Madam Speaker, it is a real pleasure to rise and speak to the throne speech that opened the 37th Parliament of Canada.
My colleague from Selkirk—Interlake, who is the agriculture critic, wanted me to make sure that the desires of the farmers of Canada were made known to Parliament. As such, he asked me to read into the record a letter that came from the Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association. This letter was addressed to the Prime Minister of Canada. I will read what the letter highlights. It states:
Saskatchewan agricultural producers will remember the Throne Speech that opened up the 37th Parliament of Canada not for what it contained, but for what it lacked. It was called “The Canada we want”, but is it really? In a year of serious drought devastation, agriculture was mentioned in three short lines with no short-term or long-term answers to the desperate situation of many farm businesses.
The Throne Speech stated that the government would implement the Agriculture Policy Framework (APF). However, the agriculture industry needs rejuvenation not more regulation, which the APF will impose.
The government has also committed to solve trade disputes in agriculture. Although important, grain and oilseed farmers' returns are dedicated by foreign policy. The federal and provincial governments must continue to pursue the level playing field between subsidized countries and our own. It was this commitment that was missing from the Throne Speech.
The Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association firmly believes that the federal government, under your direction, must engage in strategies and policies that will reduce costs to producers, increase the efficiencies of our cumbersome transportation system, solve labour disputes that are disrupting grain exports at the Vancouver Port as we speak and enhance the profitability of our sector. These are the key points that were sadly missed in the Throne Speech.
What is the federal government, under your direction, doing to solve the Vancouver Port lockout situation, solve grain transportation inefficiencies and level the playing field with competitive countries such as the United States and Europe?
The association is looking forward to the response from the Prime Minister.
Having said that, I would now like to turn to the part of the throne speech that deals with my portfolio, which is international cooperation and foreign aid.
Before I begin I would like to advise that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Vancouver Island North.
Following the G-8 summit, which was touted as a development summit and at which the issue of foreign aid became the focus point of the Prime Minister, as many would like to say, for him to leave his legacy behind, in the throne speech he mentioned in passing his commitment to foreign aid. What he said was that the foreign aid budget would be double the amount by the year 2010.
It is fine for the Prime Minister to say in the throne speech that for the next 10 years the government will double the foreign aid commitment. The only problem is that he will not be in office. He will be leaving in the year 2004, as he has stated. Why the commitment to foreign aid for the next 10 years when another government may or may not keep it? One has to wonder whether this is a genuine commitment, and it is probably not.
Let me talk for a minute about the previous record the government had before it went to the G-8 and started talking about leaving a legacy for third world countries or for giving foreign aid.
Under the government, in 1999 dollars, Canada dropped its total amount of aid by 25% in the 1990s. The government has been doing a very good job of manipulating, through its spin doctors, and leaving the impression among Canadians that foreign aid has increased and that we are doing well with foreign aid. However, the reality is totally different.
From 1989 to day, Canada, on an average of OECD donor countries, and it is the rich countries of the world that form OECD and give out dollars, gives a full third lower aid than the OECD average of .39% of GDP.
The action in the past has not matched and will not match the future, or the rhetoric that the government is talking about in foreign aid, which is its commitment over the next 10 years to double the amount when the principal architect of the Africa plan, the Prime Minister, will not be in office.
In 1998, most disturbingly, the government reduced the percentage of total official aid going to sub-Saharan Africa from 45.3%, in the 1990s to 35.5%.
Let me repeat that because this $500 million that was given for the Africa fund, that is touted about giving aid to sub-Sahara, Africa, is now on the agenda. There is also the NEPAD issue, which the government likes to tout, but its record in the past has been that it has reduced aid from 45.3% to 35.5%.
The government has a terrible record of giving aid. It ties its aid so that its friends and companies owned by its friends benefit from this foreign aid while it goes around the world touting that it is giving aid.
My friend on the other side should listen to the statistics. The statistics do not lie. Canada has the second worst record of tying official aid, second only after Greece. Canada has tied 75% of its aid to purchasing Canadian goods and services. The World Bank has stated that tied aid is 25% more inefficient. That is the record of the government.
In the throne speech, the government stated that the plan is to increase foreign aid by double the amount and honour the commitment it made in Monterrey of an 8% annual increase. So here it is, talking something, as usual, and doing something else. That is what is in the throne speech.
What I would like to point out is that we in the official opposition want to ensure that the foreign aid dollars that are currently earmarked are properly used for the advantage of the people, not used as this tied aid is indicating, for its friends, and trying to pretend that we are doing goods things. Let us do it. Let us stop the rhetoric.