Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious issue. According to the UN there are 7.5 million people affected by events in Afghanistan. I should not say affected by events because it is certainly not just the war; people in that country were in terrible poverty even before the war began.
If all of a sudden the federal government came up with the extra $5 billion the Bloc is asking for, which of course is not very likely and would put us into a deficit position, is it not a fact that we would be unable to use a lot of that money very effectively in Afghanistan because of the war that is going on there? At this point we can help somewhat with refugee camps in Pakistan.
Even the UN has asked for $900 million and other countries will be contributing. A lot of the money the Bloc is asking for obviously could not possibly be used in Afghanistan right now. The 0.7% target that it has suggested is really an arbitrary figure. It is a UN figure but it is quite arbitrary and in this context all that money could not possibly be used to help out in Afghanistan.