Changes to NCC, CIDA best, Baird tells constituents

OTTAWA — Ottawa residents who go to Winterlude or Canada Day on Parliament Hill won’t notice much of a difference after the NCC hands over responsibility for celebrations on the Department of Canadian Heritage, Ottawa West-Nepean MP John Baird told supporters on Saturday morning.

“Canada Day is half run by Canadian Heritage and half by the NCC,” he told about 300 people at a breakfast for constituents.

“We’ve decided to consolidate the works on those kinds of festivities. If you go to Canada Day, you won’t notice much of a difference.”

In a speech that skipped over the main elements of the federal budget, Baird, who is also Foreign Affairs Minister, touched on one other budget measures that has attracted criticism — rolling the Canadian International Development Agency in with Canada’s diplomatic and trade services to form a new Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.

Baird also assured the constituents that this was for the best.

“It will make our aid more effective,” he told the audience.

Both budget announcements have been controversial.

With the role of promoting the capital going to Canadian Heritage, the NCC is left with a reduced roster of responsibilities, including land-use planning, parks and maintaining official residences such as 24 Sussex. Some critics say the NCC is withering, while others argue that it was already bloated and needed pruning.

Meanwhile, observers in the aid community have also been ambivalent about rolling CIDA into the foreign affairs.

Baird has already argued that the merger will give development the full strength of Canada’s presence abroad, and others have noted that the presence of business gives real muscle to improving lives in the developing world. Critics have wondered if some of the world’s most vulnerable people will lose out to the interests of diplomacy and business.

Baird told the constituents he was surprised at the support for the changes he has received from unexpected sources. One of these was Lloyd Axworthy, who was a Liberal foreign affairs minister from 1996 to 2000.

In an article in the Globe and Mail, Axworthy said he believed that an integrated approach was needed “that would enable the government to use the various tools of diplomacy, trade and development to achieve its goals.”

In an interview following his speech, Baird said merging diplomacy, business and development would help fill in the gaps that developing countries can’t manage themselves and NGOs don’t cover.

He pointed to the example of Haiti, which doesn’t have an effective land titles system. When anything is to be built, multiple people often come forward claiming they own the land.

“It’s a huge barrier to development,” said Baird.

Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Joanne Laucius