Madam Speaker, I was certainly being critical of one of the member's colleagues who seemed to be deprecating the current discussions on assisting the people in the Darfur region of Sudan and turning it into a political football.
The member also made some comments about Canada's heritage in peacekeeping and our work with the United Nations in international development. As I recall, Lester Pearson received the Nobel peace prize for his efforts in peacekeeping as opposed to international development. There was a serious problem in Gaza at the time, the Suez crisis, and Canada made a serious and positive contribution toward its resolution. Mr. Pearson won the peace prize for resolving that issue.
Since then, Canada, like most of the developed countries, has been a contributor, sometimes more and sometimes less, to international development. The standard he referred to, .75% of our GDP, is an often sought after standard, but we are not there yet. I do not even know whether we are half-way there yet. We are committed to increasing our percentage of GDP. So we know what kind of dollars we are talking about, Canada's GDP has just gone over one trillion dollars. This is a moving number. It is a lot of money.
Canadians are committed to international aid. They want to do it responsibly. There is a large amount of money in the budget, including a significant investment in our armed forces. That money will not go toward international aid, but go toward international peacekeeping.