Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition from the people of Victoria, calling on the government to allocate 0.7% of Canada's GDP to official development assistance by the year 2020.
I was pleased to meet last week with my friends at Results Canada, who are powerful advocates for this initiative. It was former prime minister Pearson who set that target way back in 1970, and we have yet to meet it. Indeed, we are falling far short of it today.
We can and must do more to achieve the UN sustainable development goals, and these petitioners ask us to begin that work today.