Finance committee  Thank you for your question. I would say that a blank cheque to a private sector company without insuring development and financial additionality should not and cannot be counted as official development assistance. Of course, if the government still wants to do it, that's its prerogative, but it shouldn't be counting it as ODA.

Finance committee  I think the idea is that if you're setting up these new tools to leverage the amount of impact we can have internationally, if you're going to count some of those tools as ODA, then you should be using the same standards by which you define ODA for that, so that you count international assistance in.

Finance committee  I think our position with respect to that and with respect to FinDev, the new Development Finance Institute, is that the government needs to put in place very strong measures to ensure that any funding provided to private sector companies is additional, both from a financial perspective....

Finance committee  I'm not sure if Gavin has comments, but I think you would need strong public guidance. I don't know that they necessarily need to be regulatory. In addition to any legislation that's developed, I think you'll need very strong guidance, very good disclosure both pre- and post-project approval, so that you can assure the public that the guidance that the government has put in place is being followed and implemented and that you're seeing the impacts that you're expecting.

Finance committee  Thank you also for inviting us to appear. For the past ten years, since June 2008, Canada’s official development assistance, or ODA, has been governed by the ODA Accountability Act. This act ensures that Canada’s international development and humanitarian assistance focuses on poverty reduction, considers the perspectives of poor people, and upholds human rights—and that it is, perhaps most importantly, accountable to Parliament and the public.

Finance committee  The OECD report that came out about 10 days ago definitely recognized the strong leadership role that Canada has played globally in advancing gender equality, but it suggested there was a disconnect between the good words and the good deeds, and the investment Canada is making.

Finance committee  Our members are around 85 charitable organizations across the country that work in international development and humanitarian assistance.

Finance committee  Exactly. They're trying to have as much impact for the dollars they get as possible. Many of our members work internationally, as you mentioned, but many also have domestic programs.

Finance committee  About 80% of our funding comes from our members, and the remaining 20% comes from a range of different foundations. The biggest portion of that is from the International Development Research Centre. The IDRC funds a three-year program to enhance collaboration between Canadian academics and our members in order to develop a greater evidence base and improve the impact of our programs.

Finance committee  Certainly. I think it's both, actually, and maybe a little bit more. Official development assistance is the most immediate source of revenue, if you want, or funding for reducing poverty, for tackling inequality, for ensuring that we leave no one behind. The sorts of investments that we need to make in tackling poverty aren't going to come from other sources of finance.

Finance committee  Thank you. Thank you for the invitation to testify today. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to present on behalf of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. CCIC is Canada's national coalition of civil society organizations, working to end global poverty and promote social justice and human dignity for all.