Mr. Speaker, I too would like to congratulate the hon. member for St. Albert and go back to a particular point that he raised in his comments about CIDA.
First of all, I would like to point out that I agree with the foreign aid policies of the Canadian government. I think that it is the tradition in Canada to assist those countries which are less fortunate.
However I agree with the member for St. Albert that there are better ways of using foreign aid. We are sending hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign countries with no accountability
whatsoever. There is no follow up. We do not know where this money is going. Often I believe it is going to buy a limousine for some local politician. I have an idea of how we can better use that money. I would like the advice of the member for St. Albert on it to see if he agrees with me.
We are spending hundreds of millions of dollars helping agriculture in Russia and the east bloc countries. Many of Canada's institutions are not being used. In Timiskaming-French River there is the New Liskeard College of Agricultural Technology. The provincial government is closing it in May. We have state of the art facilities there. We have the academics and the infrastructure.
Instead of sending millions of dollars to foreign countries why not use some of that foreign aid money to bring people to Canada and make use of our facilities by teaching them new skills. They could then return to their countries with new skills and technology.
We would accomplish two things. We would pursue the aims and objectives of helping those nations feed themselves and it would improve our exports because we could sell new technologies and skills to those countries.