OTTAWA — The head of the U.N. HIV/AIDS program is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to reverse his government's planned cuts to foreign aid and global health funding.
“My message to Prime Minister Carney, Canada and all other donors is: stay the course,” UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima told The Canadian Press on the sidelines of last week's G20 leaders' summit in Johannesburg.
“Without global solidarity, inequality between countries will continue to grow. We will live in a more dangerous world as these inequalities increase.”
Last week, Carney announced Canada's first-ever cut to funding for the Global Fund, a major program to fight infectious diseases in the world's poorest countries.
The new funding commitment is 17 per cent lower than Ottawa's last contribution to the fund in 2022. The foundation helps fight the spread of diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria through measures such as providing mosquito nets and medicines for HIV patients.
The move comes just weeks after the federal budget called for cutting foreign aid by $2.7 billion over four years — and months after Carney vowed during the spring election campaign that his government would “not cut foreign aid.”
The Carney government argues that the aid cuts bring spending back in line with Canada's pre-pandemic allocations.
Ottawa has increased its development and humanitarian spending during the pandemic, in part to revive stalled progress against major diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis as governments turned their attention to Covid-19. The United States has radically cut aid spending this year.
Byanyima attended the G20 leaders' summit to help launch a report commissioned by the South African government on rising global inequality.
The report argues that economic polarization within and between countries is creating discontent that undermines political cohesion and creates a risk of instability.
The authors urge governments to curb the spread of violence and autocracy by pursuing more egalitarian domestic policies and reforming financial systems so that developing countries can escape the debt trap caused by high interest rates and climate change-related disasters.
Byanyima said Canada can count on leaders like Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who said his country has benefited more economically from gender equality in the domestic workforce for decades than from oil revenues.
“When we reduce inequality between countries and within countries, our economy actually becomes stronger,” Byanyima said.
She also said Canada should support global efforts to combat tax evasion.
Asked about cuts during his time in Johannesburg, Carney noted that Canada's share of the organization's total funding has increased. This is because the total fund size has decreased.
“We had to make pragmatic and responsible decisions across the board across government, which also included returning our relief budget to pre-COVID levels,” Carney said. “However, in doing so, we are focused on where it has the greatest impact, including on this continent.”
Foreign Minister Anita Anand repeated the remarks to reporters in Johannesburg.
“Canada's contribution is still meaningful. It's still significant. It's still significant,” she said.
“Africa is the largest recipient of Canada's international assistance, and our assistance will continue.”
Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunel-Ducheppe said Thursday that under Carney there has been a “disturbing” and “problematic” shift away from Canada's long-standing approach to aid and human rights.
“In Mr. Carney's vision, more and more links are being created between international aid and international trade,” he said in French.
The cuts come as advocates mark World AIDS Day on Monday, at a time when many say humanity has the tools needed to end the HIV pandemic but lacks the funding to get the right treatment to the right people.
Jayati Ghosh, a prominent Indian economist who co-presented the inequality report with Byanyima, said Canada should work to ensure developing countries can produce life-saving drugs that are often blocked by “an intellectual property regime that unduly raises the cost of essential drugs.”
The problem became prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many developing countries waited longer than richer countries to secure insufficient quantities of vaccine doses, even though they were prohibited from making their own versions of those vaccines.
“Governments need to think not just about foreign aid, but also about the global regulatory rules they help support that actually make conditions worse for developing countries,” Ghosh said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 30, 2025.
