Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your presentation, Mr. Small.
I want to go through your four points, if I may, the first having to do with “competent minister”. You seem to think this is a difficulty. The competent minister in the proposed bill is defined as being “any minister designated by the Governor in Council to provide development assistance”. And you rightly indicated that aid is distributed by Foreign Affairs, by Finance, and by the CIDA minister.
I can't fathom your point, though. At any given time, any one or all is responsible and is “the competent minister”. Are you inviting the committee to redefine the competent minister to be only the CIDA minister? It seems to me that this is the exact phrasing you need in the bill, because the minister responsible for distributing aid may well change over time. So I don't take your point.