Featured Contributor: Canada

The government of Canada has leveraged its contributions in cash, in kind and in expertise to ensure the viability of CICAD as an agent of change in the hemisphere. It has backed activities in all program actions areas. Even before Canada became a member of the OAS in 1990, the government actively supported CICAD’s early endeavors by underwriting training activities and providing the considerable expertise of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

CICAD now works mainly with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s International Crime and Terrorism Division and Health Canada. Recently, Transport Canada has exercised a strong leadership role in the three expert groups on supply reduction: maritime narcotrafficking, pharmaceutical products and chemical substances.

Canada has supported the work to develop an epidemiological methodology to estimate the economic, social and human costs of drug use in the Americas. Most recently, it took the lead in determining “avoidable costs” --  factors that are immediately influenced by government policy decisions. It also underwrote the development of a methodology to estimate drug use in the prison population.

Another unique facet of Canadian cooperation is summer programs that bring regional specialists to Canada to see first hand the government’s policies and programs. The long-standing collaboration through the International Observer Attachment Program (IOAP) brings foreign drug investigators to Canada for instruction and hands-on exposure to Canadian methods for conducting drug investigations. The program’s objectives are to expose drug control law enforcement officers to new techniques and methods, strengthen the capacity of officers to fulfill their responsibilities and to promote international and inter-agency cooperation and information exchange among officers from participating member states.

In a similar vein, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto have brought 10 academic health professionals from five countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras and Peru) to share their knowledge and experience in International Research Capacity-Building Program for Health and Related Professionals to Study Drug Issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. The summer residence lasts two and half months during which time the participants select and develop a single research theme. Additional work is done once they return to their home countries as part of a multi-centric research initiative allowing comparative analysis of the participating countries.

 This decade, Canada has been the second most significant contributor to CICAD operations, after the United States.  This year, it is contributing  $900,000. In 2006, it contributed $1.01 million in cash and $101,932 in kind through the CAMH. In 2005, it provided $$790,938 in funding.