The Congo is arguably the worst humanitarian crisis in the world right now. In fact, every single day the equivalent of more than three jumbo jets full of people are dying. More than 30,000 people a month are dying in eastern Congo from a variety of preventable problems.
Most international observers on the ground, including those who are part of the UN peacekeeping operations on the ground, are beside themselves because there aren't enough UN peacekeepers on the ground. Secondly, because eastern Congo is one of the most forgotten humanitarian crises in the world, thousands and thousands of people are dying every single month of entirely preventable diseases and problems, from malnutrition to very simple medical problems that can be treated in simple ways, but they're dying as a result of it.
No one in the world is actually standing up and fighting to bring this to the forefront, to use the multilateral organizations to make the very modest but significant intervention into the Congo that will save an enormous number of innocent civilian lives. That's what we're talking about, civilian lives.
I think we as a committee can put this forward, as a very constructive motion, to try to convince our government that this is something they could do in a very constructive way that will save a large number of people's lives. It's entirely consistent with comments by the Prime Minister on improving aid effectiveness and his comments earlier this year, during the remembrances of the holocaust, that he would not stand by and allow catastrophes like this to continue to occur.