Editorial Scratch CIDA, save $2 billion

It seems that one hand of government does not know what the other is doing.

Finance Minister Michael Wilson has told his provincial counterparts that the federal government is under severe pressure to cut spending. Citing “budgetary problems,” he told the have- not provinces that Ottawa could not find the higher amount of equalization payments they had been led to believe would be forthcoming. Perhaps he should take a hard look at CIDA (Canada’s International Development Agency) which spends upwards of $2 billion each year and with apparent abandon.

At the very time Ottawa was rejecting provincial pleas for more funding, came a story revealing that CIDA was not only paying a Montreal firm $35 million of federal money to try to rejuvenate a bankrupt state-owned sawmill in Zaire, but has now hired another Quebec firm (at a cost of $1.8 million) to ensure that the first firm abides by its contract to operate the rundown plant. One of the problems, it seems, is that some 25% of the logs being cut by the contractor fail to even reach the mill. Another, it seems, is with the son of the country’s president who apparently purchased large quantities of lumber from the plant but refuses to pay for it.

Why in blazes should our hard-pressed federal treasury be pouring money into a sawmill in Africa? Our own mills here are in deep trouble, with layoffs and closures the order of the day. They would dearly like government handouts.

For a $2-billion saving, we would be inclined to axe the entire CIDA agency.