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Despite critics, Stephen Harper forges ahead with maternal health as one of his legacy projects

Prime Minister Pearson is remembered for his role in establishing Canada as peacekeeper.

Pierre Trudeau is remembered for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Brian Mulroney is evoked when talking about free trade or GST.

What will be Stephen Harper's legacy?

It's probably still early to say but it's clear that one thing he'd like to be remembered for is his work on foreign aid for maternal health.

As part of a three-day Saving Every Woman, Every Child: Within Arm’s Reach Summit, in Toronto, the Conservative government identified the issue as their "top international development priority."

They also put their money where their mouths are and pledged $3.5-billion in funding aimed at improving the health of mothers and newborns in developing countries around the world. The new funds are in addition to the $2.8 billion Harper committed to the so-called Muskoka Initiative in 2010.

"We have come to a pivotal moment in global efforts to save the lives of women and children in developing countries,"Harper said in a statement released on Thursday.

"While the world has significantly reduced the number of preventable deaths and learned valuable lessons since Muskoka, we need to finish what we started and sustain global momentum to 2015 and beyond. We have, within arm’s reach, the power to end the preventable deaths of women and children in the developing world.

"There is a moral imperative to saving the lives of vulnerable women and children in some of the poorest countries around the world when it is in our power to do so. It is unacceptable that these vulnerable global citizens die from preventable causes which can be addressed with proven, affordable and cost effective solutions – some costing mere pennies."

[ Related: Harper pledges $3.5B to buttress maternal, child health initiative to 2020 ]

The Prime Minister's office suggests that their efforts to date have been fruitful but that there's more work to be done.

They claim that the number of women who die each year during pregnancy or childbirth has dropped substantially from 523,000 deaths in 1990 to 289,000 in 2013 while the number of deaths of children under the age of five has dropped dropped by almost half in the same time frame.

The new money, they say, will be targeted to a select group of developing countries for things such as life-saving vaccines and medicines, nutrition interventions and training for healthcare workers.

[ More Politics: Tim Hudak's alleged fuzzy math jobs plan called impossible, but PC party stands by it ]

While the money and the efforts are laudable, there will be those — of course —who are critical of the Tories' efforts.

Stephen Lewis, the former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, accused the Harper government of exaggerating the statistics.

"Those figures almost all apply to the period before anything at the Muskoka summit could click in," he told the Toronto Star earlier this week.

"The drops were documented a couple of years ago."

The New Democrats would like the Harper's efforts to include access to safe abortions.

"Every year 47,000 women die and 5 million more are permanently damaged by unsafe abortions," MP Niki Ashton said in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

"Women who have access to the full-range of reproductive services are healthier, better educated and contribute more to their economies."

And the McCleod Group, an Ottawa-based think-tank, accused the Tories of grandstanding.

The ‘summit’ is in truth a show designed for Canadians. A few world leaders are being rolled out to acclaim Mr. Harper as a leader who cares. But those guests are expected to avoid controversy. The agenda is being managed to leave little scope for criticism. Their dilemma is whether to expose the inconsistencies in Canada’s stance. Or will these guests risk going back to their own domestic audiences and be asked to justify attending a ‘summit’ at which they failed to reiterate the key role of sexual and reproductive rights for vulnerable women and girls?

Pearson, Trudeau and Mulroney -- I'm sure -- had their critics too.

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