Thank you for being here today, minister.
Ms. Verner, you recalled in your remarks that, in the Throne Speech, the government had confirmed its commitment to establish an accountability scheme and to make more efficient use of the funds that Canada sends abroad. Accountability comes up as a key element among those you address in the 2007 report on development results. In particular, you emphasized the aid that you provide to Afghanistan and Haiti, two countries where the situation is so serious that we're no longer even talking about insecurity. In both countries, Haiti in particular, poverty is rank and events happen against a backdrop of violence and insecurity.
As regards MINUSTAH, we know that the Canadian government sent 100 soldiers there starting in 1995. These are soldiers who were trained here. Fifty of those 100 soldiers were Haitian Canadians. Trained in Regina, they were sent to Haiti.
We had a visit from Mr. Jean Fritz Magny, who was one of those police officers. As you must have seen, in an article published in the October 13 edition of La Presse and in another published in The Montreal Gazette, according to his allegations, those police officers trained in Canada never saw active service there. They were shelved, as you say in good Québécois. However, for years they received their pay, which wasn't very high. It was nevertheless US$140 a month. It's said that, even now, there are soldiers in Haiti receiving money but not working.
Your press attaché, Ms. St-Pierre, said that you had ways of knowing what was going on and that you were going to investigate the money that was specifically invested in that program. It was $2 million. I'd like to know what is going on.