Mr. Speaker, in its foreign policy statement, the government pledged to get closer to the objective of allocating 0.7 per cent of the GNP to foreign aid. Yet, the recent budget provides for cuts of $1.3 billion over a three-year period. The net result is that Canada will spend less than 0.29 per cent of its GNP on humanitarian assistance, thus reducing its aid to levels unseen since the sixties.
How can the Minister of Foreign Affairs justify his government's decision to reduce food aid to the poorest nations of the world, to a degree well beyond the average level of reduction announced in the last budget, while at the same time forgiving debts of $800 millions incurred by less needy countries?