Bye Bye Stevie

Harper's Government funneled $8 million in Taxpayers Money US Republican Party's NGO

Under the Stephen Harper government, $8M was given to the John McCain-chaired International Republican Institute, a non-governmental organization started by the US Republican party to advocate for right-wing policies abroad.

The money came out of the tax-funded Canadian International Development Agency, whose work is supposed to support literacy, hygiene, access to medicine and water, and other core development goals.

IRI's primary funder is USAID, a US soft diplomacy institution that funds overseas development in countries of strategic importance to the USA. IRI has been implicated in supporting coup d'etats in Central America and the Caribbean.

The Canadian tax dollars that went to the IRI were earmarked for "Strengthening Multiparty Democracy" in Ukraine.

Source: BoingBoing

Did the multiparty democracy so strengthened include the fascistic, anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and other extreme right-wing groups, one wonders?

Confirmation by Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada

Apparently, the Harper Government's generosity to this operation chaired by Senator John McCain was mainly intended to promote regime change in Ukraine, as McCleans Magazine explains:

Here’s a link to a PDF describing the International Republican Institute’s country program for Ukraine. Of course the IRI is active in Ukraine: created in 1983 as a counterpart to the National Democratic Institute, it’s one of the world’s leading democracy-promotion agencies, and the streets of Ukraine are where the next chapter in the book of freedom is being written.

You don’t have to look too closely at the fact sheet to notice something odd: it carries the logo of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development. That’s because the largest contributor to the IRI’s Ukraine country program is DFAT-D. And while Canada’s government has not made a secret of this, they’ve gone through an elaborate version of the process they go through when they want something on the record but not actually noticed.

Related:

National Observer: Is Harper the worst prime minister in history?