Building a Stronger World

Perhaps nowhere is the gap between what we know and what we do more glaring than in the unwillingness of Canada and other rich countries to deal seriously with the problems of poverty, disease and despair that afflict more than one billion people in the developing world today. As the World Bank’s 2005 “Global Monitoring Report” reminds us, “every week in the developing world, 200,000 children under five die of disease and 10,000 women die giving birth.” That’s every week. Moreover, diseases such as malaria and AIDS plague the developing world, killing millions more. We could save many of those who die, but we don’t. And among the youngsters who survive past five, more than 100 million never see the inside of a school.

Yet we have the wealth and knowledge we need to create a better world; we simply choose not to. Canada, with all its pretensions as a “model power,” is one of the least generous of all developed countries in addressing these challenges. We tie for 14th...