Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is a very important issue—a very important study. I was pleased that our party was able to push for more hearings on this, because I think this is an issue we need to explore and ask some questions about.
I want to start by drilling into the issue of the matching programs the government operates for humanitarian assistance. This has been an issue that I've continually raised in response to other humanitarian crises: the fact that this government has made a pattern of introducing matching programs that only apply to certain charitable organizations and not others.
The effect of this—and I anticipate some of the testimony we're going to hear in the second hour—is that organizations that are present and active on the ground, and that have a high degree of capacity, are shut out from the benefits of the matching program and actually have a much harder time raising money, because their donors come to them and say, “How come the Government of Canada is matching these organizations and not these other organizations?” In other words, the policy of the government, in terms of arbitrarily matching some organizations and not others, causes potential reputational damage to these organizations, which are present and doing good work.
I've raised this before, on Lebanon and Ukraine. We spoke about it in the context of the matching program the government announced for Atlantic Canada. I don't know if those concerns, raised by parliamentarians and the community at large, are being heard at all. Again, we have a case where the government is selectively matching donations to some organizations and not others. That does a great deal of damage, especially to many small and diaspora community-led organizations.
What's going on here? Why hasn't there been a responsiveness to the concerns raised, and why is there persistence in matching contributions to some organizations and not others?