I appreciate the question very much. On the concept of avoiding corruption, when you are held accountable you tend to do things right. Here we are in a democracy. We have the media reporting what goes on in committee. We have television, and so on. The public knows what is going on here. If they don't like what's going on here, they have the opportunity to change it at the next election. Or if they like what's going on, they can send you back again.
In dictatorships around the world there is no accountability, and when there is no accountability people steal the cash by the billions of dollars. When they steal the money their people are destitute. When you look around the world and see all the poor people on television who are starving and dying of this, that, and the next thing, it's because of bad governance, not a lack of aid. Why is it bad governance? It's because the people cannot hold their governments accountable.
Nobody has ever voted for poverty. Why is half the world poor, and a billion and a half people destitute? It is because they cannot exercise accountability over their governments, as we do here in Canada. What we're trying to instill around the world is accountable governance.
This committee is about accountability. You look at government spending and approve it or don't approve it. If you can get the House to agree with you not to approve it, then we have an election and fight it out. That's the way we do it in this country. It's called accountability. We let the people ultimately decide.
But in far too many countries around the world that opportunity doesn't exist, and people are left in absolute and total poverty with no capacity to demand services from their governments.