Mr. Speaker, I hear what the parliamentary secretary is saying, and he seems to be quoting me, but I have never said that. I have never said that if we gave money to a certain country in the past that it should continue to receive funding. In fact, I agree entirely with some of the goals that the parliamentary secretary just mentioned. But how can we measure this effectiveness that they talk so much about? I do not understand how we can measure that. It is not absolute.
However, I can say that in Benin, a country that is part of the Francophonie, the annual growth rate over the past five years has been between 4% and 4.5%. The growth rate in Rwanda has increased each year over the past five years. We see that countries that have received aid from CIDA already have a growth rate that is exceptional for them.
I am simply asking for the criteria used in choosing these countries and asking that the Francophonie countries not be forgotten.