We believe that Canada should increase the percentage of its GDP going to foreign aid.
In 1969, Lester B. Pearson said that all developed countries should commit at least 0.7\% of their GDP towards foreign aid. Currently, only five countries have achieved this goal. In 1975, Canadas commitment rose to 0.53\%, but has now fallen to 0.28\%. Canada has been repeatedly prompted by the UN to increase its foreign aid, but in the last thirty years, the percentage we have been giving towards foreign aid has decreased. We believe that the government should consider how many lives we can save by simply allotting a little bit more money to something that will help prevent poverty from spreading further.
Think about some of these statistics.
Every 30 seconds, an African child dies of malaria, which adds up to over 1 million deaths a year. More than 50\% of Africans suffer from water contamination related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea. HIV/AIDS kills 6 000 people every day, and another 8 200 people get infected with it. Malaria also infects 300 to 500 people a year, killing 3 million in this time span. By increasing what we are giving in our foreign aid, Canada can help stop these deaths from occurring and if more countries follow Pearsons dreams, then the global quality of life will also increase drastically.
We want you to increase the percentage of Canadas GDP going to foreign aid in places such as Somalia, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania where poverty is increasing rapidly.