Mr. Speaker, I find myself in a rather unusual situation as a politician because I can actually speak with some knowledge on this issue.
I congratulate the House for entertaining this motion because we have had approximately 45 to 50 hours of debate in the House dealing specifically with the coalition initiative against terrorism. That is an important item that needs to be discussed. However today's motion brings a semblance of balance to the debate.
If our actions are targeted toward the terrorists, it is incumbent on the partners in the coalition to make sure that they are there on the ground to make sure the civilians in those countries understand not only by language but by action that this is what we intend to do.
I congratulate my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean--Saguenay for sponsoring this motion. I am comforted that someone at that tender age takes this issue seriously because it is an extremely serious issue. Global poverty is something that we must come to grips with sooner or later. The sooner we do it, the easier the solution will be on everybody.
The reason I prefaced my comments by saying I thought I could speak to this issue is that I was a teacher in my former life and spent a number of years overseas on international projects that CIDA funded. I will target my remarks to those experiences because I get concerned when I hear criticisms about Canada's international development aid policy. I believe that with the experiences I have had I have a right to address some of those misconceptions.
I spent two years on a project in Ethiopia in the 1980s. To bring credibility to my argument, the Liberals were not in power at the time. The development staff on the ground and the embassy personnel were of the highest quality in terms of making sure that Canadian taxpayer money was spent efficiently and in a manner consistent with the objectives and the values underscored in CIDA's documents.
One of the issues that we focus on in international aid as Canadians is the notion of women and development. We have learned that if we are to get at the root causes of poverty, treating the causes as opposed to the symptoms, we must ensure that the women in the country are engaged in any solution that is being proposed. That is an oversimplification, but money spent to increase the capacity of women in countries is money that manifests itself in a higher standard of living for children. Canada makes sure that the projects it undertakes address the issue of women and development. I encourage the government to continue to make that important intervention.
One of the things that struck me in Ethiopia was that a lot of the aid was very politicized. Ethiopia is a strategically located country. Over the years it was important to this country or that country and a lot of money went to Ethiopia. I saw $80,000 tractors at the side of the road because there was no gasoline. One of the things that Canadian aid focuses on is sustainability. We have to be able to sustain development otherwise when the aid runs out the project runs out.
One of the most successful projects I saw was a German one. It developed a very simple prototype for an ox pulled cart based on the rear wheel assembly of a Volkswagen bug because there were thousands of these cars littering the landscape. These were built by the Cubans, interestingly enough. There were no spare parts and no gasoline to run these cars. Sometimes low technology must be used that matches the technology of the country.
Before I leave Africa, one of the proudest moments I had was when I went to one of the water wells and saw it identified as a Canadian project. Another aspect of Canadian development aid relating to the root causes of health is clean water.
Every Canadian can be extremely proud of the fact that we have drilled literally thousands of wells and maintained and trained local personnel to maintain clean water supplies so that the children who drink the water are getting clean water and are not getting viruses and other things from their water which in most cases would end up killing them.
I then spent three years on a CIDA project in Hungary. This was a different situation because one of the things that happened in that country after the fall of the communist economic system was that lawyers previously employed by the state were essentially told to hang out a shingle and make a living. The Canadian government, through CIDA, got involved in training lawyers, and one might ask what would be the reason for that? The reason quite simply was that if we were to open up eastern Europe as a potential market for Canadian companies, then we needed a system and a legal framework there that would minimize risk to Canadian companies.
When I started working on that project I thought it was a tremendously useful strategy that the Canadian government had undertaken. Someone mentioned earlier a simple phrase that rings true: the Canadian development assistance strategy is one where we would rather teach someone to fish as opposed to giving them a fish. As for people who try to suggest in my presence that Canadian foreign aid is just buckets of cash being thrown around with no accountability, I can tell members that those people have had no experience with foreign aid projects, because the accountability measures and processes that are in place are extremely tough.
We focus on prevention. We focus on capacity building. We focus on making sure that women are included in these development projects because that speaks to their sustainability. We are very concerned when looking at the root causes of poverty. One of the issues that Ethiopia faced was that with such dire poverty any cooking going on was being done through cutting down trees for fuel. The deforestation of the area around the city when the big rains would come in August was causing tremendous problems with what arid or tillable land was left. It was Canadian engineers who went over and started setting up systems of pumps for irrigation and workings and having agricultural workers out in the field talking to people about the importance of not engaging in that kind of activity.
As a final point I would also like to say that in my personal experience one of the other advantages to international assistance is that the people who are engaged in it learn just as much as the people at the other end. One of the things that Canada has been criticized for is that we are kind of an island within ourselves and it is very difficult for Canadians to travel. International assistance experiences for students, exchange programs between various universities and faculty exchange programs which CIDA funds are extremely beneficial, not only to the country we are working with but also to the Canadians who participate in these projects.
I will conclude with that point, but to underscore it I want to say that Canadians can be extremely proud, not only of the people we have employed in our international development agencies but also of the direction, the scale and scope of these projects. I absolutely agree with the motion from the Bloc. It is very timely. It is a matter of ramping up to that figure, which is also contingent on the growth of the economy. That is one of the downsides to using GDP as a measure, but I think there is a definite payback for engaging in these types of activities. I would suggest that in terms of getting a bang for our buck, Canada is one of the leading countries in making sure that the money is spent both efficiently and effectively. We can all be very proud of that.