Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to talk on the issue of the Export Development Corporation, following my two colleagues who have pointed out very well many of the issues raised in debates on the reliability and the existence of this crown corporation.
While the act talks about housekeeping duties and some of the responsibilities, especially enabling the board to have some powers and to debate some things, I would like to talk in general about the whole concept of development and the role of EDC in what it is primarily set up to do, which is to provide protection and incentives to Canadian companies to go into the world market and start development assistance programs. As my hon. colleague has rightly mentioned, EDC is very proud of saying it has spent a lot of money in the developing countries.
When EDC and CIDA were created, it was probably because these organizations were needed at the time. However, events and subsequent things that have taken place since then raises the question as to whether CIDA and EDC are effective tools in today's marketplace conditions and are they taking advantage of opening markets and the needs of developing nations?
We have very fine individuals in EDC and CIDA who have over the years gathered a lot of expertise and have at times used this expertise very effectively. We are very impressed by the hard work and dedication of these people.
However, the political interference and changes in direction have enabled both of these agencies to have broken democracies with policy advisers. At times I shake my head and wonder where they are going with their narrow agendas without looking at long term plans of action that would ensure development and export dollars are spent more wisely and are better utilized by Canadian companies and other agencies that do development assistance.
I am the international development critic for CIDA and I am stunned to see the secrecy of the policy advisers of CIDA. It is as if they have something to hide. They do have something to hide in not becoming more transparent to the Canadian public. CIDA had $1.9 billion, but I think it went to $2.1 billion. This huge department is scared to tell Canadians what it is doing.
It does the normal auditing and normal things required. However, when we go deeper into it and ask what is going on, we run into a wall. CIDA is a prime example of that and that can be translated to EDC as well. Secrecy has been one of the strongest criticisms of EDC.
This is a crown corporation that lives under crown corporation rules. It gets government assistance and guarantees. At the same time, it says that it acts like a private corporation, therefore, it cannot be accountable to parliament because of privacy for its customers. When CIDA comes into parliament to let Canadians know what it is trying to do, it merely gives the crumbs off the table. It does this in generalities and not in specifics.
That is why these questions continue to be asked, not only by the official opposition but by individuals in the public who want to know how the corporations operate. The lack of knowledge is what we are questioning. Time after time we have raised questions, and the EDC board of directors is a very prime example of patronage appointments of those individuals who have connections to the government. Some of them may have good expertise but in general they are tied to Liberal connections. This in turn curtails the ability of the fine officers who work at EDC and at CIDA to implement decisions because they are hampered by political interference.
I have had the opportunity to meet with many individuals who have worked for both CIDA and EDC. I seem to get a consistent answer which is the inability of these ground level people to make decisions that are the right ones based on their experience because of political appointee interference.
I would venture to say that EDC and CIDA are gradually becoming irrelevant under the present context their mandates are. I will explain why.
Over the years EDC and CIDA have been giving out money. Have we seen an improvement in the developing world where they are supposed to be in the theatre of operations? No, we have not. There is something seriously wrong. It is time to look at a different mandate for these corporations so they work effectively.
We could use the expertise of the people running EDC whom I have met and with whom I am impressed. We could use the expertise of the NGOs and business people to create an environment where they can work in tandem with CIDA so that we can bring in the massive private investments, which business people and Canadians would like. It would make a climate in which investment dollars would flow to these countries and allow them to develop their nations.
I am not talking about infrastructure and big projects. I was in Africa in August and I came back a little disappointed. I thought about how, in our overall capacity, we could help African countries move forward. We have the Africa initiative that is supposed to come up at the G-8. However, let me also say that many of the leaders in these countries recognize that it is their responsibility to create environments for development.
President Museveni of Uganda, when he met with the regional African countries in Kampala in August, proposed a program where they would be willing to look to insurance companies to provide insurance for businesses that would invest in these countries so that if they were taken over through nationalization or disrupted by war company investments would be safe.
That is an initiative that has come from Africa. A mandate of EDC is to provide that kind of insurance but these other countries are taking it over and are saying they will do it themselves.
It is time for EDC to rethink its strategy. It is time for CIDA to rethink its strategy. I would like these departments to have a totally different focus. I am reluctant to say that perhaps we should now have a department. I would not want it called CIDA itself, but maybe EDC should be under CIDA. Let us remove the unitarian aspect of CIDA so it can concentrate on these aspects with the NGOs, do it more effectively and create another arm on the other side that has EDC under it.
Maybe if a DFI or development finance institution was established in Canada, CIDA Inc. could create the environment or one window shopping for Canadian businesses. This would allow businesses to work in tandem with the private industry to create an organization that is focused to ensure that private investment flows into these countries to help them out, which in turn will help Canadian businesses.
It is time to look at these things because we have gone through the whole lot of them. There has been government to government aid. That has not been very effective. The IMF has given aid. That has not been very effective. People in most countries are not happy with the IMF and its conditions. We have gone through the route of CIDA Inc. We have gone through the route of giving money to the NGOs, that are doing a marvellous job. However, in view of their small organizations, they are not focused. As such, dollars that go to them go to specific projects, but not in the overall development of the nation.
The whole concept is that the NGOs have done a marvellous job. We have gone through this route and have put dollars in there. That is fine. However, now we have reached beyond this level. We need to look at another way to go and how to help. That is why I say the whole mandate of EDC should be reviewed.
EDC should come under a different department, maybe called CIDA, but it should have a different mandate. The current mandate should be removed and an other agency should be created where NGOs can be more effective. However, then we have to look at the insurance issue, which would then be privatized.
As I have said, countries recognize that and are taking responsibility for it. I also mentioned that the African leaders were talking about this.
We can then talk about the fact that small and medium sized businesses have this one window of opportunity to go out and sell their expertise effectively.
We need a massive system or idea to see how we can get this transfer of funds moving. I imagine that would be fine with their big infrastructures. Countries need big infrastructure. However, at the end of the day it comes to the point as to how to get it down to small and medium sized enterprises?
Let me talk about the Canada account, which is used to subsidize our big corporations. We saw Bombardier receive Canada account money under favourable terms. In a way it is subsidizing this huge corporation which makes all the money.
Let me also say that we are really proud of its achievements. It is very innovative and sells beautiful world class jets and light rail. However, we do have somewhat of a problem with Bombardier coming back to the government to ask for handouts or subsidized issues like the sale of jets. This makes Canadians wonder why. We see the same thing with Air Canada.
When Air Canada came along not in our wildest imaginations did Canadians think that we would ever see Air Canada stand up and ask for $3 billion to $4 billion because the Americans got the money. How does it tie its business to American business considering that it has 80% of the market and a monopoly in the country? I think that shocked many Canadians.
Let me go back to the question of EDC, the question of development assistance and the role of EDC in helping Canadian companies export their goods. If under this new system we are talking about, in which there are no taxpayer dollars involved and EDC operates under normal circumstances, which I think would bring about efficiency, it would assist Canadian businesses, which are very aggressive. I have been with them overseas. I know they are very aggressive, but they also do seem to have problems with the way the present EDC is set up and the way the present CIDA is set up. They find that the environment is changing and these huge bureaucracies still lie back and are not rising to the occasion.
We could privatize the insurance portion of EDC and let the insurance industry take it. The industry has already complained about EDC, because as a crown corporation EDC does not pay taxes. It is not a question of paying taxes; they do not pay dividends to anyone. It does not have to worry about shareholders because it is a crown corporation. To whom is it accountable? Even if it is at less than par, it is accountable to nobody. If it were privatized or looked at in a different manner, then at least it would be accountable, with openness brought to parliament, to their shareholders. EDC is now protected on both sides.
It seems to me that EDC is in one of the best situations in the business world. It is protected by not being open and it does not have to answer to shareholders because no one is asking for accountability. However, I think it is time for EDC to grow up. It is time for EDC to refocus. It is time for EDC and the government to stop thinking and stop operating in the same way that they have been for the past 30 years. When EDC had its five year review by the minister, I was at that time the critic for international trade. I looked at the review, and believe me, I could not find many things. We went through a whole report on EDC. The federal government hired Gowling consulting company to look at the complete operations of EDC. There were some very good suggestions made, but EDC is still a slow moving institution and needs to come into the 21st century.
