Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Dr. Luning.
I myself am the son of Dutch immigrants, and I always admire Holland's international influence, for such a small country and population. It seems to engage its public very well in participating in international initiatives. I admire your country for doing that.
What we have here with the present government is a shift. We previously had hundreds of NGOs, and now there are going to be a lot fewer carrying the ball for our international aid. As we see, we're embarking on using more companies and mining companies to carry that ball. That's what our debate is all about here today.
At the end of the day, the nature of companies, especially mining companies, is to make a profit for their shareholders. Many times, it's a very fickle industry. Commodity prices come and go, and you have alluded to the fact that sometimes they are bought out by other companies, which could be Australian or Chinese.
There is concern about who is left holding the ball when they leave or go bankrupt. We have instances even in North America—in Canada—of companies having left communities with a mess or employees with no pension plan.
As we embark on getting companies to carry our foreign aid, what should we be watching out for? It's not just what we're hoping they will do, but they're dealing with the taxpayers' money. How do we set benchmarks for transparency? How do we make sure that if something goes bust—a commodity price or a company—and communities are relying on something to happen where land has been transformed for different things...? Should we not have our own watchdog to make sure that these communities are protected?
The worst thing is that some great big initiative might happen with this company—it all sounds good, and ribbons are cut—and five or ten years later there is a community sitting there asking what happened.