Dr. Schulz, thank you for being here. Your presence is greatly appreciated.
The private sector’s record in developing countries is somewhat of a problem to my mind. If one is very familiar with history and the different eras, one knows that everything began with an army that marched from country to country with private interests in mind. In time, governments intervened, with broader intentions, and I am thinking here of the United Nations. We have now moved on to another stage, and yet there are more and more errors being made. It always seems that we come up with formulas that involve calculated risks, but that is something else altogether. There is an oversimplification that I would call the sanitization of the idea. It consists in going to a neighbour's while having in mind an idea of what is required for each of the countries. And when things get complicated, it seems no one is able to understand.
The private sector is more problematic for me because we always come back to the fact that even here at home, in our own backyard, in our own country, we have difficulty agreeing on the right approach. Oftentimes, the public sector has had to bail out the private sector. During the last economic crisis, it was public money that was used to pull the United States out of the crisis.
Good intentions are always welcome. However, the problem is that the private sector is constantly at the mercy of fluctuations owing to the international economy. The good intentions remain, but the course of a corporation is excessively influenced by this market.
My question is a simple one. Regarding the percentage of influence of the public sector versus the private sector, you talked of cooperation. I am in full agreement with you. The problem is that the cooperation being considered at present is very simplistic, relying greatly on finance and leaving a little too much room for the private sector.
In Africa, I find that this looks a little bit like the Far West, because there is very little regulation. Here, at home, there is a lot of lobbying under way to deregulate anything that comes under government control; however, these very same companies want to venture out into these countries with the belief that they are providing some benefit.
Does Canadian leadership not lie precisely in this cooperation, the purpose of which would be to regulate and to ensure a better balance? I do not know if you get my question.