Sorry, Mr. Chairman, I don't want to take away time from the witnesses at all; I want to be very brief.
At the vote, I mentioned to you a concern I have. I wanted to bring it up as a point of order—or rather, as two points of order, and we can reflect on these and perhaps talk at the beginning of the next meeting.
My first point of order is that this is our third meeting on this particular committee study: the role of the private sector in achieving Canada's international development interests. I am told—and I think it's true—it's the third meeting where we've heard from witnesses who have been suggested by the government side. It takes away nothing from the merit of these witnesses at all, but some of the suggestions made by the opposition haven't been incorporated into panels. As far as we're aware, none of the witnesses we suggested to the committee—or certainly none who we're in contact with—have been contacted yet.
One example, which is sort of disappointing, is that of Andrew Bauer, who's based in New York—and who happens, exceptionally, to be in Ottawa only for today. We tried yesterday—maybe too late—to see if he could be included in this particular panel this morning; it would have saved money. Mr. Bauer's work is focused mainly on governance and accountability mechanisms in the role of international financial institutions and macroeconomic management in developing countries. He might have been a great contributor this morning, particularly with Développement international Desjardins. He focuses on technical assistance, research, and so on.
Three witnesses for two hours is a good opportunity for the committee, but a fourth wouldn't have been that disruptive. Going forward, I'm just worried that we can find a way to balance out, or not even to balance, because I'm not sure we have separate interests necessarily, but to include the witnesses suggested by opposition parties, who to date haven't yet been integrated into this study. That would be my first suggestion, Mr. Chairman.
Let me address the second point of order now. I apologize—as some of you know, my wife has had some health challenges, which have been sorted out, and there's good news in the end, but I missed a couple of meetings. So I just wanted to understand something from you, Mr. Chair. The original work plan document prepared by the researchers that we were given in October was titled “A study on Africa in the 21st century: key challenges and opportunities, and the role of Canada”. From my colleague Mark Eyking, I know it suddenly changed to a different focus: the role of the private sector in achieving Canada's international development interests. I'm curious to hear from you, Mr. Chair, on how we can.... For us, Africa was an important part of this study.
I have a sense that as we proceed down the road of looking at the private sector's role—which as I said in a previous meeting, I think has considerable merit in and of itself.... I'd like you to reflect, Mr. Chair, on how we can bring a considerable focus to Africa as part of this work, and we can talk at some other time as well. I worry that as we go forward, we're losing what was originally an exciting recognition—which certainly achieved consensus at this table—that we should focus on Africa as a major, if not the key, part of this study. So I want us to be conscious of that as we go forward.
I just wanted to put those two things on the record, and I didn't want to take away time from our witnesses.