Harper cabinet about-face: health minister meets with UN hunger envoy
OTTAWA — Leona Aglukkaq is meeting with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food Wednesday, as he wraps up his first-ever mission to a developed country.
The about-face comes after the federal government initially declined to set up any meetings for Olivier De Schutter with cabinet ministers as part of his mission. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, charged with coordinating meetings with federal officials, set up meetings with senior bureaucrats only.
Aglukkaq’s meeting follows pointed comments made by De Schutter in an interview with Postmedia News, published Tuesday night.
“Well, look, the tradition is that when I visit countries on official missions, I have meetings at cabinet level,” De Schutter said.
“The position of the Canadian government is that this mission is one that requires discussions to be had at the technical level with high-level public servants, with whom I did meet. And I’m of course grateful for their time and expertise, but frankly the question of hunger is not a technical question, it’s a political question and without speaking to ministers, you cannot create the kind of understanding by the government that things are not going in the right direction, that there are very important blind spots in the current policies that the government cannot continue to ignore.
“To improve things in Canada, you need much more political will to be invested in this issue and that is a message I regrettably cannot make to public servants, convinced though of they are of this,” he added. “I need to speak to the ministers, and I think this betrays, if you wish, a lack of understanding of what hunger is about.”
On Wednesday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney provided his own assessment of De Schutter’s 11-day mission to Canada, which wraps up Wednesday.
Kenney told reporters the UN “should focus its efforts on those countries where there is widespread hunger, widespread material poverty and not get into political exercises in developed democracies like Canada. We don’t think that’s a very intelligent use of their resources.
“I think this is completely ridiculous,” Kenney continued. “Canada is one of the wealthiest, most democratic countries in the world. According to us, we believe that the UN should focus on development in countries where people are starving and we think it’s simply a waste of resources to come to Canada to give them political lecturing.”
Harper cabinet about-face: health minister meets with UN hunger envoy | News | National Post
OTTAWA — Leona Aglukkaq is meeting with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food Wednesday, as he wraps up his first-ever mission to a developed country.
The about-face comes after the federal government initially declined to set up any meetings for Olivier De Schutter with cabinet ministers as part of his mission. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, charged with coordinating meetings with federal officials, set up meetings with senior bureaucrats only.
Aglukkaq’s meeting follows pointed comments made by De Schutter in an interview with Postmedia News, published Tuesday night.
“Well, look, the tradition is that when I visit countries on official missions, I have meetings at cabinet level,” De Schutter said.
“The position of the Canadian government is that this mission is one that requires discussions to be had at the technical level with high-level public servants, with whom I did meet. And I’m of course grateful for their time and expertise, but frankly the question of hunger is not a technical question, it’s a political question and without speaking to ministers, you cannot create the kind of understanding by the government that things are not going in the right direction, that there are very important blind spots in the current policies that the government cannot continue to ignore.
“To improve things in Canada, you need much more political will to be invested in this issue and that is a message I regrettably cannot make to public servants, convinced though of they are of this,” he added. “I need to speak to the ministers, and I think this betrays, if you wish, a lack of understanding of what hunger is about.”
On Wednesday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney provided his own assessment of De Schutter’s 11-day mission to Canada, which wraps up Wednesday.
Kenney told reporters the UN “should focus its efforts on those countries where there is widespread hunger, widespread material poverty and not get into political exercises in developed democracies like Canada. We don’t think that’s a very intelligent use of their resources.
“I think this is completely ridiculous,” Kenney continued. “Canada is one of the wealthiest, most democratic countries in the world. According to us, we believe that the UN should focus on development in countries where people are starving and we think it’s simply a waste of resources to come to Canada to give them political lecturing.”
Harper cabinet about-face: health minister meets with UN hunger envoy | News | National Post