Aid and Ebb Tide: A History of CIDA and Canadian Development Assistance examines Canada’s mixed record since 1950 in transferring over $50 billion in capital and expertise to developing countries through ODA. It focuses in particular on the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the organization chiefly responsible for delivering Canada’s development assistance. Aid and Ebb Tide calls for a renewed and reformed Canadian commitment to development co-operation at a time when the gap between the world’s richest and poorest has been widening alarmingly and millions are still being born into poverty and human insecurity.

David R. Morrison is director of the International Program and professor of Political Studies at Trent University in Peterborough. He is the former president of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID) and was the founding chair of the Program in Comparative Development Studies at Trent.

David R. Morrison's profile page

''David Morrison's book has long been anticipated. It does not disappoint. It is marked by the most careful scholarship, a clear and accessible literary style, a telling sensitivity for apt quotations, nuanced theoretical and normative judgements, and a sure touch when dealing with politics and personalities. Aid and the Ebb Tide is and will for long remain absolutely indispensable for anyone interested in Canada's relations with the developing world, in the making of public policy in Canada, and in the complexity of any serious effort to give expresssion in Canadian foreign policy to the underlying social values that, though under strain, are still central to the Canadian political culture.''

Cranford Pratt

''Aid and Ebb Tide is indispensable for anyone interested in CIDA, Canada's development assistance programs, and the policy-making process. Elegantly written and free of jargon, it is a pleasure to read.''

Robert O. Matthews

''...this volume of over 600 pages, including almost 2,000 bibliographical references, constitutes the most comprehensive study of Canadian aid ever published....Written in clear and elegant prose, Morrison's work is impressive from several points of view. On the empirical level, it is comprehensive inasmuch as it deals with practically every facet of a half-century of Canadian aid. The book is especially effective in its treatment of the evolution of administrative structures, the substance of policies and the bureaucratic games behind the major changes of direction undergone by CIDA. Morrison also provides data that are helpful for comparing Canada's behavior with that of other industrialized countries. On the theoretical level, his book offers a fresh outlook. It demonstrates how nonstate actors -- especially the NGOs -- carry more weight than what statist and dominant-class approaches suggest....we ought to thank him for having had the stamina to see his marathon project through to the end. His book is an all-too-rare model of scholarship. It will certainly be an indispensable and enduring reference for every student of Canadian development assistance policy.''

Jean-Philippe Thérien

''Reviews and assessments of Canada's aid program have been numerous....not until the publication of David Morrison's Aid and Ebb Tide has there been a comprehensive review of its history, allowing a more fully informed assessment. The book is an important achievement, chronicling the evolution of Canada's aid program since its origins in support of the Colombo plan in 1950, to the end of the 20th century. It provides a level of details not previously captured, which will serve both students of aid as well as practitioners and analysts. It is a history long overdue, given the continued importance of aid in Canadian foreign policy efforts. It provides a particular vantage for reflections on new directions and prospects for Canadian aid program, as Canada heads into a new century of unquestionable levels of global poverty and inequity.''

Canadian Journal of Development Studies