Mr. Chair and members, thank you for the opportunity and for having me here today with our officials.
I will also take this opportunity to congratulate you on your recent report, Driving Inclusive Economic Growth: The Role of the Private Sector in International Development. We are reviewing the report, and we will be tabling the response in due course. I want you to know how important and valuable that particular report is to us, and we'll deal with it.
Allow me to make one observation. The opposition found enough time in their dissenting opinion with respect to the report to complain about having no CIDA officials present for the study, yet they did not find enough time to invite any one of us to appear.
I'm honoured that the Prime Minister asked me to be Minister of International Cooperation. Canadians have shown themselves time and again to have a sense of compassion for their neighbours, whether that is here in Canada or around the world, when people are suffering most. CIDA is an expression of the best Canadian values.
Mr. Chair, humanitarian and developmental work at CIDA is critical to the lives of so many people around the world, and I'm proud to work alongside the many committed CIDA personnel who work diligently around the world in very difficult circumstances. I praise their efforts.
Canada has a lot to be proud of, and Canadians' generosity has been demonstrated time and time again through our matching funds, the kinds of results that we've been achieving, the lives we are saving, and the quality of life we're improving for so many people around the world. That is a sense...to be proud of achievements, realizing full well that we have challenges to continue. But all said, Canada ranks very, very high with the receiver countries, and the communities and leaders in these countries, and the NGOs, for the work we're doing, obviously in partnership with many of them around the world.