Mr. Chair, the hon. member spoke eloquently about the issue of democratic reform. One of the questions that always occurs to me when we discuss the issue of democratic input into governance is how it affects our policies with respect to internationalists.
When the tsunami crisis occurred, there was a massive outpouring of support for and assistance to the people who had been devastated by that natural disaster. It was forced upon the government to respond to that outpouring. Reluctantly, the government did respond after some period of time.
I visited one of the tsunami affected regions. I visited both southwestern Sri Lanka and northern Sri Lanka and of course the capital, Colombo. When we told people about the enormous sum of money that had been expended on reconstruction aid by the Canadian government and other governments, a lot of them wondered where all of that money had actually gone. That strikes me as an absence of democratic accountability.
Canadians know that hundreds of millions of their dollars from charitable and government levels were spent on this project of reconstruction in tsunami affected regions, and we still do not know how all of those dollars have been expended. Many people in my riding who are of Sri Lankan origin are demanding to know where those dollars went and how they have been expended. This is something that I do not believe this government has accounted for effectively enough, particularly with the allegations that have been revealed in east Asia of international aid dollars, not just Canadian dollars, having gone missing, dollars having been misspent and results not having been achieved for the people who are suffering most.
I wonder if the hon. member could rise in the House of Commons and explain how when it comes to international aid, for example, we can be more democratically accountable to the Canadian people in explaining where their tax dollars are spent and how those results are actually achieved. Perhaps he can elaborate in particular on the Sri Lankan tsunami disaster.