Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

The COVID19 crisis and its aftermath has shown that infectious diseases respect borders no more than climate change – both of which impact billions of lives, migration trends and economic prosperity worldwide. In the modern world where national boundaries matter very little, we are inseparably connected to one another. The Syria Crisis and the subsequent refugee numbers to Canada is a case in point. So is the Ebola outbreak in 2014 which led Canada to adopt preventative measures in its public spaces. We know that foreign aid works. It saves and improves the lives of billions of people around the world, safeguarding their human dignity by lifting them out of poverty and giving them a chance to reach their potential. But the moral imperative for maintaining our levels of foreign aid is only half the story. Development assistance is also a way to invest in Canada’s prosperity by supporting the local markets and economies of developing countries in need, which in the long run are able to transition from their cr