One of our biggest aid recipients in the 1990s was China; a decade later it was Afghanistan and Iraq. Now it’s Ukraine.

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Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, if he becomes prime minister, plans to boost Arctic security by building a permanent military base in Nunavut and paying for it by “dramatically cutting” Canada’s foreign aid budget, much of which, he says, goes to “dictators, terrorists and global bureaucrats.” In fact, he adds, the aid cuts will exceed the cost of building the base and will help reduce the deficit.

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Follow-up media stories on foreign aid have made it look like a veritable honey pot for this sort of “common sense” approach, a budget-slasher’s dream. A