies he let off hook too easily, despite the fact that the U.S. and Europe are swimming in deficits and debts. (And the U.S. and many European countries, by the way, gave their money with no strings attached, i.e. abortions would be on the menu for family planning and female reproductive health).

Let's compare, shall we:

Canada's gross domestic product — the sum of all goods and services we produce in a year – was $1.28 trillion in 2009 and it kicked an extra $200 million to help moms and kids in poor countries.

The combined GDP of the U.S., Russia, France, Germany, the U.K., Japan and Italy is $29 trillion (according to the IMF) and all those countries could kick in combined to the Muskoka Initiative was $800 million a year.

“The much-anticipated Muskoka Initiative fails to meet the needs of so many mothers and children in the poorest parts of the world,” poverty fighting organization ONE said in a statement. “The $5 billion total from the G8 is inadequate to address the scale of this problem. Although Canada deserves some credit for putting maternal and child health in the developing world on the G8 agenda, elevating this issue has not brought about the commitments to truly turn the tide on this vital issue. It is effectively passing the buck to the United Nations to deal with in September, when they address all of the Millennium Development Goals.”

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