Mr. Speaker, first, all the Bloc Quebecois members will be sharing their time today. Therefore, each will have ten minutes.
For those listening or watching on television today, I would like to read aloud the opposition motion on which members of the House will be voting:
That this House call upon the government to review its international aid policy with a view to substantially increasing the funds available for Canadian humanitarian aid, particularly in the context of the military interventions in Afghanistan, and to increasing the level of its aid for development to 0.7% of GDP, as recommended by the United Nations.
I am very proud to speak to this motion today, since there is a story behind this goal set by the United Nations in 1990.
First, for those listening, “0.7% of GDP” is not 1%; it means seven-tenths of one percent. And the GDP is an accepted manner of measuring wealth.
This goal was adopted by the United Nations in 1990. Canada should have special feelings when it comes to this figure, because the man who signed the United Nations report in 1969 that recommended this goal for the first time was known by many people in this chamber. It was Lester B. Pearson, who was Canada's ambassador to the UN at the time.
In response to the serious international situation back then, and in response to what he considered as the failure of developmental aid, Pearson recommended this goal and hoped it would be reached by 1975. It was only in 1990--when it was proposed by a developing country, incidentally--that the United Nations finally voted to set it as a goal for all countries.
What is interesting for Quebecers and Canadians to know is that, in 1990 when it was adopted, Canada contributed 0.48%. It was close to seven-tenths. It was 4.8 tenths of one per cent.
In other words, since Canada now gives 0.25%, it now gives half, proportionally, of what it gave in 1990 towards the goal set in 1969 by Lester B. Pearson. This is unacceptable. We have said it again and again.
As my young and brilliant colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean--Saguenay was saying, this goal is seen in a completely new perspective since these attacks that disrupted the whole world. I am talking of course of the September 11 attacks in New York, in Washington and elsewhere.
The events of September 11 were very instructive for everybody. The terrorists are not poor people but they feed on the international situation and, moreover, they already have imitators amongst the young people in Arab and Muslim countries, and in many other very poor countries, who have no hope and who live in desperate conditions. I think of Colombia for example, where chaos has almost become a way of life. And what about Palestine?
September 11 was quite instructive. The international aid, which will have to take many different forms, will have to reach at least this goal because the present challenge deals less with unfairness and more with fairness.
There will be people to say that it is a huge amount but compared to the poverty in which many people are living, it is far from being too large. It is interesting to note in passing that it is mainly in small countries that the 0.7% goal has not only been reached but exceeded.
Denmark, which is a rich small country, with a population of about 5 million people share 1.06% of its wealth. The Netherlands have a population of about 15 million and share some 0.82% of their wealth. Sweden and Norway share 0.8%. Those are small rich countries that have realized that they cannot be satisfied with being happy and part of the richest countries if they are alone at the top.
September 11 showed us that there is no longer any country, no matter how large, strong and rich--and I am thinking of the United States and of the European countries--that can hope to ensure its own security without being at all concerned about the rest of the world. Mrs. Fréchette, Kofi Annan's assistant and UN deputy secretary general, who was here and who I had the privilege to teach as a young teacher at College Basile Moreau, said that if we wanted to counter the violence, intolerance and fanaticism of terrorists and protect the values that are dear to us, including freedom, tolerance, justice and equality, we had to do a better job at reducing economic disparities between the rich and the poor.
We could also quote numerous World Bank reports, including the 2000-01 report, which says “Poor people live without fundamental freedoms of action and choice that the better-off take for granted. They often lack adequate food and shelter, education and health, deprivations that keep them from leading the kind of life that everyone values. They also face extreme vulnerability to ill health, economic dislocation, and natural disasters”.
It must be noted that, in countries like ours, less than one--these are statistics--or let us say rather that one out of 100 children dies before the age of five. In poorer countries, one out of five children die before the age of five. Ninety-five per cent of the 160,000 people who contract AIDS daily come from poor countries. AIDS has become a disease of the poor.
Canada must make a commitment to meet that 0.7% target proposed by Pearson in 1969 and set in 1990. The question is not to determine whether or not CIDA is the main vehicle or whether or not CIDA has faults. What is important is to have the political will to meet that target, and I say it is a minimum.
At the Quebec summit, the Prime Minister even said that we needed to do that but we need to do it as soon as possible, not in 10 years. Now we must decide how it should be done. It can certainly be done through multilateral means. In 1990 the rule was that 20% had to go through large international institutions such as the World Bank. We could go back to that.
The important thing is to really start working toward helping restore equity. Yes, we must have open borders but it will not be enough if that only allows rich people in those countries to get even richer. The work to be done is enormous.