Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Keenan, for being here.
At the outset, I wanted to mention something you brought up, which I think was Bill C-300 in a previous Parliament. You mentioned that the government defeated it. You probably remember that there was a minority government at the time, so to defeat any bill would take the votes of people from multiple parties. In fact, the Liberal Party industry critic voted against that bill, as did I. I voted against that bill, quite frankly, because I thought it would be hugely detrimental to the Canadian economy in the extractive sector, in the financial services sector, and in many other sectors. I thought it was a rather poorly drafted bill that would have done substantial harm to Canada and very little good to other countries. That was supported by many MPs from many parties.
You mentioned Peru. I understand that you've had some experience there. I don't know if you had an opportunity to hear our previous speaker, Dr. O'Neill, from USAID. She mentioned specifically that USAID was partnering with Barrick Gold, in Peru, on a project she said had created 800 jobs, most of which are in agriculture, not mining.
It sounds to me like a pretty good project for Peru and it has had some positive outcomes. Some mining companies, if they are just in there to extract resources, will train people to work in the mines, and when the ore body is finished they'll leave. Perhaps those people will have skills they can use elsewhere and perhaps not. But in this particular project, partnering with USAID, they're creating jobs that have nothing to do with the mining industry. I don't see what the objection to that kind of project would be.
You may also be familiar with a CIDA project with World Vision Canada, which is a very reputable organization that supports people in poor and developing countries around the world. It happens to be headquartered in my city of Mississauga. It's just a spectacular organization. It's supported by people across Canada, very significantly by people in Mississauga. I can tell you that they did just an incredible job of helping people in Haiti after the earthquake. They raised a huge amount of money from Canadians and put it to good use making lives better for people in Haiti who were recovering from that earthquake and rebuilding their economy.
That is an organization CIDA has partnered with. It has also partnered with Barrick. That project in the municipality of Quirulvilca is benefiting a thousand families. It is strengthening the municipal authority's ability to work with the national government to use a greater share of the mining revenue locally in that community to diversify its economy.
CIDA is putting up $500,000. It's being implemented by World Vision. And Barrick Gold is putting up $500,000. I wonder why that would be a project anyone would want to criticize. It seems to me that what they're doing there is leveraging the work Barrick Gold is doing creating jobs locally and they're taking that economic benefit far beyond that particular industry. Isn't that the kind of thing we want to see happening in developing countries? Those resource companies have contributed to making Canada the prosperous and peaceful place it is, with one of the highest qualities of life in world. When our ancestors first landed in this country, the resource industry was what got this economy moving in the first place. It built our economy. Why wouldn't that work in a place like Peru or in other countries in the world? Those same companies, as Barrick did here, can do it elsewhere. If the taxpayers of Canada want to help those countries develop, we want to show them how it was done in our country.
We have developed some of the best, most successful, most environmentally sensitive, and most progressive programs in the world in terms of employee health and welfare programs, and we've developed them here in this country. They've made this country prosperous. We want to help people in other countries. That's something Canada knows about. Canada is home to the largest mining industry in the world. We're home to the finance business for mining around the world. We've got the expertise in finding the ore bodies, exploiting the ore bodies, and financing the whole project. We have all that in-house. That's something Canada has that not many other countries in the world have.
If we want to help people in poor countries around the world develop their economies, doesn't it make sense that Canada would work with an industry that we know, and try to re-create in other places what we saw happen in our own country so successfully? We're doing that through these programs with reputable organizations, like World Vision. I assume you don't have any problem working with an organization like World Vision.
Perhaps you could comment on that USAID project, the Canadian project with Barrick Gold, and tell me what you think of those projects.