Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the minister, for being here, and to all of the staff for joining us today to share their expertise with us.
I have many questions I'd like to ask, but I'm going to start with those on Ukraine. Obviously I was recently in Poland with you. Thank you for allowing me the honour of accompanying you there. What we saw in Poland was very difficult to see, of course.
We have been discussing how we can help Ukraine. What is the best way that Canada can help Ukraine? As New Democrats, we have always believed that we need to provide the weapons we can and provide the defensive materials for our military, so they can stay safe and do the work they do. While these conversations are happening with regard to the support for our military, I wonder whether you'd be willing to tie humanitarian aid to that, whether or not we could say that.
Everyone here recognizes that war is a terrible thing. It is a failure of diplomacy. It is a failure of humanitarian aid. I hate to see a situation in which military spending goes up significantly and humanitarian aid does not follow.
You will know, of course, that our official development assistance is extremely low. We are nowhere near our target of 0.7%. I would really encourage you to consider tying that directly to aid. I'm wondering if that would be something you'd consider.