Mr. Speaker, this House will be asked to vote later today on $1,143,285,750 worth of spending. Five hundred and twenty-seven million dollars of this spending is to help reduce the debts of heavily indebted countries because of multilateral agreements Canada undertook in the past.
Some of these heavily indebted countries are much less indebted than Canada yet Canadian taxpayers are asked to relieve their debts. This is absolutely insane.
I call upon the Minister of Finance to commit to this House that such ludicrous agreements will not be undertaken in the future. Furthermore, will the Minister of Finance abide by the motion passed by the Standing Committee on Finance on December 1 which states that any agreement to relieve the debt burden of other countries is studied by the finance committee prior to the government making any such commitment?