Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister told this House that Canada legally withdrew from the treaty to combat drought and desertification because it was “...not an effective way to [use] taxpayers' money”. The cost of the treaty, $300,000 a year, is roughly equivalent to half the cost of a G8 gazebo or 109 days of the care and feeding of a rented panda, less than 4% of the PMO office budget, a third the cost of shipping an armoured vehicle to India, or two days of government advertising to tell us how happy we should all be with the way the government is spending our money.
By what criteria is that spending more effective than pulling our weight in the world to confront drought and expanding deserts?