Mr. Speaker, this week is International Development Week and its purpose is to highlight and illustrate the work of Canada's development community. Unfortunately, the government has not given us much to highlight and even less to celebrate.
The government consistently makes grand announcements that it will boost overseas development assistance and increase spending on ODA, but instead reports show that Canada's ODA level has fallen consistently under this government's watch.
Under the previous Liberal government, we made international development our commitment and Canada's ODA increased by 8% annually from 2002-03. We made it our goal to maintain this annual increase beyond 2010 and accelerate the projected rate of growth in international assistance as our fiscal position continued to improve.
The government's role in international development is unacceptable. It is time the Conservative government put its money where its mouth is and gave us something to celebrate.