Mr. Speaker, it was omitted by the parliamentary secretary, but I would be remiss if I did not say to my friend and colleague that the chair of the foreign affairs committee at the time who did the groundbreaking 2005 report on extractive industries was my colleague who asked the question. So I thank our then chair for doing this. He and the team worked very well to put out a groundbreaking report and I encourage people to actually read it because it is very good.
This is a very important question. An ombudsman would be good because it would give transparency to an area that historically has been obscured and opaque. The interesting thing is we are not coming down on the private sector. We are offering something that will be beneficial to the private sector, to the extractive industries which are working in the developing world, and to the countries that are there.
To simply go into a country and engage in extractive industries without being able to make the social investment is really one-half of the opportunity that lies before them. Being able to have an ombudsman, as my friend suggested, would enable the private sector, those companies that are adhering to it, to actually be lauded in our country and be applauded in the private sector for being able to be intelligent in terms of their business plan, intelligent in terms of their investment in their industry, and intelligent in terms of their investment into the social capital in the communities they are working in. It is truly a win-win situation.
A corollary of this is really what took place in Europe where the European Union came up with a very sensible suggestion. It said that there is an obligation, as European countries, when working in a developing country or in a developed country. If they are paying moneys to the government or to whoever they are paying moneys to, then they have to list those moneys. Those moneys have to be listed and made public. In other words, everyone will know where the moneys are being paid to and in that way they can significantly reduce the corruption factor that is the cancer that eats away at the ability of developing countries to be able to move forward.
We do not do enough. Often many countries in the west have a traditional view in aid and development and aid is not the answer. Aid is part of the solution. The biggest solution is the ability for investment to get into a country where it can actually grow and improve the social welfare of the people there. That is the answer.
There is a requirement for an environment which is free of conflict, an environment where there is an adequate judicial system, an adequate security system, and an adequate area where investors can ensure that their investment is not going to be stolen. Any countries that enable that situation to occur will be able to get out from their debt hole which affects 2.5 billion people on our planet who live on less than $2 a day.
There are so many opportunities, so many things that we can do. I would implore the government to listen to some of the concrete solutions that have been put forward that will enable us to get out of this never-ending cycle where aid really does not go anywhere or does not maximize the ability to help those who are most impoverished in our world. The failure to do that comes to affect us all negatively in the future.