Canada leaves UN drought treaty

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Published: April 5, 2013

The Conservative government has decided to become the first United Nations country to withdraw from a UN convention sponsoring research into soil erosion and degradation caused by drought.

Canada joined the convention in 1995 to help sponsor research into effects and solutions for droughts around the world that reduce food production, drive small-scale farmers into poverty and produce millions of refugees.

This month, representatives from the 195 countries plus the 27-member European Union will meet in Bonn, Germany, to assess the costs of desertification and drought that degrades land.

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Canada has decided not to attend the conference and to withdraw funding after this year.

Funding during the past two years has been less than $300,000.

In the House of Commons March 28, prime minister Stephen Harper said it was money poorly spent.

“In this particular case, 18 percent of the funds we sent to this particular organization is actually spent on programming,” he said.

“The rest goes to various bureaucratic measures. That is not an effective way to spend taxpayer money.”

Liberal MP Ralph Goodale, deputy party leader in the House of Commons, said the UN work was important to help deal with developing world poverty caused by drought, but also to study drought mitigation policies for drought-prone prairie land.

He tied it to Conservative cuts to prairie environmental programs.

“Maniacal front-line cuts have killed PFRA (Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration), which had world-class Canadian brain power on soil and water conservation,” said Goodale.

“Conservatives have vandalized community pastures, the prairie tree farm and experimental lakes area. Now Canada is the only country in the world sneaking out the back door on the UN convention against drought.”

Green party leader Elizabeth May tied it to the government decision in March to combine the Canadian International Development Agency with the department of foreign affairs and trade.

“We do not see Harper withdrawing from trade deals,” she said.

“The treaties he views as of no importance are those designed to protect the environment. What message does it send to African nations that in the same week we eliminate CIDA, we withdraw from a treaty to stop the advance of deserts?”

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