Mr. Speaker, a famine's death march does not wait. Over the past months, the 100,000 strong Somali Canadian community has been in anguish. In southern Somalia, surface water has disappeared, boreholes have dried up and over 80% of livestock has died.
The UN reports that only 20% of an emergency $426 million appeal has been raised and that eight million people are in immediate danger. This is a human catastrophe. Mr. Bondevik, the UN special humanitarian envoy for the region, called this a “silent tsunami”.
A letter signed by a number of members of Parliament appealing to the Prime Minister for emergency action has gone unanswered for nine weeks. Now we have a budget with no funds to prevent this slow and silent death by famine.
Canadians are world renowned for their generosity of spirit. Let us act now, not when we are compelled to action by photographs of children with distended bellies on the front pages of our newspapers. The famine's death march has arrived at Somalia's gates.