Madam Speaker, first I would like to congratulate my colleague for putting this motion before parliament. Certainly it has triggered quite a bit of debate and interest. It is quite timely to speak about issues of importance not only to our country but to the world as a whole.
I do have some problems with the motion because it mixes two different animals. I wish it had focused on only one element, either the United Nations or the international financial institution. We would have had a more meaningful debate.
I am going to talk a bit about the economic situation around the world and what Canada is doing as a nation both on the bilateral level and on the multilateral level in order to push forward the agenda of reform, not only for international financial institutions but also for international financial stability.
As one would say, if something is rumbling in my tummy it is time for something good to eat. If a nation is not doing well economically and if the people of a nation do not have enough food on the table, that to a large extent could create not only an economic destabilizing factor but also a political destabilizing factor. It is extremely important to have good economic stability in a society in order to have good political stability.
Canada on that front has done a tremendous amount of work. For the record I would like to indicate some of the initiatives this government has taken when dealing with poor countries and their debts.
Over $53 million has been contributed to the most indebted countries trust funds. The government has given an additional $33 million of which $21 million has been earmarked for use by the African Development Bank and $1 million for Guyana. The government has written off a large portion of its outstanding official assistance debt to the poorest countries. To date we have forgiven over $1.2 billion in overseas development assistance debt.
In 1992 the previous government announced a major debt conversion initiative for Latin America involving up to $145 million of CIDA as well as ODA debt into local currency to help finance environment and development projects. So far about six countries have taken advantage of it, such as Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru and Costa Rica. An agreement has been reached with the Dominican Republic and should be signed sometime in the near future.
On the multilateral level the government outlined at the 1995 G-7 meeting in Halifax a six point plan. One is to ensure appropriate monetary policy through the G-7 central banks, paying close attention and giving appropriate weight to the risk of a future slowdown in the global economy. The second is expeditious action to strengthen national financial systems and international oversight. Third is development of a practical guide or road map for safe capital liberalization in developing countries. Fourth is the agreement to work urgently toward a better mechanism to involve private sector investors in the resolution of a financial crisis, including the possibility of an emergency standstill clause. Finally, there is greater attention to the needs of the poorest countries to ensure they receive the resources and support they need to reduce poverty and begin growing.
Let me stress one point out of this six point plan, the strengthening of the financial systems around the world. Very few countries around the world put out financial statements indicating the financial affairs of their nation.
There is no international standard. Different countries report in different ways on the state of the nation when it comes to the financial end of things. To that extent, Canada is one of the best countries in the world when it comes to issuing its annual financial statements, which makes it one of the most transparent economies in the world.
One of the first things that we have to do as a society, as a government and as a parliament is to work at the bilateral level to encourage and assist countries, in particular third world countries, to start developing proper financial statements so that at the end of the year the people of that country, whether private sector, public sector or taxpayers as a whole, will be able to see how the government is spending its money. Then corruption could be reduced and eventually eliminated.
There are many countries around the world that do not issue financial statements. As a result, nobody knows what those countries have in terms of revenues or expenditures. That is a major scandal internationally. It is one of the leading causes for a lot of the problems and economic troubles around the world.
There are some countries in Asia-Pacific that have not issued financial statements for the past seven years. Some countries have not had financial statements from their governments for the past 15 or 20 years. Others are working on 1991 financial statements. Those very same countries have gone through very difficult and troubling economic times.
Before one talks about reform of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, one really has to address the fundamental issue of transparency around the world when it comes to the proper reporting of governments with annual financial statements.
If it was up to me, frankly, I would synchronize and eliminate some of the organizations. I would fold them into the World Trade Organization so that we would have one economic power around the world that would govern. I would bring in the International Monetary Fund as a part of that economic organization. I would bring in the World Bank, the OECD, APEC, the G-8 and every other organization under the economic umbrella of the World Trade Organization. Once that was done, and it would take quite a bit of time, then I would talk about making the World Trade Organization a part of the United Nations. Then we would have a body that would govern both politically on the one hand and economically on the other.
Simply having a meeting to bring a bunch of politicians together, most of the time, is extremely counterproductive and will not give us the results we want.
I want to thank my hon. colleague for bringing this issue before the House because it has given us a chance to put our views on the record. It triggered a very interesting debate and I hope we will have a chance to further debate issues such as this in the future.
I would say that everything starts at home and I want to take this opportunity to commend the Department of Finance and the Government of Canada for being so proactive, not only here at the local level in Canada but at the international level, in bringing about reforms to international financial institutions and also in assisting countries to bring about transparency, economic development and prosperity for their people, for our people and for the world as a whole.