Lois Brown

[International Co-operation, June 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, our government is committed to ensuring that our development is focused and effective. Canadians expect accountability with that. This is why we have untied our food aid and at the same time we have doubled our aid to Africa.

Our contributions to the global fund to fight TB, AIDS and malaria are at unprecedented levels. Canada is paid up on all of its contributions to the funds that we have designated. In fact, the minister contributed an extra $20 million just last week.

[Committees of the House, May 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, concerning the main estimates 2013-14, votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 25, 30, L35, L40, 45 and 50, under Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

The committee has considered these votes and has agreed to report them without amendment.

[International Co-operation, May 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I repeat, the story is wrong. These letters were posted in error. The moment the minister was made aware, he had them removed.

I repeat, we are open and transparent with our development dollars. Canadians can follow them on the open data portal.

We wish the Leader of the Opposition would come clean with why it was that, for 17 years, he chose deliberately to hide information from the authorities.

Our government will continue to be transparent.

[International Co-operation, May 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the story is wrong. The letters were posted in error, and the moment the minister was made aware, he directed that they be removed.

It was our government that created the open data portal so that Canadians could track our development dollars.

Unlike the opposition leader, who chose deliberately to hide information from the authorities for 17 years, we will continue to be open and transparent.

[Committees of the House, May 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from foreign affairs. He talked about speaking with one voice, and realigning our development dollars with our foreign affairs policy would help us speak with one voice from the Government of Canada. We believe this would be beneficial to everyone we speak to, whether it is our foreign policy with our embassies, or our international development dollars.

We are looking at new ways of doing things. We are looking at innovation and at new technologies. We are in a partnership with WUSC, which is World University Service of Canada, and Rio Tinto, in Ghana, for example, to ensure that people in Ghana are getting job skills to take to the marketplace.

I will also speak to the report again. We had new technologies presented to us, and Citigroup was one company that came to talk to us. Its representatives spoke about how the private sector is partnering to allow remittances to get from the diaspora into their countries of origin and how they are using opportunities for these new technologies to be the pay mechanisms for people who are now earning real incomes in real jobs.

Therefore, my question for my colleague is this. Why does he want to keep people in the past and not allow people in these emerging economies to develop the skills that they can take into the broader job market?

[Committees of the House, May 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the comments, but I do not think he could have sat through the same interventions I did in that committee.

We listened to the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, from the United Kingdom, who said:

[I]t is wealth creation, jobs and livelihoods above all which will help poor people to lift themselves out of poverty. Aid is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

We also heard from Carlo Dade when he was talking about Haiti. First of all, he talked about remittances that were going back to Haiti and development money that was going in. He said:

So for over a decade now, the private sector has been the largest funder of development activities, broadly defined.

We have a number of partnerships with the mining community in Africa. I have been very privileged to see IAMGOLD in Burkina Faso and the things going on there. In fact, the Burkina Faso High Commissioner said to us in one of our committee interventions that Burkina Faso needs help training workers and building human resources and that Canadian companies can help with that.

Why is the NDP so opposed to free enterprise and helping people in these developing countries get the jobs they need and develop the job skills that are going to help them move forward?

[Committees of the House, May 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the tenth report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, entitled “Securing the Human Rights of Coptic Christians in Egypt after the Arab Spring: A View from Canada’s Parliament”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.

[Syria, May 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we are gravely concerned about the situation in Syria.

Canadians are compassionate neighbours. We continue to punch above our weight when it comes to lending a hand. Earlier this year, the minister made our commitment to humanitarian assistance in Syria quite clear. Canada is providing food, water, medical care and safety for victims of this crisis. We continue to call for full, safe and unhindered access for humanitarian needs.

[Situation in Syria, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed to hear the NDP once again talking Canada down when we have been at the forefront of humanitarian assistance in the Syrian crisis. In fact, the Minister of International Cooperation attended a funding conference in January and pledged even more Canadian money.

Canada is up to date on all of its contribution payments. However, we know that only 3% of all of the money that has been pledged has actually been paid. Canada is leading the way on paying our pledges.

I wonder if the member has any suggestions on how we can encourage the others who have made pledges of humanitarian assistance for Syria to come to the table, follow Canada 's lead and pay what they have pledged.

[Situation in Syria, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has been a very generous donor. We are the fifth largest donor per capita. To date we have contributed $48.5 million to help with the humanitarian situation in Syria. We continue to assess the situation and will do more as the needs grow. However, we do call on all funders to pay what they pledge. We would like to see all of those contributions that have been targeted for the Syrian conflict brought to the table so that humanitarian efforts can be made.

I would personally like to thank very much all the Canadians whose hard-earned tax dollars we are spending to help in the humanitarian assistance. I wonder if my colleague would not like to do the same.