A Study On The Domestic Moral Factors Of Canadian Government 's Development Assistance

The Official Development Assistance (ODA) was an important part thatconstituted in countries’ foreign behaviors. In the West, thegovernments sometimes need the public support and consensus. In otherwords, the foreign behaviors influenced by a lot of domestic issues. So,why people supported aid? What were the main purposes motives them andwhat influenced their attitudes about aid? To answer these questions, inthis paper, the author would set Canada, a middle-class state ininternational society as example, analyzed Canadian’s attitude and foundout the motives and objectives behind Canada’s ODA.In Canada, middle class was the dominant class in society, whose viewsrepresented Canadian’s main value. As part of their views, the humaneinternationalism became parties or government’s wills and eventuallyguided Canada’s behavior through politics.Altruism was to show the humane internationalism, which was neededby the natural and social evolutions of the human species. As a one-waysubstantial movement, it harmed provider’s material interests, but infavor of group’s promotion and the fulfillment of individual’s spirits.Hence, its existence is possible and rational.Furthermore, the fulfillment of spirits stemmed from people’sevaluation about themselves and the society. That was structured byspecific ideas, including the external influence came from education,media and communities, and the internal recognition came from people’soccupation and resultant social status and reputations. As a capitaliststate culturally dominated by Christianity, Canada, whose politicalideology was received, accepted and internalized by social dominant classgradually, and became a great psychological pillar supported country’sODA. Meantime, the middle-power capacity also supported Canada’s ODA alot. As a matured economy, the common abundance and stable society gavethe middle class an opportunity to pursue their self-realization, whichincludes in helping the poor. At the same time, as a middle-class state,Canada preferred to focus more on the low-politics in internationalsociety. That can be explained why Canada was more interested in the ODAcomparing with other states.It can be noted that Canadian’s attitude about the ODA could not beunchanged all the time. The periodical economic fluctuation made am impactto middle class’s daily lives, additionally it influenced latter’sattitude, which inflected in the social and political status of the ODAand the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). But even so,in Canada, which dominated by Liberalism, the impact exerted from economyto the ODA was limited, because it just indicated that people wanted tohow large the ODA amount was invested, but not whether it was existed.