Mr. Chair, I have to agree with my colleague and emphasize that this amendment diametrically changes the original motion. I'll cite a couple of examples to illustrate this.
If we look at the issue of Haiti, what we're going to be determining there is its local productive capacity. Or if we look at the situation in several other countries—it might be Guyana too—what is the local productive capacity there? Without analyzing Guyana and understanding the necessity of it having dike systems and dams in order to have any productive capacity.... In other words, it's a multiple-layered analysis that would have to be done on each and every situation. In Guyana, it's like Holland, in that they've created their productive capacity by damming and diking the oceans. And if you look at Haiti, what is their productive capacity with all the erosion they've had in Haiti? Something has to be done on reforestation. The erosion is what's holding the productive capacity back.
Each and every country may have different elements to it. If we try to analyze what Canada's aid-giving capacity is for each country and get bogged down trying to analyze what each and every aid-receiving country has as its own inherent capabilities for producing foodstuffs on its own, we're going to be talking about two entirely different initiatives. I'm very much afraid the amendment that's being proposed to the motion would in effect make a very ineffectual study from the initial motion.
With that in mind, without going into all of the different countries, the 180 different countries, there are certainly enough examples to go by to see that each country, each area, has its own variables that would have to be examined. Those variables may be, as I said, from diking to damming to erosion, and they may also be irrigation requirements, or even salination plants in order to be able to have any water to be able to have any production.
So if we try to include that amendment, the complexity of any resulting study would be so vast as to be virtually ineffective.