Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the member's speech. I will talk about two egregious errors the Conservative government has made relating to humanitarian aid.
First, as incredible as it may sound, the government has reduced the amount of money available for the prevention of polio, and this is unacceptable. If the government supports polio prevention, it can stop a child from being crippled for life for 60ยข.
My second point is this. Tomorrow an important decision will be made by the Thai-Burma border commission about food in the refugee camps. There are 140,000 people at risk. They are about to go on a starvation diet. Their rations will be cut to half of what the World Health Organization says a person needs to live. Something has to be done about that.
The Conservative government has been asked numerous times to help. Only $1 million from Canada is needed and the other $6 million would come from the other donor countries in a year. The prime minister of Burma made this point to our Prime Minister when they met a few weeks ago and talked about this crisis.
Would the member support the Conservative government and help lobby it to somehow reinstate this funding? It does not necessarily have to be in this budget, if that is difficult. It can be done through the supplementary estimates. Will the government at some point reinstate money to its previous level for polio prevention for what could be a humanitarian crisis? Will the government solve the urgent crisis in the refugee camps in Thailand by adding the $1 million a year, for which all NGOs involved have asked? The prime minister of Burma, who is in exile, has also asked our Prime Minister for this money.