moved:
Motion No. 1
That Bill C-293, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing, in the English version, line 4 on page 3 with the following:
“or”
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-293, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing, in the French version, line 6 on page 3 with the following:
“les organisations de défense des droits de la”
Motion No. 3
That Bill C-293, in Clause 4, be amended by adding after line 16 on page 3 the following:
“(1.1) Notwithstanding subsection (1), official development assistance may be provided for the purposes of alleviating the effects of a natural or artificial disaster or other emergency occurring outside Canada.”
Motion No. 4
That Bill C-293, in Clause 4, be amended by replacing, in the French version, line 22 on page 3 with the following:
“et des organismes de la société civile”
Motion No. 5
That Bill C-293, in Clause 4, be amended by replacing line 25 on page 3 with the following:
“official development assistance as defined by this Act”
Motion No. 6
That Bill C-293, in Clause 4, be amended by replacing lines 26 and 27 on page 3 with the following:
“that meets the criteria in subsections (1) and (1.1).”
Motion No. 7
That Bill C-293, in Clause 4, be amended by replacing line 26 on page 3 with the following:
“that meets the criteria in subsections (1) and (1.1), and”
Motion No. 8
That Bill C-293 be amended by deleting Clause 5.
Motion No. 9
That Bill C-293, in Clause 9, be amended by replacing lines 30 to 35 on page 4 with the following:
“to preparing the report required under section 13 of the Bretton Woods and Related Agreements Act, contribute the following to the report submitted to Parliament under subsection (1):
(a) the position taken by Canada on any resolution that is adopted by the Board of”
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all members in the House and indeed many who are listening for the help that they have given me with this bill. I think this has been a worthwhile effort. It is in an effort to bring accountability to our aid projects, our official development assistance. It is a bit of an example of cooperation among all parties. I think at the end of the day we do have a product that many members will find themselves able to support. I even want to thank government members who from time to time even offered assistance. It is quite a remarkable phenomenon for us in the opposition to have support from government members.
This is about better aid. It is not about more aid.
I just want to offer an observation with respect to a report by a Senate committee chaired by Senator Segal that comments upon our aid in sub-Saharan Africa. The observation, according to news reports, was that we have put somewhere in the order of about $12 billion into sub-Saharan Africa and it is not observable what it is we actually got for that significant sum of money. The senators' observations in these areas are actually quite acute. I think that this particular bill, assuming it arrives in the Senate, hopefully sooner rather than later, addresses in some small measure the concerns of the senators as they expressed them in their report. I am hoping that the Senate will also see fit to support this bill.
When I started work on this bill, it seemed like a good idea. It was in accord with my own observations that our own official development assistance was not well focused. I thought it was a good bill to put before the House to generate debate and to see how far it went. But last month, I went to Kenya with the member for Halifax, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour and the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley. I do not know whether other members have actually had an opportunity to travel in Africa but if they had the experience that we had, they would know that this bill is now a personal matter.
We had met, in some small measure, the actual people this bill would affect. We had personal conversations in the slums of Nairobi with the people this bill would affect. We had personal conversations in West Kenya with the people this bill would affect.
This bill directs that our official development assistance will be directed for poverty alleviation. That will be the litmus test of official development assistance.
At the time, it was pretty hard to look those people in the eye and say that we want accountability and we want this and we want that. It was pretty darned hard because we were meeting some people from an organization called the Jami Bora Trust. These people are street prostitutes. These people are petty thieves. Many of them, probably in the order of 50% of them, have AIDS. They are the poorest of the poor. They simply have no money, nothing that we would constitute as an asset. Yet Jami Bora Trust was willing to lend them money based upon any savings that they had. If they had what we would call $10 in their bank account, Jami Bora Trust would actually lend them $20 more. With that $30, they would open small businesses.
It was just remarkable the transformation that those small businesses would make to the lives of those people. They could cease to be prostitutes. They could cease to be petty criminals. They could actually earn enough to buy enough food and to get medications that might be made available to them for TB, malaria or AIDS. It was a remarkable transformation. It was remarkable to see people who, for ridiculously small amounts of money, were able to purchase malaria nets. In some instances, they were given to them free.
We were in a situation with three or four African huts around a compound, just like in National Geographic. I can still see this woman looking at me and saying, “Because we have these nets, now my children do not scratch themselves in the morning, they do not get sick and they actually go to school more often”. This bill would help with those things.
We went through the Kibera slums and it was quite remarkable. There were three students for one book. At one time it was 15 students to one textbook. Can anyone imagine 15 students to one textbook? With Canada's assistance, that was brought down to three students to a textbook, and obviously a lot more can be done. It is a hugely successful program but that is the kind of thing that this bill could affect.
We went through the Kibera primary school, right in the middle of one of the worst slums of Nairobi, and what we saw were 2,400 students being schooled by 36 teachers. That is the kind of thing we could be doing and the kind of thing we should be doing.
I submit that this bill could make a difference in people's lives, which is why I am urging hon. members to support it.
At this point, we have no legislated mandate or rules on how we spend our ODA funds. I confess that I may be exaggerating somewhat here, but it seems that whoever puts up his or her hand last is the one who gets the project money. This bill would actually give the minister a legislated focus as to how she or he spends our official development assistance funds.
The critical test will be whether the money will go to poverty alleviation and, if the money does go toward poverty alleviation, micro-finance in the slums of Nairobi, bed nets in west Kenya or primary school books in the schools of Kenya, then the minister can say to her colleagues or others that it does fall within our official development assistance mandate.
The point of this bill is to focus our official development assistance on poverty alleviation. I want to ensure that members understand that would not prevent us from providing other assistance. In the amendments, the discussions and the time in committee, we tried to make that as clear as we possibly could. One of the amendments that was read into the record makes it about as clear as possible that this would not prevent the minister or other members of the government from doing precisely that.
Bill C-293 would create a clear mandate that ODA and all ODA funded projects would first need to demonstrate that their objectives include poverty reduction.
The second test is whether the projects take into account the perspectives of the poor. I suppose if a point were driven home to me while I was in Kenya, the perspectives of the poor are extremely important.
The third test is whether they are consistent with international standards.
The criteria for ODA funded projects, however, do not apply in the instances of humanitarian assistance.
This bill has become personal to me because of my trip to Kenya with my colleagues in the House. I can still see the faces of the people who will be affected if this legislation passes.