Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-33, a bill that gets to the heart of environmental issues in Canada and to the heart of how we will regulate contents in gas.
I would like to broach out to a subject that is related to this and one that has received a lot of attention recently, and that is the food security issue which has a connection in terms of the biofuel industry.
Before I get into that I will give a slight overview of what is taking place in the world today. On the front pages of newspapers around the world are articles about the food crisis that is affecting virtually every country. Thankfully, our country has been somewhat immune from the situation because of our various efficiencies.
However, this does not belie the fact that one billion people around the world are living on less than $1 a day. These people are living in extreme conditions. They are being forced to sell the roof over their head. They are pulling their children from school and they are depriving themselves of the basic nutrients they need to survive.
What are the implications, particularly on children, if they do not get these basic nutrients? If a malnourished child does not get the micro-nutrients and the caloric requirements they need, they will suffer lifelong cognitive, intellectual and physical disabilities. They will not be able to do the things that we take for granted. What happens to them in their early years will affect their learning ability, their working ability and their ability to function in society. That is why this food crisis has implications well beyond what we are seeing today.
What has caused that? The reality is that in our world today we have more than enough land to produce the food we need. However, price distorting subsidies, export tariffs, export quotas, mal-distribution problems and disturbing distribution mechanisms have all caused a problem that is part of a perfect storm.
The biofuel subsidies are part of the problem. The distribution mechanisms, the export quotas, the increased demand from India and China and weather patterns that are affected by virtue of climate change all make up this perfect storm that has created today's food crisis. No one solution will enable us to address this problem. A collection of solutions are required.
I put part of this problem on the shoulders of IFAD and the FAO. Those two UN organizations have the mandate to deal with world food security but they have failed miserably, in part because their executive is dysfunctional. Our government should be playing a leadership role in pursuing the changes that are required in those two organizations when it comes to world food security.
The government made a partially good decision on the food aid required by the World Food Programme, which is an excellent organization. I have to compliment the government on untying its aid 100%. However, I also need to criticize the government for only putting in the amount of moneys required to enable the World Food Programme to maintain the work it has been doing over the last year.
Yes, it is true that the government did put in more money.