Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to rise today to present a petition signed by a number of citizens, including many young Millennium Kids, a number of whom are here today.
The petitioners want to remind us all that in 2000 Canada, as well as 188 nations, promised to spare no efforts to fulfill the eight critical goals now known as the Millennium Development Goals and that this commitment could be fulfilled by keeping an earlier promise to spend 0.7% of Canada's gross national product on development assistance.
The petitioners underline that we have broken that promise, and so they ask us to correct the situation and, in order to meet the MDGs, to direct 0.7% of Canada's GNP toward official development assistance every year.