Thank you, Minister, for your response.
I absolutely stand by my statements earlier that the private sector does have a role to play. At the same time, I can also say that from the evidence presented here and from what I've heard outside of this room as well, I also personally hear some alarm bells around the impact of some of our partnerships on the long-term sustainable developmental work that we need to do in other countries.
I know, Minister, because we have shared these moments, that you care very deeply about our international work. It really concerns me that some of the direction we're taking is actually damaging our international reputation because of the links.
I'm certainly hoping that we will use our funding—the taxpayers' moneys—in a way to invest in long-term sustainable development that will give us systemic results.
I have heard from mining companies that have come to make presentations. At one meeting, I think I made a comment. I felt as if I was at a business council meeting of CEOs, because all we heard about was, well, we need to have these systems put in place for us. I kept thinking, as you make all these profits out of these countries, isn't it your role to develop some of those systems?