Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank each and every one of you for being here. Your testimony is always very interesting. We have heard from representatives of other organizations since the start of this study, but I have to admit that it is starting to give me the kind of headache that a child gets when trying to put a square peg into a round hole.
Many of you support the countries of focus approach, or are not opposed to it. At the same time, you are saying that considerably more flexibility is needed, or even a thematic approach. You are in favour of a clear policy to combat poverty and pockets of extreme poverty. You are all saying that international aid should be long-term. I agree with you on these basic principles. Nevertheless, I am left wondering what we can do when I hear Minister Bibeau and the Prime Minister say that the 0.7% objective is too ambitious and that the budget increase will be modest, at least for 2016.
I admit that, in the short term, I was happy to hear about a mixed approach, and it would be interesting to hear more about that from you. It was also interesting to hear Mr. Reilly-King's comments about an exit strategy. In my opinion, in the short or medium term, the flexibility we'd like to give ourselves will be based on the 90% of funding that we currently provide to countries of focus. A progressive exit from some countries would allow us to recover some resources that could be used elsewhere.
Like you, I would like to see our international development budgets grow more quickly, but, in the meantime, how do we make do with what we have in order to work more effectively towards the objectives that you too would like to achieve?