The School of Hard Knocks

"My faith is gone." Four words that represent the disillusionment of the age. A brief phrase uttered through tears over the phone by a retired teacher from London, Ontario that spells trouble for the Canadian International Development Agency in ways it likely never imagined.When CIDA recently announced it was ceasing funding for the Canadian Teachers' Federation and its popular International Education Program, it caught almost everyone off-guard, especially former ministers of education, various global education networks, partner organizations and the teachers themselves. Each year the program successfully assisted active and retired teachers to volunteer their time to train teachers and improve education in some 16 countries for both teachers and students alike.This has been a 50-year relationship between CIDA and the teachers, but instead of celebrating a golden anniversary, one partner has been abandoned holding divorce papers on which the ink is still wet. The entire motivation confounds the teachers. Repeated requests for CIDA's reasoning for the split have been vague and frustrating. This is where the disillusionment finds it true source - from their own government they only receive obfuscation. "It was determined that the CTF proposal did not meet our aid effectiveness criteria," CIDA claims. Okay, how so? If you're going to end a half-century relationship, then at least present the clear reason to your former partner. The CTF failed to get that clarification. Then two more reasons were offered. The funding was ended because of a "technicality." What does that mean? And if it is just a technicality, surely it can be fixed. All parties in the House would support any initiative that could overcome whatever the obstacle might be. Sadly, no explanation was offered. And then yesterday during Question Period, the Parliamentary Secretary for International Cooperation, in answer to a question on the teacher cuts, coldly concluded by offering, "We don't give blank cheques."That was when I got the phone call from the London teacher, who had been watching QP on television. "We have always provided quality education and CIDA always funded us because of the quality. We never asked for any blank cheque and even a few weeks ago, CIDA officials were telling us we were doing a terrific job. This is just too much for me." And with that, more tears.The problem is that there will never be any answers as to why this collective pain has been caused. Seasoned observers believe it is because the CTF has consistently pushed successive federal governments on their lack of action on child poverty, reasoning that it's difficult to be an example overseas when you permit alarming levels of child poverty at home. And they are surely right. Recently they have drawn attention to the chronic need for child care and a national housing strategy - both of which the Conservative government cut the moment it assumed power five years ago. Given CIDA's recent history of axing programs that are advocative in nature, the CTF might have just fallen under the same punishment as KAIROS, the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, and over a dozen other former CIDA partners.As CIDA continues to deliberately cast off friends with which it has had decades of cooperation, the Agency is rapidly become friendless itself. Canadian teachers, retired and active, have been one of our great human exports to a needy and developing world. CIDA has now lost them, as it has lost the support of women's groups, churches (KAIROS), a large number of NGOs, and former supporters across the country. Where's the future in it? Numerous reports on reforming CIDA have emerged in the last two years from well-qualified observers and researchers who have been calling on the organization to begin the process of rebuilding its domestic base. For those of us who care deeply about the Agency, it is like watching a friend maintain a destructive behaviour that sees them severing themselves from those whose support they will surely require for a solid recovery. The school of hard knocks awaits, and for the dedicated CIDA workers who are having to follow the painful and senseless direction of its political masters it must be brutal. The ethical cupboard is bare.