Passage of Aid Bill a “Relief" for Menzies

May 12, 2008

Ottawa - Bill C-293, known in many circles as the “better aid bill”, originally introduced into the House of Commons on May 17, 2006, passed Third reading during Private Members Business Hour in Ottawa on Friday May 9th last week.

Bill C-293 seeks to establish a legislative mandate for Canada’s official development assistance, focusing on poverty reduction, and is intended to improve transparency and accountability in Canada’s aid spending.

The bills official title is “an Act respecting the provision of official development assistance abroad”, and after just shy of 2 solid years of work on the bill, it’s a piece of legislation that Ted Menzies speaks of with more than a hint of pride.

As Menzies mentioned in his remarks in the House, “Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my Honourable friend from Scarborough—Guildwood, first of all for his tenacity and for putting up with the hours that we spent together dealing with Bill C-293. I am not ashamed to say that there were concerns that I held with the original form of this piece of legislation….but I do congratulate the Honourable Member for putting up with my arguments and my encouragement for him to accept amendments that I personally and some of my colleagues on this side of the House thought would make it a more effective bill.”

Halifax MP Alexa Mcdonough was also quick to point out there were strongly held views regarding this bill, and praised Menzies for his work in guiding this piece of legislation through the House, “There have been a lot of disagreements and a lot of pushing and shoving. I want to be fair here and acknowledge the parliamentary secretary, the Honourable Member for Macleod, who set out some very severe reservations about some of the aspects of this bill. I think he is the only Parliamentary Secretary who ever did actually extend the courtesy of sitting down with me in my office to discuss something….it has to be a good day for us to come together around what is truly a global commitment, about which I think we feel good as parliamentarians and about which Canadians I think very much feel that we need to work together. It is not always easy to do. We have had to make compromises along the way.”

Throughout the arduous committee process Menzies was consistent in his support for the stated intent of C-293. As the legislative process ends, the Macleod MP seems pleased with the outcome, “The intent of C-293 is consistent with the priorities of our Government. The amendments made to C-293 addressed most of our concerns regarding clarity of mandate, strengthened accountability and greater aid effectiveness. The end result will be a carefully crafted piece of legislation that strengthens Canada’s international development program.”

The Parliamentary Secretary offered high praise for the thousands of committed Canadians who made their strong feelings on the bill known, and also pointed to the wisdom of Cabinet in the process. Had it not been for the efforts of the Ministers of International Cooperation, Trade, Finance and Foreign Affairs, who took it upon themselves to champion the need to work out a compromise, it’s very likely the bill may still be mired in the legislative process.

Menzies acknowledged much of the progress made on this bill was outside of the formal committee framework, and largely moved forward because of the passion of those involved in the file. “It was early morning meetings over a coffee, or trying to grab someone’s ear for a few moments at an evening function in order to see what can be done to bring everyone together in order to make this happen” explained the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance.

“At the end of the day, I believe it will result in saved lives, and that obviously makes all of my work very worthwhile,” concluded Menzies.