Evidence of meeting #36 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was clause.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
ODA is a subset of international assistance. International assistance is this big circle, and inside that big circle is a slightly smaller circle called ODA. It represents the bulk of international assistance.
Conservative
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
Looking at this amendment--and it's mentioning a grant element of at least 25%--where would that 25% be coming from? Is that a type of an internationally understood...? Isn't that very restrictive and going to be restricting you, on what type of aid would be administered or what type would be given? The 25% sounds to me as though it would put you into a box and terribly restrict you. Is that something we should be limiting ourselves to?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
We'll go to Mr. Obhrai, and then we're still waiting for Mr. McKay's answer to Mr. Patry.
We'll go with Mr. Obhrai first then. Go ahead.
Conservative
Deepak Obhrai Conservative Calgary East, AB
Thank you. We have total confusion here when we're talking about the bigger picture and the lower picture, and we have this thing here. And then we go further down there, and we talk about 25% ground where we lose the business of accountability out here. An attempt is being made over here to grab somebody else's concept that is coming along to see how money can be directed to them in particular.
We are clashing with OECD definitions. We are clashing with our own definitions. We are clashing with what we want to achieve. We were talking about achieving poverty reductions. In the beginning, this whole thing was directed towards poverty reduction, and now you're talking about giving 25% as a grant so the organizations led by Mr. Gerry Barr can get a lot of money out of it. All these things here are totally--
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Deepak Obhrai Conservative Calgary East, AB
Well, let me finish democracy here. It's my right to talk. If you don't like it, too bad for you.
Conservative
Deepak Obhrai Conservative Calgary East, AB
Then I'm going away. Why should I hurry up? You just talked about democratic policy.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
To try to speak to Mr. Patry's point, the concept is international assistance. That's the universe of everything that Canada gives on the international front.
Mr. Martin then defines what official development assistance is, which is a sub-universe of that larger universe. The consequence of that is that you would remove development assistance as a definition so that you would then have your definition of international, and you would have your definition of ODA, but you would remove “development assistance” from the bill. Does that make sense?
Liberal
Bernard Patry Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I am facing two definitions, one from you and one from Mr. Martin. I just want to know if that means you will withdraw your definition, and we'll just be looking at the official development assistance, or whether we are going to keep both.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
We will have to keep both, because we want to have a universe, and we have to have a sub-universe, and then we have to eliminate development assistance.
Conservative
Conservative
Ted Menzies Conservative Macleod, AB
Are we not getting two different definitions of “official development assistance” inside one bill? Nobody has convinced me that we don't have two different definitions in here. That's my question. I'd like someone to prove to me that that's not the case.
I share Mr. Obhrai's concern about the grant element of at least 25%. I'd like someone to explain to me why this isn't going to tie our hands in the future.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
I'm going to ask our researcher if he can jump in here on the 25%.
Gerald Schmitz Committee Researcher
The 25% is set by the development assistance committee of the OECD. It would have to be at least 25% in order to qualify, to be eligible as “official development assistance”. Since 1986, in Canada we've been at 100% grant element, so it's not an issue for Canada.