Public Accounts committee  Based on projected retirements, which you can never completely predict, the average growth in the government, which is small now, and projected departures, the plan we'll distribute to all members gives a five-year projection out from 2006 to 2011. In the EX category, we calculat

Public Accounts committee  We're asking to have them by later this year.

Foreign Affairs committee  The issues I've raised are issues that I think the committee will want to take into account when you review the final wording of your bill. As committee members, you want to weigh up what kinds of activities you'd like to see Canada pursuing internationally and how they are repor

Foreign Affairs committee  I think it's first about wanting to make sure that Canada continues to have flexible foreign policy instruments, and aid is unquestionably one of the central ones that responds to various challenges that we see around the world in failed and failing states and in states that are

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not as familiar with the U.K. law as my colleagues from CIDA, who I believe were giving some evidence to you last week and followed up. I can certainly say that from my own knowledge of multilateral organizations, the U.K., including DFID, remains actually a leader in doing i

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't see a contradiction between the two.

Foreign Affairs committee  The thing I would want to underscore is that contributions toward restoring peace and security can be of direct interest to the poor.

Foreign Affairs committee  I should point out that this was expended in the last fiscal year before the most recent elections in Palestine. That was in a period in 2005 when Canada was working very hard with the Palestinian Authority and with Israel on improving security and management of the borders and b

Foreign Affairs committee  That particular example was a project for about $25,000 that was managed by the Canada Border Services Agency in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority. It was disbursed under the human security program of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and it came as a result of a missio

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  In your analysis, you and your colleagues on the committee may want to make a distinction between two things. One is the breadth of the definition of ODA and how it gets counted. The second is the volume of ODA that we expend, the total number. The volume of ODA is a function of

Foreign Affairs committee  I think we're at 3.2% of our GNP. Of course, it's a ratio.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's 0.32%. Correct.

Foreign Affairs committee  The distinction I'm making is between the volume of ODA, the overall global ratio, and the definition of ODA and its breadth. While you were speaking, I glanced at the next round of discussions coming up. Among the countries that are pushing for or advocating supporting a furthe

Foreign Affairs committee  Actually, Mr. Goldring, my colleague from the Department of Finance is probably better placed to deal with those questions on debt reduction. I would ask him to respond. He'll be speaking in the next while. Certainly we have counted both multilateral debt reduction, as well as t