Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much for testifying before us today and for sharing your experience. It is very important. You are in the field, you know the conditions that African women live in. They are grappling with serious problems and left to their own devices.
You have all said that donor countries must double their financial aid. You also say that it is imperative that we have a global vision in order to attain realistic, tangible, concrete objectives. If we put all of the necessary effort into this we could attain the objectives you have set out, in particular that of reducing the rate of maternal mortality by close to 70%.
You know that a broad debate is going on because some wish to eliminate abortion from this picture. Unless I am mistaken, you are telling us today that if we do not include it, we are going to miss the target completely. The money will be wasted because we will not reach the objectives and we will not sufficiently reduce maternal mortality.
At the end of last week's meeting in Halifax, a press release stated that the countries that had met had arrived at a consensus. The Minister of International Cooperation stated that everyone was going to work on their priorities. In short, there is no consensus for people to work together. One does not get the impression that efforts will be coordinated. We are practically seeing failure even before the G8 meeting next June.
I don't really have a question. These events leave me speechless. The living conditions of these women are being turned into a monetary issue. This has become a political football. We are forgetting that at the heart of the problem, we want to save lives and that to do so, we have to have everything in these initiatives, including abortion.
I don't understand how a country like Canada, where this is a right that women have, is excluding abortion from the measures that we want to offer other women on the planet who are dealing with very serious problems.
How can Canada show leadership—correct me if I am wrong—when it is not meeting its own commitments?