Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I do have a number of questions, but I'd like to get clarification on something Madam Laforest said.
I personally am very proud to be part of a government that chooses not to provide funding for political advocacy when the money is really supposed to go to the grassroots level. I'm curious to know where you got your information that funds for charitable organizations under this government have gone down. Simply looking at our record since 2006, it's increased substantially. When we look at Haiti and the money that was provided by the government to match, when we look at Japan and the tsunami and the matching of dollars there, when we look at the fact that we are the first country to actually double aid to Africa at $5 billion, it's incredible. We actually have the highest amount of funding for women's programs in the history of government.
So I'd like you to tell me what you were talking about when you referred to the funding going down. I would note that we did see, in the charts provided by Statistics Canada, that 2007 was the peak of donations at $9 billion, which clearly shows that under this government donations have gone up substantially.