As Niger faces a military coup d’etat that threatens to embroil the African nation into a prolonged civil conflict, questions remain about how effective nearly half a billion dollars in foreign aid from Canada has been at preserving democracy abroad.
Since 2000, various Canadian governments have sent $520 million in taxpayer funding to Niger under the pretense that it would bolster democracy.
Trudeau wasted tens of millions
In the 2021-2022 fiscal year, $59.3 million was dished out by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the African nation.
Additionally, Canada has deployed its already strained military resources to help assist in trianing Niger’s military for quite some time now via Operation Naberius.
Each year, Canada sent dozens of highly specialized soldiers to Niger for “leadership training” which includes education on human rights and democratic values.
According to Defence Department spokesperson Daniel Le Bouthillier, Canada’s continued military involvement with Niger depends on “dependent on the developing security situation and, as with all operational deployments, Government of Canada direction.”
Canadian government denies training coup leadership
The Canadian government has also denied that it has provided any training to the current coup leadership.
Similarly, Canada has sent a whopping $1.6 billion in foreign aid to Mali. Money which failed to prevent a military junta forming in the country, which has forced the withdrawal of United Nations peacekeeping troops.
The current Liberal government is known for ineffective foreign policy initiatives that trend towards virtue signalling and exporting woke politics.
As reported by The Counter Signal last year, former Minister of Defence Anita Anand announced “Operation Presence” as an effort to gender-balance United Nations Peace Operations.
“Today, I announced the deployment of a Canadian Training Assistance Team to Ghana. Under Operation PRESENCE, this gender balanced task force will contribute to Ghana’s ongoing efforts to increase the meaningful participation of uniformed women in United Nations Peace Operations,” tweeted Defence Minister Anita Anand.
