Canada sets example of debt relief Toronto Star editorial December 28, 2000 Twenty million dollars will buy a lot of textbooks for schoolchildren in Tanzania, or antibiotics and rehydration kits for ailing infants in Cameroon. So Finance Minister Paul Martin's recent announcement that Ottawa is allowing 11 poor but well-managed countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America to stop repaying the $700 million they owe us in debt, is welcome. Last year they paid us $20 million in principal and interest on their debts. It's money they need more than we. Six more countries owing $400 million will qualify under Ottawa's $2 billion a year aid program, once they show that they will use the savings to promote democracy and reduce poverty, not enrich elites or fund war. Ottawa is trying to set an example to encourage other affluent countries to forgive all debt owed by 40 of the poorest nations. If other creditors bought in, many of the 7 million children who perish every year in these countries could be saved. ``The current debt levels carried by the world's poorest countries are quite simply unsustainable,'' Martin said in announcing the decision. ``A debt moratorium will free up resources that indebted countries could spend on urgent social priorities such as health care, education and poverty reduction.'' Last September Martin also lobbied the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to speed the delivery of debt relief. Promised help has been desperately slow arriving, though by year's end some 20 countries should get help. Until now just 10 have qualified. That Martin made little headway last fall speaks to the irresponsibility of the affluent countries. The United States, Canada and other industrial countries generate $23 trillion (U.S.) a year in wealth. Cancelling the interest on the $43 billion debt owed to external creditors by the 10 best-managed poor countries shouldn't have been unthinkable. It would have amounted to a few billion dollars. How supportive are Canadians of stronger, more generous measures? Very. The Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative collected 640,000 signatures demanding debt cancellation. Worldwide the Jubilee 2000 campaign has collected 24 million signatures in 60 countries. But Canada is owed only a fraction of the total debt, reports John Dillon of the Jubilee Initiative campaign. Other creditors, the IMF and World Bank must be persuaded to stop taking money from the world's poor. As Gerry Barr of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation puts it: ``Total and immediate debt cancellation remains the main objective. This fight continues.'' As it should