By passing legislation to that end, Canada would be in a better position to act at the international level in areas such as poverty eradication and human rights, and in so doing, would enhance its accountability with respect to international aid.
It would be a great help to Canada to have a legislative framework that sets out very clearly the objectives of Canada's aid spending. It's the first step for accountability. It's the first step for clarity, for understanding how we are spending aid and to what effect. It would improve enormously the quality of our aid contribution. It would determine, I think, in some measure, the role we play on the international stage with the international financial institutions.
You can't have this kind of vision of aid spending and accept, as, for example, the British are--they are increasingly accepting less--the sort of lumberyard of conditions being applied to developing country economies for loans and international assistance. We need to do that whole thing better, and the approach we have to take to it is to focus on aid effectiveness and human rights. That is the way to get at poverty globally.