Mr. Speaker, on October 21, I asked a question in this House of the Minister of Foreign Affairs concerning the upcoming peoples summit, specifically the concern that many delegates from APEC countries who wish to attend the peoples summit to speak on issues of fundamental human rights, the rights of workers and the environment were refused any federal government funding.
I asked the foreign minister why it was that this explicit bar on the peoples summit, using federal funds to assist people from civil society attending the peoples summit, was in place. I pointed out the double standard and the fact that the federal government is spending something in excess of $50 million for the APEC summit itself for things like security for leaders like Suharto and Cheung Chi Min and others and it is not prepared to provide the very minimal funding which has been requested to assist in the travel of delegates from APEC countries to the peoples summit.
At the same time I questioned the minister with respect to cuts in Canada's overseas development aid, shameful cuts which have led to our being severely criticized by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation and other international aid bodies. We have dropped from fifth place to eleventh place in the OECD.
Now that the Minister of Finance has triumphantly proclaimed that the deficit has been wrestled to the ground, I urged that the minister responsible for foreign affairs, the Minister for International Co-operation, cancel the proposed 8% cut, about $150 million, which is planned for next April in Canada's overseas development aid.
Unfortunately the response to both those questions was completely unsatisfactory.
I point out that as well in the context of the upcoming APEC peoples summit my colleague from Yukon raised very serious concerns about the failure of the federal government to provide requested financial assistance to the APEC women's conference, this despite the commitment that was made by the secretary of state for women and multiculturalism at the conference in Beijing. The failure to provide proper funding has also led to the cancellation of the indigenous peoples forum.
The peoples summit is a tremendous opportunity for Canadians and for people in APEC countries to raise concerns about human rights, about workers rights, about the environment, and I want to pay tribute to the organizers of the upcoming peoples summit in Vancouver later this month.
I want to again appeal to the Government of Canada to honour its own policy, the policy of CIDA, which encourages the involvement of delegates from other countries in important UN conferences and other key intergovernmental and non-governmental fora. They have much to witness; workers from Hong Kong, for example, who will speak about the failure of the Government of China to respect workers rights. It just cancelled the laws passed by the Hong Kong legislature to guarantee freedom of association. It is important that we hear from workers there. It is important that we hear from workers in Indonesia and from others talking about the genocidal policies of Suharto in East Timor. Why are we allowing him to come to Canada when he is guilty of crimes against humanity?
These are some of the questions that I hope will be addressed at the People's Summit. I appeal to the government to provide the funding necessary to those who are coming—