Canada is sending another $40 million in aid to organizations that are helping Palestinians in Gaza after pausing funding to the UN's relief agency in the region.
Canada is sending another $40 million in aid to organizations that are helping Palestinians in Gaza after pausing funding to the UN's relief agency in the region.
The Canadian government has always cared more about the citizens of other nations than they do their own. Canadians are drowning and entire families are falling into homelessness, but you can't get a penny out of our government, but if you're a foreign citizen you get 40 million
With 200K+ homeless, 40M would mean 200$ per person; that's enough to maybe cover 2 weeks of rent, after which they will be homeless again unless they find a job to cover for it.
How much is enough then? Well, the 1.1B budgeted in 2021 and 500M for 2022-2023 is definitely an improvement, but it's unclear what the impact is, in retrospective, as there have not been any reliable statistics on how many homeless there are, how they are receiving help, why they were homeless in the first place. It's unclear what proportion of the money is used to create new housing, given directly to the homeless, provided to non-profit without string attached, or used in specific programs (food bank/stamp, rehab, mental health centers, etc.)
The best way to learn more about it is to directly be involved in volunteering opportunities to help the homeless, which is much more effective than complaining about wo the government should be caring about.
Canada is one of the richest countries in the world and we definitely have the resources to do both.
I don't think there's ever a need to equate situations like this when we have the resources and liquidity to do both.
That being said, I personally disagree with the 40 million to palestine since its materials are going to be appropriated by HAMAS once they go over the border (or 'lost' in the bureaucracy of the UN), but I don't disagree with the intent to help, we should've just thought about it a bit more before doing something like this.
I would've been more down to buy 40 million in food/water and para-drop them into palestine than trust the various aid organizations that continue to misappropriate and 'lose' funds in that region.
Para dropping supplies would have a higher chance of supplies getting to the people that need them than trusting the ruling bodies inside palestine to actually provide for their people. (If unaware, HAMAS is the elected body of palestine)
As a staunch critic of Hamas, and having been long dubious of UNRWA, I think having a smaller organization looking just after Palestinians as opposed to using the UNHCR was always kind of weird. Hearing overwrought pundits proclaiming how only the UNRWA can look after refugees, when the UNHCR is already running refugee services all over the world, including for Syrian refugees in Jordan seems nonsensical.
Why not just dissolve UNRWA and hand their responsibilities over to the UNHCR?
Yup, and if not for the current war all 40 million of which would go into building tunnels and filling pockets of Hamass thugs and terrorists. It probably still will not be used for poor people there.