Mr. Speaker, we have the perspective of the comment made by my colleague from Louis-Hébert and that of my colleague from Don Valley West.
I speak from a national defence perspective. We have to recognize more clearly today that national security means more than the traditional sense of defence of a physical perimeter. It means a lot of things. Among those things it means co-operation. The concept of security today, particularly in the post cold war period, goes far beyond the question of what was traditionally known as the military balance.
It is about politics, it is about economics and it is about human rights and the environment. Those thoughts are sometimes slow to be inflicted on the thoughts of National Defence. I am no avant-garde but I think it is important that we think of CIDA in that perspective.
It is clear that the individual welfare of ordinary Canadians is now affected by global factors, particularly since we are very much a trading nation made up of multinational facets from other countries and that the individual Canadian is affected by global factors that are far beyond any single nation.
Our contribution to CIDA, while it may not look particularly helpful to any individual in an election, in the overall perspective of national security and the well-being of Canada could be a very significant and effective tool. Could the member comment on that?