I thank the member for his question, which I find extremely relevant. What he is referring to is in fact a real danger.
I do think that the Liberal government, and, I must say, the previous Progressive Conservative government, have both attacked social programs, which meet the needs of the most disadvantaged, the less organized people in our society.
It is rather surprising to see that, when governments want to restore fiscal health, an objective we agree with, it is always easier to cut employment insurance than it is to cut other programs. However, when the money is there, the Minister of Finance suddenly announces that he now has some fiscal flexibility and that he will put all the funds into the military and security when, in theory at least because that is what they told us, we never had the means to help the unemployed.
I think the situation is the same on the international level.
Nowadays, some regions of the world are totally disorganized and are unable to have an impact at the international level. Just think of Africa. Even private investors have lost interest in a good portion of Africa. It is not a question of exploitation. Those regions do not even have the privilege—I am being ironic here—of being exploited by multinationals anymore. The multinationals ignore them and the international community ignores them.
There is something dangerous in the current policies. Very sincerely, I wonder if we are not actually developing, through bilateral free trade agreement programs with South American countries, for example, trade agreements with countries that show some potential for us and letting other countries down.
It is in that sense that I feel the negotiation of a free trade area of the Americas, well understood, multilateral and with a concern for rights, is a much more interesting way to go than bilateral agreements.
What we could find at the end of the day is that Canada has bilateral agreements with a number of economically promising countries, like Costa Rica, but has let down other countries that seemed to be too hard hit to be worth salvaging.
Does Bolivia, for example, show some potential for Canada? I think that on a short term, the answer is no. Under a multilateraI agreement, Bolivia would be included.
What concerns me now is that parts of the world are left out and are no longer of economic interest for the great powers, particularly the United States.
In that context, I feel we should give a very clear indication that, as Canadians and as Quebecers, we are concerned about the whole world and that we will commit resources at the level expected of us. The 0.7% of Canadian GDP is what we are being asked to contribute in international aid, and we will be able to reach that level within a few years.