A statement from Meg French, SLF Executive Director on #Budget2025

I am deeply disappointed in the Government of Canada.

For the past nine months, I’ve been hearing directly from our partners in Africa about the devastating impacts of cuts to international aid and global health, cuts largely driven by the United States. Just yesterday, the head of one of our partner organizations in Kenya told me that girls in her community no longer have the support they need to continue on to secondary or tertiary education. Without that example, younger girls are losing motivation to stay in school. Home-based HIV testing has stopped. Free drugs for malaria and other common illnesses are no longer available. And the local health centre that once had four nurses now has just one.

At the Stephen Lewis Foundation we have been working relentlessly to support our partners as they reorganize in the wake of these funding cuts and to raise additional funds to fill the growing gaps. Canadians have stepped up. Across the country, people are expressing outrage at the cuts and the harm they’re causing to communities across Africa, and beyond. They’re increasing their donations. They’re contacting their Members of Parliament and calling for Canada to maintain its leadership in global health. Just yesterday, we received a new ten-year commitment from a donor who said she simply couldn’t stand by as global health funding is dismantled.

Until now, I’ve held on to the hope that Canada would not follow the U.S.’s example — that we would show the moral courage to continue, even expand, our support for communities whose health and human rights are under threat. But yesterday’s federal #Budget2025 extinguished that hope. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has announced $2.7 billion in cuts over the next four years to international assistance, including reductions to global health programming. The justification? That “Canada’s contribution has grown disproportionately relative to other similar economies.” Is that really our standard — what others give? If so, we are reducing ourselves to the lowest common denominator. At a time when Canada’s leadership is needed most, should we not be the ones setting the bar? 

Yes, Canada is facing economic challenges. But overseas development assistance accounts for only 34 cents of every $100 of our gross national income. Cutting aid to those who need it most, and threatening decades of progress in the fight against AIDS, does not represent a “Canada Strong.” It represents a Canada that has lost its moral compass.

Meg French
Executive Director
Stephen Lewis Foundation