Despite Canada’s status as one of the larger donors, it has failed to meet a commitment to donate 0.7 per cent of its gross domestic product to the Millennium Project, despite a resource boom over the past few years that generated considerable economic wealth. Mr. Sachs said he was told on one occasion by a cabinet minister that Ottawa couldn’t boost its aid to meet this target because it would threaten the country’s budget surplus.

– Jeffery Sachs in today’s Globe & Mail: Canada deaf to growing hunger crisis, UN aide says by Sinclair Stewart and Paul Waldie