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.