Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to Bill C-47, a bill to change the name of the Department of External Affairs to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
We have no opposition to this bill at all and therefore no position to oppose it whatsoever. It does not change the resource allocation within it, nor any significant restructuring. However, as we broker no opposition to it, let me talk about some concerns I have about the department and let me give some hope and constructive suggestions we have to perhaps change its focus somewhat, making it an even better organization than it already is.
I preface what I am about to say by reaffirming what my colleague said, that we have only had a few hours to address this bill. We hope that in the future the government will give us more time to do that.
First and foremost, if we are to have a Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade it must be one that lives within its means. Currently, as we know, the government is spending 25 per cent more than what it takes in. The department must, as all departments must, make an effective cut to its budget.
As I said before, the government is now spending over $40 billion more than what it takes in. If the department of foreign affairs were to make at least a 25 per cent cut, then we would have a department that would be able to live within its means.
The joint committee had an ideal opportunity to go ahead and do this. It could have given the Minister of Finance a hand by putting forth some constructive suggestions to do this. Unfortunately 20 out of the 60 recommendations that were put out asked for more money, if not explicitly then at least implicitly.
This does not make any sense whatsoever. It does the department and the people who worked very hard on the committee a grave injustice. I cannot emphasize this enough. I hope in the near future the department will take it upon itself to put forth the constructive cuts required to make it sustainable in the future.
I will not put forth criticisms without putting forth some constructive suggestions in some areas of budgetary cuts. One of the areas that our party has put forth is that bilateral government to government aid should be decreased or eliminated.
Unfortunately, when we go out in the field we see that a lot of the aid Canadians and our government give in good faith to help those people who need it the most tragically does not get there. I have seen foodstuffs given by the Canadian government being sold over the counter to various areas or being bargained for arms and ammunition. This is not where the Canadian government or people want this aid to go.
Another thing we have to do and which we did not do in the committee, although we listened to a lot of NGOs, is to determine which NGOs are doing a good job and which are not. Which are giving the money they are given to the people who need it the most and which are not? We need to determine criteria that can be applied to the NGOs to tell us which NGOs are doing a good job and determine ways in which we can
measure this in the future. This has never been done but it is something we must do in the future.
Another thing we have not done as a country and that no country has done is determine which international organizations we should and should not be members of. Currently we are a member of a vast number of international organizations, in many of which there is a lot of duplication.
If we are having difficulty in being a member of these organizations, so are other countries. No country in the world has taken the initiative to try to streamline these down. Canada has a unique opportunity to do this. We ought to go ahead and determine which organizations are duplicating themselves and which are not, making some constructive suggestions to the international community to determine where we can co-opt the functions of these organizations into one or fewer. It would save us money and would therefore save a lot of other people money.
Another thing we ought to, which this bill gives, is a method to streamline the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. By changing the name perhaps we can use this as a stepping stone to amalgamate various areas within the ministry to save the taxpayers a significant amount of money.
Another area we need to address is one that I recently had some experience in, the Department of International Trade.
There are a number of exporters in this country who have spoken to me about the fact that they would like to be able to capitalize on international markets more effectively. They are not able to do this for a number of reasons.
One thing the Department of International Trade can do is inform Canadian exporters about places where our exporters can capitalize, where we have an expertise that other countries do not.
Currently the biggest problem is getting the information out in a timely fashion. As a result other countries can get contracts on the international stage that really should belong to Canadians. They are jobs that could be brought home, jobs that we can do as well or better than other countries.
I would ask that people in the department look for ways to tell our exporters in a timely fashion about opportunities that exist abroad that they can capitalize on for themselves and for Canadians.
One area that we have not used enough is our embassies. We can utilize our embassies internationally to be the eyes and arms for our exporters abroad. They are in the trenches and they can tell the department what is available to our exporters.
I will move on to a slightly different focus. If we stand back and look at the large threat that exists today we will see that the world is not a safer place in the post cold war era. Last year there were at least 120 conflicts in the world. Over 90 per cent of these conflicts were internal. Why is this so? There are a number of reasons. One essential reason is the burgeoning world population that has been out of control for decades.
From 1950 until the present, a short period, we doubled our population; a population that took from the beginning of time until 1950 to develop. In the next 25 years we will double that population again.
There are those who say this is not a problem, that we will find ways to deal with this. I would submit that right now we have no way to deal with it and there has been nothing in the recent past to prove otherwise.
Out of this expanding population will be an increasing conflict for limited resources. Out of that conflict will come a migration of people. We have seen recently on television the horrible genocide and carnage.
In the trenches all of the foreign aid and development that countries such as Canada and other principle countries put forth will go for nothing. We will wind up back at square one. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever not to address this threat to security if we continue to give aid. It has to be addressed before our development needs are addressed.
Security not only involves the military aspect, which is what we have had over the last hundreds of years, but also security involving the environment, economic and resource management. This is the single most important threat not only to foreign security but also to our own. Many people in this country would argue who cares what happens half a world away, put a fence around them, let them kill each other. This has sometimes been said about Bosnia.
If we want to argue independent of humanitarian terms, argue on what affects us, let us say that what happens half a world away will one day wind up on our doorstep. These conflicts produce a number of things, a migration of people, a demand on our resources through international trade and also on defence. It also puts our people in harm's way, our defence personnel who have provided exemplary service in the past.
There is one way to deal with this in the near future. It is something that no country has ever taken the initiative to do, but I think Canada can, the aspect of preventive diplomacy. This country has a unique opportunity to go around the world and develop a consensus to try to address these conflicts before they blow up. Once they blow up we get into the very expensive aspect of peacekeeping and peacemaking and everything it entails. On the other hand preventive diplomacy is cheap by comparison.
Why Canada? As our new Governor General mentioned this morning in a very eloquent speech which I thought was one of the few speeches that brought us together and concentrated on our similarities rather than on our differences, we are one of the few countries in the world that has managed to bring together a truly historic mosaic of people in a peaceful setting.
That reputation should not be undersold by anybody in the House because it is internationally renowned. We may not realize it, but people in countries around the world look to Canada as the example of a country that has managed to merge different people from different walks of life, different colours, different religions and different ethnic groups into a peaceful and relatively harmonious mosiac.
We can and we must take the initiative to act as the honest broker to bring together NGOs, academics, politicians, the United Nations and international financial institutions to determine a series of reproducible measures that we as the international community will enforce when conflicts are about to blow up. This is fundamental to international security in the future and, as I said before, cost effective.
Finally I will concentrate on a few specific issues I have had recent experience in and, as I have seen before, cause a great deal of tragedy. One is the trafficking of small arms. People may not think it is much of a problem, but I was recently in a third world country where the destabilizing effect of small arms is dramatic. I was in areas where an AK-47 could be bought for as little as $20. In these areas resources are depleted, populations are growing and small arms are proliferating. The result is a pot ready to boil over and an area that is very unstable.
We must act as a world leader to develop an international consensus on how we are to go about severely restricting the production, sale and movement of small arms. Canada should act as a leader in banning two things: first, mines and, second, anti-personnel devices. These weapons have absolutely no place in warfare. They are meant merely to destabilize a civilian population and are meant to kill civilians. I have seen it with my own eyes.
Unfortunately, when a so-called war is over, because of the proliferation of the aforementioned a country is unable to get on its feet for decades. The cost to the international community is in the billions of dollars. It is one of those things we can pay now or pay later. I would submit it is a lot better to get involved in this early than late.
I hope the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of International Trade will take these suggestions into consideration in their future endeavours. I know people on this side of the House are prepared to work toward furthering those suggestions.