Conservative leadership candidate Maxime Bernier thinks it’s time Canada stopped sending international aid to help with job training and infrastructure development in developing countries.

“Canada has to show solidarity and do its part,” he said in a foreign policy announcement Wednesday. “However, every year we spend millions of dollars funding job training, technology and infrastructure programs to help develop other countries’ economies. We will phase out these development aids for which there is no moral or economic efficiency argument.”

Bernier, widely seen as one of the frontrunners in the campaign to lead the party, came under fire Tuesday night at the French-language debate over his pledges to end supply management and corporate welfare.

While he said he supports giving Indigenous Canadians equal access to government services, he also said the government “can’t always send billions to solve problems.”

He echoed that sentiment in his press conference Wednesday, saying some First Nations in Canada have levels of infrastructure and services poor enough to compare to the developing world — and that Canada should not be sending money abroad for things like job training and infrastructure development when there are such basic inequities at home.

As well, Bernier slammed the move to pull Canadian fighter jets out of the combat mission in Iraq and Syria against ISIS in February 2016 and criticized the United Nations, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has committed to working with more closely.

“We are not going to try and please the foreign affairs establishment and the United Nations, a dysfunctional organization which for years has disproportionately focused its activities on condemning Israel as if it were the source of most conflicts in the world,” he said.

Bernier also weighed in on the decision of businessman Kevin O’Leary to enter the Conservative leadership race Wednesday morning, less than 12 hours after he skipped the French-language debate.

Several of the leadership candidates struggle with French — including Deepak Obhrai, Kellie Leitch, Brad Trost, Lisa Raitt and Erin O’Toole — and O’Leary has admitted he did not see the point in taking part in the debate when he can’t speak the language.

Bernier said the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada must be able to converse with all Canadians, not just anglos — but he stopped short of suggesting O’Leary should be disqualified on that basis.

“We need to have a leader who can speak to Canadians in every corner of this country,” he said. “We’ll see what the members say.”

Conservative leadership candidates will take part in their fourth debate on February 28 in Edmonton, and the winner will be announced on May 27.