I'd say a couple of things. Number one, when I made that remark, it was not a pointed remark at this government. Similar trends were visible under previous governments. I'd like that to be understood.
Development and international development cooperation is a risky business. It's a business. It's full of risks and uncertainties. The two risks are different. You know the probabilities; the uncertainties, you don't. It is time that parliamentarians had an adult conversation with Canadians about risks and uncertainties, and international development.
I know the international development business. I have been in that my whole career and love to sell it as a series of easy wins. Give to us and we'll feed this child, and the child will become well nourished magically. I have worked in east Congo and South Sudan, and places like that. It doesn't work that easily.
At the same time, we've had a series of public management measures under this and other governments, and not just in Canada, where basically we've been telling public servants to be ever more risk-averse. We're not letting the managers manage, as we did a decade or two ago. We're piling layers and layers of governance and risk management terms, and extra approvals on top of a layer of political oversight, which is normal and natural in our parliamentary system.
Maybe we should look at it the way the private sector might look at this. Look at the venture capital industry. Venture capitalists invest in between 10 and 20 companies and expect maybe one or two of them to work out. They expect 18 or 19 failures, but the two that work, work so big, that the venture capitalist makes money.
Maybe Canadians aren't quite ready for that high failure rate, but let's have an honest discussion about doing some things in a difficult and risky terrain, where not all of them will work, but we'll take appropriate measures to safeguard public money, learn our lessons systematically as we go through, and improve. That is the way to make bigger returns in the long run. That might be an interesting way of refounding our aid program, and I hope would be one that would find wide, all-party support.