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420 Aid and Ebb Tide up an equivalent amount earmarked mainly for health, youth, environment, and governance. It also added $50 million to the IAE to meet a planned cash payment to the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Fund of the IMF, which also reduced pressure for cuts elsewhere.266 Martin claimed that "this is a signal that, as its fiscal situation allows ... the Government.. . will make progress towards the ODA target of 0.7% of the GNP."267 In the context of Canada's rapid GNP growth in the late 1990s, however, a hugh reinvestment would be needed to reverse an ODA/GNP trajectory that is plummeting downwards. The ratio had already tumbled from 0.49 per cent in 1991­92 to 0.34 per cent in 1996­97.268 Even with the slight reprieve in the 1998 budget, the ratio is projected to fall to 0.27 per cent in 1998­99,269 little more than half the level at the beginning of the 1990s and below that of any year since 1965­66. Deduction of various items not counted as ODA before 1980 (including, from 1993­94, imputed costs of resettling refugees during their first year in Canada) yields an even more accurate figure for historical comparison—about 0.20 per cent, which would be the lowest since 1963­64.270 Ironically, that was the year that Paul Martin's father, then secre­ tary of state for External Affairs, announced the Pearson government's com­ mitment to a rapidly growing aid program.271 Paul Martin, Jr. expressed regret that "Canada has slowed down its for­ eign aid, but not more so than most other major countries."272 Apart from the dismal performance of the United States and one or two other donors, the finance minister's claim was patently false. In fact, as a result of cutting more rapidly than most other OECD donors, Canada contributed only 3.19 per cent to DAC ODA in 1996, down from approximately 5 per cent in the late 1980s and also the most miserly level since the 1960s.273 From a respectable fifth in ODA volume within DAC a decade earlier, Canada dropped to ninth in 1996. The collapse in proportional effort was even more pronounced—from sixth among the twenty­one DAC members in ODA/GNP ratio as late as 1994 to eleventh just two years later.274 When DAC's annual review for 1997 was published, chair James Mitchell was unusually blunt: "reductions in official development assistance raise concerns about Canada's ability to meet expec­ tations both at home and abroad."275 The poorest countries have been hit hard by Canada's declining generos­ ity. The shares of Canadian aid channelled to least developed and other low­ income countries remained relatively stable in the mid­1990s,276 but total Canadian aid to the least developed fell from 0.15 per cent of GNP in the mid­1980s to a mere 0.06 per cent in 1996.277 Ebb Tide, 1993­98 421 Towards a Rekindling of Partnerships and PublicSupport? While CIDA's relations with NGOs and NGIs remained more distant than they were in Margaret Catley­Carlson's time, both sides worked hard after the 1995 budget shock to repair damage through extensive consultations on a more transparent approach to NGO funding allocations,278 a new CIDA pol­ icy on the role of the voluntary sector,279 and other issues.280 The prospects of a more trusting relationship with the Liberal govern­ ment improved when Prime Minister Chretien shuffled his cabinet early in 1996. In order to open up a Commons seat for Pierre Pettigrew, one of two Quebec federalists brought to Ottawa in the wake of the near loss of the "no" side in Quebec's sovereignty referendum, Andre Ouellet resigned to become president of Canada Post. His successor as ministerof Foreign Affairs, Lloyd Axworthy, had championed a more left­leaning and human­rights­centred foreign policy as opposition critic. The Agency also regained its own junior minister with the naming of Pettigrew as minister for International Coopera­ tion and minister responsible for la Francophonie. (Stewart and Chan retained their regional secretary of state portfolios.) It was soon clear within CIDA that Pettigrew's interests lay more in pol­ icy and the future of Canada than in process and patronage. At a press brief­ ing soon after his appointment, the new minister stated that the government's chief priorities were fighting poverty in developing countries andmobilizing Canadian public...

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