OTTAWA - The Conservatives will freeze foreign-aid spending next year after honouring the final instalment of a decade-old Liberal government promise to double overseas development spending.
Thursday's federal budget boosts the International Assistance Envelope by eight per cent, or $364 million, to $5 billion or double the 2001 level.
But no new funds have been promised beyond that, in a budget that projects savings of $4.4 billion by 2015 if overseas spending remains frozen until then.
No additional money was earmarked for some high-profile international commitments, such as the maternal and child health initiative that Canada has made a priority for its G8 presidency, as well as its long-term commitment to rebuild earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
Government officials said those projects would likely have to be financed out of the existing aid budget.
"This year we will increase foreign aid to another record level. Next year we will freeze spending at that level," Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said.
After coming to power four years ago, the Conservatives honoured a Liberal commitment in 2001 to double the international assistance budget through a decade's worth of eight-per-cent annual increases.
Non-governmental organizations said freezing aid was an international embarrassment because, with Canada hosting the G8 this year, they were looking for a new roadmap for Canada's overseas spending plans to at least 2015.
Instead, the budget projects savings of $438 million in 2011-12, rising to $1.8 billion in 2014-15 with the removal of the annual eight-per-cent international aid increase. The budget said another $2.2 billion would be saved in the other two fiscal years in between.
The Canadian Council for International Co-operation, the umbrella group of non-government organizations, called on the government to commit to 14-per-cent annual increases for the next decade.
But the budget document said that any future foreign aid increases "will be assessed alongside all other government priorities on a year-by-year basis in the budget."
With the Harper government coming off the Winter Olympics and preparing to host the G8 and G20 summits this summer, Canada had touted 2010 as its "international year."
"This is an international embarrassment in a year when Canada hosts the world, the G8 and the G20," said Gauri Sreenivasan, the council's policy co-ordinator.
Robert Fox, executive director of Oxfam Canada, said Prime Minister Stephen Harper "has reneged on his promise to bring our aid up to the average of all donor nations. It's hard to lead the G8 from the back of the pack."
Canada is a "global leader and continuously demonstrates this by honouring its international commitments," says the budget.
The document restated many of those commitments, made last year through the G20's economic recovery efforts, including $22 billion to the various international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank and Asian Development Bank. The budget also announced $40 million to support IMF lending to poor countries.
The budget reiterated the government would match private donations toward Haiti's reconstruction to the tune of $130 million. Officials said that money would also come out of the existing aid envelope.
Canada is expected to attend the major international pledging conference on Haiti later this month. Estimates peg the rebuilding of Haiti at more than $10 billion over the next decade.
Going into the Thursday's budget, major aid agencies warned that if there wasn't some extra money earmarked for Haiti's reconstruction, or for the G8 plan to reduce the annual death rate of nine million children before age five and 500,000 women in childbirth, it would have to be siphoned from existing programs.
Major aid groups, including UNICEF, said the Harper government's child and maternal health plan would cost $400 million a year over five years.
The budget acknowledged that international efforts to lower the death rate "are far off track" but that "simple and affordable" solutions such as training health workers, vaccines, better nutrition and clean water could help.
"Canada will use its leadership at the G8 Summit in Muskoka to focus the world's attention on maternal and child health and will work to secure increased global spending on this priority," it said.
