Madam Speaker, about a year and a half ago, this House passed unanimously Bill C-293, known as the better aid bill.
Putting a bill through this House and through the other place is a formidable undertaking. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort, it takes a lot of people getting behind the bill and indeed a lot of witnesses, et cetera. We were very fortunate to have ultimately got the bill through this House unanimously.
The legislation basically contains three commandments. The first commandment is that Canada's official development assistance will be directed to poverty alleviation and only poverty alleviation. The second is that we will take into account the perspectives of the poor. The third is that it be consistent with Canada's international human rights standards. The bill had a reporting period, and the first reporting period due was September 30. However, the government gave early indication that it had absolutely no interest in complying with this legislation.
Members will recollect that in the early part of this year, the government reprofiled Canada's focus on those who receive our aid. It took it from essentially the desperately poor countries in Africa and reprofiled it to some less desperately poor countries in the western hemisphere.
The minister made it abundantly clear that those who trade with us or vote with us will get our aid, but if they do not, they will not. In her speech and her press release there was not a word mentioned about Bill C-293, which ultimately, as I said, got royal assent and is the law of this land. We have a situation where a government absolutely ignores the will of Parliament.
Along comes September and we get the minister's report. Here it is and strangely enough the cover is blue. I wonder why that would be. It references the bill. It references the three things that are in the bill, poverty alleviation, perspectives of the poor and international human rights standards, and then promptly proceeds to ignore the last two, human rights standards and perspectives of the poor. What we have is a bunch of numbers, an accountancy. It is not accountability. It is accountancy.
It is a painful contrast to what British MPs get. British MPs get from DFID, the Department for International Development, a rather substantial package which analyzes how programs and policies are going. British MPs know whether their foreign assistance is effective. We, on the other hand, being Canadian MPs and getting the back of the hand from this particular government, have no idea. In fact, there is not a person in this House who has any idea as to the effectiveness of our aid. There is no metric, no basis on which we can tell whether our aid goes to poverty alleviation, whether the government has taken into account the perspectives of the poor, or whether our aid is consistent with human rights standards.
The government obfuscates. It does anything but account. This is a legacy of the government. It is also a legacy of this bill.