Bill C-293 (Historical)

Official Development Assistance Accountability Act

An Act respecting the provision of official development assistance abroad

This enactment sets out criteria respecting resource allocation to international development agencies and enhances transparency and monitoring of Canada’s international development efforts.

Official Development Assistance Accountability Act

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

moved the second reading of, and concurrence in, amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-293, An Act respecting the provision of official development assistance abroad.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for this, I hope, final opportunity to speak to the bill. Just for the purposes of those who might be watching this debate, we are anticipating that the debate will collapse today, that it will go to a vote and that this will be the final debate on this bill. I am hoping for that and seeking the assurance of my colleagues in the House that we will work on that basis.

This has been a long journey. It started almost two years ago. There is a saying that “it takes a village to raise a child”. Well, it takes a caucus to raise a bill and it takes another caucus to raise a bill. I want to publicly thank my colleagues in the NDP caucus for their support and it takes the caucus of the Bloc Québécois to raise this bill. I want to thank the government, particularly the minister of international development assistance, for her assistance in finally bringing this bill to the stage that it is at today.

Most important, I want to thank the thousands of Canadians who supported this bill through visits to their MPs, telephone calls to senators, emails, letters, petitions, rallies outside on Parliament Hill and literally tens of thousands of names that were put forward on petitions supporting this bill. I am hoping today is the payoff day. I hope those thousands of Canadians who supported this bill over the last two years and have been very faithful in their support, will raise a glass to themselves tonight and say “job well done”, because today is, hopefully, the end of Bill C-293, that it will receive royal assent and then move from the position of being a bill to being law.

I am afraid that if I start thanking all the people I need to thank for this bill, I will defeat myself and run out the clock. I will try to be brief on the people who I need to thank because they have been very supportive. As I said, the Bloc and the NDP caucuses have been there from the beginning and I want to particularly acknowledge the work of the member for Halifax who has been steadfast in her support.

I also want to thank the leadership of the Liberal Party, both the interim leader, the hon. Bill Graham, and our current leadership, the House leadership and the Senate leadership who have been steadfast throughout, particularly the whip and our House leaders.

My special thanks go to the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, the member for Richmond Hill, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, and the member for London North Centre, all of whom have personally encouraged me in many different ways and stepped into the breach when they needed to.

I also want to acknowledge my thanks to Senator Segal, Senator Smith and Senator Cowan who, in the other place, were very pivotal in moving this bill forward.

Indeed, I would be remiss if I did not thank the member for Mississauga South who navigated me and this bill through the increasingly complex labyrinth called private members' business.

It also would be remiss of me if I did not thank my friend, Gerry Barr, from the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, for his support throughout this two year period. His tenacity is incredible and we called upon all of his formidable organizational and intellectual skills to see that this bill would receive royal assent.

I also want to thank Professor Aaron Freeman for his invaluable legal assistance at particular points in drafting and when we had to renegotiate when a royal recommendation was needed.

Who can forget the Engineers without Borders who phoned me, literally out of the blue, and encouraged me and invited me to their conference and got behind this bill. It is so encouraging to see young, bright, vibrant, energetic people, our nation's future, get behind a bill such as this and give it their enthusiastic push.

Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has been stalwart, as have World Vision, Results Canada, Make Poverty History and literally hundreds of other NGOs who saw that this bill would be a good allocation of public resources.

I was greatly honoured to have General Roméo Dallaire, now Senator Roméo Dallaire, as my bill's Senate sponsor. He is a moral force for good in this nation and a hero to many of us. I am greatly honoured to have had him sponsor this bill in the Senate. He moved the bill forward with the moral authority that only General Dallaire has.

I do not want to get into all of the thanks, but I just have to thank my staff, Robyn Mogan, Trish Renaud, Kein Turner, Anna-Christina Gamillscheg and Janice Luke, and of course my family who has heard more about this bill than it ever cared to hear about it, my wife Carolyn Dartnell, my sons Ian and Nathan, and my daughters Caitlin, Rachel and Sarah. I would go home on a Thursday or Friday night and they would hear all the stories about Bill C-293. I want to thank them publicly.

We are all here to make a difference. We aspire to make a difference here. We leave our jobs, our families and our communities to come here to try to make a difference. This bill could actually make a difference in the lives of so many people who are impoverished in our world.

I call upon those who will be called to fulfill this law, to fulfill it not only in practice but also in spirit and to fulfill it with enthusiasm. We should not let the cynics get us down. This is a law that actually could make a difference in how Canada is perceived in the world and how we minister to those who are impoverished.

In January of last year I travelled to Kenya with Results Canada. One of our stops was at a hospital in western Kenya. We were visiting AIDS patients. The hospital is literally divided into two parts: on the one side were men and on the other side were women, all of whom were either sick or dying. There were 50 beds for men, 50 beds for women, and 70 patients on each side. As one can imagine, there was more than one patient in some of the beds. Some of these people were literally on their last legs, and the nurses told us that two or three would die that day.

Part of the hospital services was to make available job training in a workplace training centre, so we visited there. I can still see this woman who was sitting at a sewing machine making handbags. She had a huge smile. She was wearing a red dress. She can make about five handbags a day. She is paid the rough equivalent of 65¢ a day. She looked up at me and said, “I am HIV positive. I choose to live my life as HIV negative. I want to live long enough to see my child marry. I thank Jesus for every day he gives me”.

That had an impact on me. I know it had an impact on our delegation. That is why it is so important that Bill C-293 receive royal assent. Maybe that woman and thousands of others might well be positively affected by Bill C-293.

I want to conclude by thanking each and every member here for his or her support. I want to thank everyone for the support that we have received from literally thousands of Canadians around the country. I want to thank those in the NGO community in particular and my friend Gerry Barr for all of their persistence in seeing that today arrived.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, our week devoted to action on the environment and health of Canadians is proving to be a success. We just passed Bill C-33 at report stage with the support of two of the other three parties. This is our bill requiring that by 2010 5% of gasoline and by 2012 2% of diesel fuel and home heating oil be comprised of renewable fuels. It represents an important part of our plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020. Debate of this bill at third reading will now be able to commence tomorrow.

We have also started to debate two bills to improve the safety of food, consumer products and medical products in Canada.

On Monday we debated Bill C-52, to create the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act and yesterday we debated Bill C-51, to modernize the Food and Drugs Act.

We also introduced Bill C-54, to promote safety and security with respect to human pathogens and toxins. We will continue to debate these bills today and tomorrow.

During these uncertain economic times to the south, our government has led the way on the economy by taking decisive and early action over the past six months to pay down debt, reduce taxes to stimulate the economy and create jobs, and provide targeted support to key industries. In keeping with our strong leadership on the economy, next week will be maintaining a competitive economy week.

We plan to debate the following bills intended to enhance the competitiveness of certain sectors of the Canadian economy: our Bill C-23, at third reading stage, to amend the Canada Marine Act; our Bill C-5, at report stage, on liability in case of a nuclear incident; and our Bill C-14, at second reading stage, to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act.

We will also debate at second reading Bill C-32, which modernizes the Fisheries Act, Bill C-43, which amends the Customs Act, and Bill C-39, which amends the Canada Grain Act. We will also begin to debate Bill C-46. This is our bill to free western barley producers from the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly by giving them the freedom to market their own products. We will debate at third reading our bill to amend the Aeronautics Act, Bill C-7.

My friend, the member for Wascana, the Liberal House leader, said that government business and the doing of business in the House of Commons appeared to end on Tuesday. That is because next Wednesday and Thursday will be opposition days, and I would like to allot them as such at this time.

In terms of the question he raised with regard to Bill C-293, which is a private member's bill, I understand it is scheduled to come before the House in early May. At that time the House will have an opportunity to deal with the matter.

In terms of estimates and witnesses appearing before committee of the whole, the government does have to designate those to occur before May 31. Late last night I finally received notice of which two departments were identified and we will soon be advising the House of the dates that will be scheduled for consideration of those matters in committee of the whole.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the government House leader to outline the business that he intends to call for the balance of this week and next week. In the information that he has provided so far in an informal way, the agenda seems to end at the end of the day next Tuesday, so I would be interested to know what he has in mind for the whole week following this one.

I also would ask him specifically if he is in a position today to agree to concurrence by unanimous consent in the Senate amendments that have been made to Bill C-293. That bill is done in the Senate. It has been reported back to the House with some technical amendments, amendments that were in fact proposed by the Conservative Party. All other parties are prepared to accept those amendments and agree to that bill proceeding to conclusion now by unanimous consent, so I would ask the government House leader if he is prepared to agree to his own amendments.

Second, there are still three opposition days that need to be designated in this sitting before the House adjourns in June. I wonder if the government House leader could tell us if he intends to designate opposition days in the period between now and May 16 and, if so, which days those would be.

Finally, in the business of supply, it is the prerogative of the official opposition to select two government departments to bring before the House and the committee of the whole for examination of their estimates in that forum. It is then the government's responsibility to designate the two dates upon which those estimates will be heard in the committee of the whole.

The official opposition has in fact now designated the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to appear before the committee of the whole. I wonder if the government House leader could designate on which two dates those two ministers will appear to defend their estimates in the committee of the whole.

Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise to speak to Bill C-33, the amendments to Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I will use my time to speak to a few of the issues.

When the bill was first envisioned, I do not think it was controversial. However, since then, a lot of ramifications have come in to play, in particular those outlined by the opposition critic for foreign aid. I will talk later about the effects on the world food supply and world food crisis, the interrelations with the bill and the tweaking of it.

For the public watching and hearing the different points of views and concerns, the first thing to remember is the bill would only change the regulatory framework. It would not in itself do anything other than that. It would set the stage and the legislative ability for the government to act, but it would not cause any action. Nothing would change until the power provided under the bill would be used.

Almost everyone in the House, with the exception of a few members, understands that the regulations then can be used most effectively when the results of current scientific and statistical studies show the best use of those regulations, the best allocation of funds, regulations and legislation related to biofuels, biodiesel, ethanol and various products.

The bill only would allow the government to make regulations related to the exporting and composition of fuels. I think most people would agree that it is good for the government to have the ability to control these items. However, then the debate will be over what the government does with that control.

Current debates are around the world food crisis, the impact ethanol and biodiesels have on that and the use of waste by the next generation. I think most members of the House, including the minister, because he set aside $500 million for it, would prefer to have biodiesels produced not from items that could be food or food producing soils particularly, but from the waste products of those soils. The various alternative fuels, low emission fuels, can be produced from animal waste, plant waste and agricultural waste, such as straw, husks, wood waste from sawmills, switchgrass and cellulose waste. There is a great hydrogen plant in Ottawa.

I do not imagine too many people would disagree that there can be a great symbiotic relationship between agriculture and the use of waste products to ultimately produce a cleaner environment. Those waste products could be used for something productive and we would have much lower emissions. As we know the world is in a crisis in regard to greenhouse gas emissions. It affects my riding in the north more dramatically than anywhere else in the world. Species are becoming extinct. They are moving their ranges, which then threatens aboriginal peoples who depend on a certain species to be in a certain location at a certain time. It is causing havoc with the infrastructure. Therefore, we need bills such as this, initiatives that will reduce greenhouse gases.

Notwithstanding a lot of the scientific advisers have been cancelled by the government, we need to do a good scientific analysis on the actual effectiveness and efficiency of the various proposals to reduce greenhouse gases and other noxious elements in our air.

Everyone is quite aware that there is a world food crisis and it is the link to ethanol, which is part of the debate. However, I want to reiterate what many other speakers have said, which is we have another important bill before Parliament, Bill C-293. Hopefully everyone will support it and get it through quickly. It targets Canada's aid to the areas where it was originally intended to go. Our former agriculture minister, Susan Whelan, when she was the CIDA minister, worked in this direction to ensure that aid went to the right areas, and food would be one of those.

I want to talk about one area of the food crisis that has not been mentioned in the debate. It is a bit peripheral, but it is a very important crisis to a number of people in the world. That is the Burmese people in refugee camps on the Thailand border, where I visited in January. About 140,000 Burmese people are running from a horrendous dictatorship. All members of our Parliament have been very—

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that question would probably be better posed to and answered by the party to which the member is referring. I will not speak on its behalf.

However, I would use my remaining time to suggest to the entire House to recall that we have Bill C-293, which deals with developmental assistance, aid and poverty alleviation. That bill is coming back to the House as a result of a Senate report. I hope the government will support Bill C-293 so we have the proper definition and guidelines for developmental assistance and ensure we have the proper tools and are in the right direction to deal with poverty alleviation and food shortages.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wants to help the poor, then he will deal with Bill C-293, the private member's bill from my colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood, which deals with ensuring that CIDA's main focus is poverty reduction. I look forward to him supporting and getting his government to support the bill forthwith so that it can come through the House and become law.

On the issue of agriculture, our former colleague, Susan Whelan, who was the head of CIDA, made agriculture a priority. We were trying to do that, but unfortunately things changed. I do not know quite what the government's priorities are on agriculture with respect to CIDA, but I do not think that they are there.

On the issue of what Mr. Zoellick said as head of the World Bank, he is right, but what happens is that all of these international organizations produce a mountain of studies and reports and nobody implements them. That is the problem. If we do not take our subsidies and our reports and do something with them, as I keep telling people, we set countries up for failure.

What happens is that large international organizations develop very expensive studies, done by very expensive consultants, and hand them to developing countries. They then tell these countries to deal with them, but if they do not have the capacity to implement the studies, and they do not, then we are setting up developing countries for failure. That is what we do time and time again.

The greatest thing CIDA could do would be to build up capacity in developing countries so that when those countries receive the plans they have the capacity to implement those solutions. Can we do it? Absolutely. I developed a plan called the Canadian physicians overseas program, as part of a larger plan to get Canadian professional groups to go abroad and help build capacity in focused numbers of countries. That is a variant on the Canada Corps that our previous prime minister developed to give support overseas.

The current government should support that. If we were to take on that mantle of building capacity in developing countries, using Bill C-293 to do it, we would do something that has not been done before.

We would enable developing countries to have the capacity to implement these plans so that we can have an effect on the ground and on the person who makes a dollar a day. It would result in them not making a dollar a day any more because they would be making a reasonable amount of money. They would be able to put their children in school. They would have enough food on the table. They would get education for their children. They would get access to health care. We would not see the deplorable, appalling, disgusting, unfathomable and immoral situations that we are now seeing in developing countries.

This is something the government should take on the mantle for and implement, and it should do it now.

National Defence Act

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly in the debate on Bill C-513, An Act to amend the National Defence Act, introduced by my colleague in the Bloc, the member for Ahuntsic. I welcome the opportunity to speak to the bill, and I commend the member for bringing forward a bill that generates an important debate.

At the very heart of the issue is the notion that there needs to be, to the maximum extent possible and feasible, parliamentary oversight for one of the most serious decisions, if not the most serious decisions a government makes and in which a Parliament either participates in a democratic, constructive way or is shut out. That decision is to send into harm's way the women and men of the Canadian armed forces to serve their country.

No one in this chamber questions the depth of commitment and the severity of the demands that places on what are largely the young men and women of our country and the impact it can have on their lives. I think we all are seized, whatever our particular perspective is on the details of this proposal, with the severity of such a decision. One hopes we are all committed to ensuring that the best possible reflection of the views, desires and wishes of the Canadian people is taken into account when such a decision is made.

In fairness, both the member for Richmond Hill on the Liberal bench and the parliamentary secretary from Edmonton Centre have raised some very practical questions and legitimate concerns about the workability of the private member's bill. However, without equivocation and without reservation, I and my colleagues support the intent of the bill, which is to ensure the Canadian people have, to the maximum extent possible, an opportunity to have their views and wishes on what is agreeably one of the most serious decisions we are ever compelled to make on their behalf as their elected representatives in Parliament.

I am also pleased a Bloc member has introduced this bill, at least bringing into the light of day the real issue about how we exercise responsibility around such issues. I was both surprised and disappointed, as I think a lot of people in Quebec were, that the Bloc, when given the opportunity to vote on the question of the Afghan mission, saw fit to give support the extension of it in what seemed at the time to be a very surprising decision, particularly given how extremely truncated and shrunken down that debate was. I am not talking about the most recent vote, but the previous one,

I remember, with a real sense of horror and dismay, the environment in which that debate took place here. It took place when I and the member for Richmond Hill had been back less than 72 hours from having visited Kandahar and Kabul, having come to the realization that there were many problems with the mission. Not a word was said by the foreign affairs minister at the time, now the defence minister, about the fact that this would be rammed through Parliament on very short notice, with absolutely no opportunity for there to be any real consideration of the implications. Also very little information was forthcoming on the basis that one could make a responsible decision.

Therefore, if this means Bloc members have thought about this and perhaps even have had second thoughts and some regrets about their decision in that context, then I would applaud them for giving it that further consideration. This may be one of the motivations behind the bill.

A great deal would be served by the bill going forward for further detailed consideration.

It did not surprise me but I was disappointed when the parliamentary secretary opened his comments by showing that it has taken the Conservative government less than two years to become every bit as arrogant as the Liberals. I do not want to misquote him but he basically suggested that since the Liberals and the Conservatives are the only parties that will ever govern this country it therefore is only what they think that matters and since both parties think this is a ridiculous idea then we should not even consider it.

I could spend a lot of time talking about how often those words were spoken by Liberals or Conservatives in the provinces and territories across this country where it turned out to be a ridiculous assertion. We just need to look at Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I hope this time next year I can say we can look at Nova Scotia where people said that when I sat alone in the Nova Scotia legislature.

It does not surprise me that kind of arrogant comment is made but it disappoints me in the context of such a serious debate.

I want to briefly quote from Professor David Bercuson, a witness who appeared before the national defence committee in the fall of 2006. I very much agree with his comments. He said:

... there ought to be much greater parliamentary control over troop deployments abroad. I have called for the necessity for Parliament to approve deployments of as small as 200 to 300 troops being sent overseas. I believe this is extremely necessary, not simply because of the forms of parliamentary democracy, but to engage the Canadian people in the debate about whether or not troops should be sent overseas.

That sentiment used to be expressed very often by members on the Conservative bench when they were in opposition, and now it is just like a closed door, not even worth a discussion, and mostly hurling insults at how inadequate this proposal is.

The bill merits further consideration. I think we all agree that this is the most serious thing that we are asked to do. We should be looking at this bill in detail. Other private members' bills have come forward that were inadequate and needed the expertise that comes before a committee. I think of Bill C-293 that was originally introduced as a private member's bill by the NDP and then taken up by the Liberals. It has been worked over both at the Senate committee and at our own foreign affairs committee. The bill has been improved to the point where I hope every member is ready to pass it after a huge investment of time and resources at committee level both in the Senate and in the House.

Private members' bills often start out as good ideas, with good intentions and in response to a genuine aspiration by the Canadian people. It is our responsibility to take those bills into a committee, discuss them, do further research, improve them and then move them forward. This bill is one that I genuinely believe Canadians would support.

I will finish by further quoting David Bercuson who said the following:

The people whom we are deploying abroad are also going in harm's way. By signing up to the Canadian military they have taken up, in a sense, an unlimited liability. They will lay their lives on the line for the people and the Government of Canada if necessary. There is no other citizen in this country, including the police, who has a liability that is unlimited. That is why I think your committee needs to have more power and authority than other committees in Parliament and why Parliament should vote on overseas deployments.

I hope we can move this bill forward and improve it to where it is a genuine reflection of what is needed in this country by way of accountability.

International Aid

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative budget is deeply flawed, with massive giveaways for the wealthiest and crumbs for the poorest of the poor.

In the 1990s the Liberals dragged Canada's international development assistance from 0.53% down to 0.23% of gross national income.

In 2005 Parliament adopted unanimously an NDP motion committing Canada to meet our 0.7% ODA obligations by 2015 in accordance with the millennium development goals. The New Democrat budget infused crucial funding toward those goals.

Three Conservative budgets bring us no closer to meeting our global poverty reduction obligations. Development aid is stagnant at 0.3%.

While Conservative senators block the more and better aid bill, Bill C-293, successor to the NDP bill, Bill C-243, undermining transparency, efficiency and effectiveness, the world's poorest of the poor suffer along with Canada's reputation as a caring nation.

Bill C-474--National Sustainable Development Act--Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised by the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons on December 11, 2007, concerning the national sustainable development act, Bill C-474, standing in the name of the hon. member for Don Valley West, and its requirement for a royal recommendation. I wish to thank both the hon. parliamentary secretary as well as the member for Don Valley West for their submissions on this matter.

In his intervention, the hon. parliamentary secretary contended that the bill's provisions to establish a new and independent Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development would not only require new government spending but also represent a change in the conditions and qualifications of the royal recommendation that accompanied the 1995 amendments to the Auditor General Act.

He also contended that the establishment of a new Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development was similar to the creation of a new government department and that such provisions needed to be accompanied by a royal recommendation. He cited a ruling of July 11, 1988 when two report stage motions, the first of which proposed the establishment of a separate department of government and the second a separate commissioner of multiculturalism, were ruled out of order on the basis that they offended the royal recommendation which accompanied that bill.

Finally, citing a ruling of September 19, 2006 on the Development Assistance Accountability Act, Bill C-293, which concluded that a royal recommendation was required for the establishment of an advisory committee for international cooperation, the parliamentary secretary argued that the creation of an advisory council on sustainable development also requires a royal recommendation on the basis that it would result in the expenditure of public funds in a manner and for a purpose not currently authorized.

In his submission on January 31, 2008, the hon. member for Don Valley West conceded that the bill needed to be accompanied by a royal recommendation. He indicated that he would work with other members at the committee stage to amend the bill in such a way that any impediments to its progress would be removed. The Chair wishes to commend the hon. member for his constructive approach.

In order to assist the House, the Chair has carefully reviewed the provisions contained in Bill C-474 to identify the provisions that caused concern regarding the royal recommendation while at the same time responding to the point of order raised by the hon. parliamentary secretary .

The appointment of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development is currently carried out under section 15.1 of the Auditor General Act. It states:

15.1(1) The Auditor General shall, in accordance with the Public Service Employment Act, appoint a senior officer to be called the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development who shall report directly to the Auditor General.

Bill C-474, on the other hand, would provide for the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to be appointed by the governor in council as an independent commissioner instead of being appointed by and reporting to the Auditor General. Although funds may have already been appropriated for the position of Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development under the Auditor General Act, the Chair agrees with the arguments put forward by the hon. parliamentary secretary to the effect that the provisions contained in Bill C-474 would clearly alter the conditions under which these appropriations were originally authorized.

Bill C-474 also proposes a new mandate for the commissioner. The current mandate is spelled out in section 21.1 of the Auditor General Act. It states:21.1 The purpose of the Commissioner is to provide sustainable development monitoring and reporting on the progress of category 1 departments towards sustainable development—

Category I departments are defined in the act as any departments named in Schedule I of the Financial Administration Act, in the schedule to the Auditor General Act or identified by the governor in council under subsection 24(3).

However, clause 13 of Bill C-474 would modify the mandate of this new independent commissioner to require, namely, the development of “a national sustainability monitoring system to assess...the state of the Canadian environment, nationally and by province” as well as “...the national and provincial performance in meeting each sustainable development goal...” listed in the bill.

Goals listed in the bill include “generating genuine wealth, shifting to clean energy, producing healthy food and building sustainable cities”, to quote the bill.

As House of Commons Procedure and Practice points out, on page 711:

A Royal Recommendation not only fixes the allowable charge, but also its objects, purposes, conditions and qualifications.

The clause 13 requirements would impose additional functions on the commissioner that are substantially different from those foreseen in the current mandate. In the Chair's view, clause 13 thus alters the conditions set out in the original bill to which a royal recommendation was attached.

Finally, the hon. parliamentary secretary argued that the creation of the sustainable development advisory council provided for in Bill C-474 requires a royal recommendation since this would require the expenditure of public funds in a manner and for a purpose not currently authorized.

Clause 7 of the bill provides for the governor in council to appoint 25 representatives to the advisory council. Section 23 of the Interpretation Act makes it clear that the power to appoint includes the power to pay. As the provision in Bill C-474 is such that the governor in council could choose to pay a salary to these representatives, this involves an appropriation of a part of the public revenue and should be accompanied by a royal recommendation. If the intention of the bill is that these representatives would not be paid, then this should be clearly expressed in the bill.

For all of these reasons, I will decline to put the question on third reading of this bill in its present form unless a royal recommendation is received.

However, debate is currently on the motion for second reading and this motion shall be put to a vote at the close of the second reading debate, of course in conformity with the Standing Orders of the House.

Resuming debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport.

International Humanitarian Assistance

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has an important responsibility to the poor of this world to whom it sends assistance. It has a responsibility to make sure that the aid it sends to international agencies will be distributed fairly and transparently, so that those who need it most can take full advantage of it.

Bill C-293, which was adopted in this House by all the members except the Conservatives, has this very objective.

However, since the bill was passed, it has been blocked in the Senate by the Conservative senators, who are engaging in an orgy of obstruction and disinformation. Yet this bill was supported by numerous petitions and demonstrations.

Once again, the Conservatives are being hypocritical by talking about transparency and accountability but refusing to walk the talk. This shows a serious lack of leadership on an issue that affects millions of people and Canada's international reputation.

The poor of this world deserve better from this government.

Official Development Assistance Accountability Act

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it has been almost a year since Parliament passed Bill C-293, the better aid bill, with the support of all members in the House, all parties in the House, with the exception of the Conservatives.

Since then, however, Bill C-293 languishes in the Senate because the Conservative senators have used tactics of delay, misinformation and diversion. They have done so in spite of the will of this Parliament. In spite of thousands of petitions that have been presented here, in spite of rallies and in spite of emails, they continue to delay the bill.

It is time for the Conservatives to stop filibustering Bill C-293. The Prime Minister himself supported this bill when in opposition and it was part of a Conservative platform. The problem, however, is that the Conservatives talk an accountability and transparency game and they practise exactly the opposite.

The poor of this world deserve better from the government.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Thank you.

Gerry Barr, I think, would have hurt feelings if I didn't address Bill C-293. In fact, you did bring that up, and I think you've probably heard all of my concerns about that bill.

The example our Prime Minister gave us with his Canada-led “save a million children in Africa” this week I think is a pretty good indication that we're solidly on track to doubling our aid to Africa, reminding everyone, as you have said, that it's as much about aid effectiveness as it is about the actual dollars.

We've committed to getting to the OECD average by 2015, I believe, in line with the millennium development goals.

[Gerry Barr, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Council for International Cooperation]

Thank you very much.

My name is Gerry Barr. I'm president and CEO of the CCIC, the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, Canada's coalition to end global poverty.

The council is a membership-based organization with almost 100 non-governmental organizations working around the world and in Canada on international development, cooperation, and global issues.

I want to thank the committee for the invitation. As you approach the budget this year, I know you are thinking about taxes and tax mechanisms. Millions of Canadians who pay taxes believe Canada ought to continue with its foreign aid effort; millions more believe Canada is not yet contributing sufficiently to its share to help poor nations.

I know that talk of tax cuts is in the air. I know that almost all who are elected and who watch politics full time believe that Canadians as a whole approve of the idea of tax cuts. It is just an accepted truth.

Well, here is another truth, perhaps a little counterintuitive: Canadians also approve of the idea of tax increases to increase foreign aid spending. In a poll conducted by government in 2002, 57% of Canadians said they would be ready to pay 1% more income tax, but those same Canadians also wanted to know this money would be spent on directly improving the lives of those living in poverty.

It's just one reason Bill C-293, which is being debated in the Canadian Senate today, is so important. It gives Canadians the assurances they want that Canada's aid dollars will be spent to reduce global poverty.

Bill C-293 sets out a three-part test: first, aid must reduce poverty; second, it must be delivered in a way that is consistent with human rights standards; and finally, it should take account of the ideas and priorities of those supposed beneficiaries of aid who actually live the experience of poverty.

That's the “better” part of the more and better aid proposal of the Make Poverty History campaign, supported today by hundreds of thousands of Canadians and by organizations like CCIC.

What about the “more” part of more and better aid? I think that's where the committee comes in.

In previous reports this committee has urged successive governments to set a plan to achieve the internationally accepted donor state target of 0.7% of gross national income dedicated to the assistance of poor countries. In 2006 your committee proposed the government strike a plan to reach the target, a plan that in its words “should be developed no later than 31 December 2007”. I note that there's still time to do it: it's about a month from now.

It's now more than two years since all parties unanimously supported the idea of achieving 0.7% by 2015. On his way into office, the Prime Minister pledged his government would do better than previous governments in growing Canada's aid spending. He said that his own target was to see Canadian aid spending equal to the average donor effort. Little enough, you might say, for a country whose economy is more robust than almost all of those that have already pledged to achieve or surpass the 0.7% mark by 2015.

CCIC estimates Canada could almost achieve average donor country effort by 2010, the Prime Minister's goal, with 15% increases to its official development assistance annually; going forward, the same plan and approach would achieve 0.7% by 2017, and that's what we need.

I'd like to ask the committee to suggest that the government set out a 10-year plan to achieve the 0.7% target. It's reasonable, it's affordable, and Canadians will support it.

Mr. Chairman, I've provided the clerk with CCIC's pre-budget backgrounder; together with some charted projections, it will provide a fuller explanation of the points I've made here today.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are monitoring the progress of Bill C-293 closely. We understand its intent and its principles. Those principles and the intent reflect the intentions and the commitment of the government.

As I articulated in my presentation, the government has committed to doubling its foreign aid over the course of the next couple of years. We have committed to doubling our aid to Africa. We have enhanced our commitment to the Caribbean and to the western hemisphere.

Just as important, we want to make sure that the commitment of Canadian support in tax dollars is going to be done effectively and efficiently. We want to make sure those dollars are not just announcements of large figures; we want to make sure those dollars are going to help the people they are intended to help.

We have a three-pronged program, which we articulated in budget 2007: to ensure that we enhance our international aid and development support with focus, to ensure that it be more effective and efficient, and to ensure that it is done accountably so that we can report to Canadians the good work the government is doing on the international front.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the minister and I thought she spoke quite well about a number of issues in which Canada is involved.

Canada is a wealthy nation. We are more wealthy now, conceivably, than we ever have been with the surpluses that we have racked up. I want to ask her about a specific private member's bill that has passed the House and has gone to the Senate, Bill C-293, the ODA act, the purpose of which is to make poverty the focus of overseas development assistance.

Many other nations in the world have gone this route. It seems like a no-brainer to many Canadians. It has the support of all kinds of NGOs and organizations that think Canada could do a lot more and that we actually should be hitting some of our millennium development goals. There are people who believe, as I do, that we should hit the 0.7% of GNI for overseas development assistance.

I want to ask the minister specifically whether she thinks that Bill C-293, the purpose of which is to make poverty the focus of overseas development assistance, is a bill that she could encourage her government to support. Is there something wrong with that bill? Does she believe that Canada should hit our 0.7% target out of the millennium development goals?