Foreign Affairs committee  I'm happy to take a crack at that question. We do need to look at best practice, and some of our European allies represent that best practice. If that means that we need to staff up the relevant parts at Global Affairs Canada, then that's something we should do. This is an indus

Foreign Affairs committee  The only thing I will say is that there are some very high stakes involved in the region. Russia, for instance, is very active in Syria and not just in the Caucasus. But I should say that perhaps our first goal should be to avoid adding fuel to the fire. And these systems, these

Foreign Affairs committee  Oh, I think it's mostly smoke and mirrors designed to mislead people like you. For instance, suspending the granting of new arms exports without touching existing arms exports really wasn't accomplishing very much apart from enabling the department to say it was doing something.

Foreign Affairs committee  In terms of international peace and security, the Government of Canada knew as early as 2019 that Turkey was violating the United Nations arms embargo in Libya and that it was doing so with the type of drone that is, in fact, built around the Wescam system. Even though the gove

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for that question. It's good to see you again. The assertion that Canada has one of the most robust systems is false. There is a loophole the size of a bus in our implementing legislation, and that concerns exports to the United States. Right there is a fatal flaw in t

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Dr. Fry. It's very good to see you again.

Foreign Affairs committee  I have a couple of recommendations. One is that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has to clearly instruct his civil service that Canada's obligations under international law have to be kept foremost. They must be given a robust interpretation, consistent with 30 years of Canadian f

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. It's a great pleasure to be here. I'd like to begin by applauding Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau's decision to cancel 29 export permits on April 12 of this year. It was a decision that was required under the Arms Trade Treaty. It was the right decision, and go

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm sorry. The clerk warned me that this would happen. We also have a significant arms industry in this country, and arms exports contribute to the Canadian economy, and that is fair enough. The problem is that some of the main markets for our arms and arms systems are autocrat

Foreign Affairs committee  The Twin Otter is an amazing aircraft.

Foreign Affairs committee  But it's slow, it cannot land vertically and it cannot winch people off a ship. I think we should keep the Twin Otters there, but supplement them, at least in the summer months, with more capacity further north and further east. Again, I defer to the professionals in the Canadian

Foreign Affairs committee  Speaking of the Lancaster Sound marine protected area about which the Inuit were closely involved in negotiations, there are iron ore carriers, vessels, that go through that protected area on a regular basis from the Mary River mine, which is on Inuit-owned land. There's a prime

Foreign Affairs committee  You're speaking to the issue of what are called extended continental shelves. Under article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a coastal state can be recognized as having sovereign rights over the seabed only, beyond 200 nautical miles, if it can demonstra

Foreign Affairs committee  This occurred in August 2007. The flag planter was Artur Chilingarov, who was deputy chair of the Russian State Duma at the time. They were having an election—to the degree that they have elections in Russia—and he actually descended 4,000 metres below the surface in a submersibl

Foreign Affairs committee  The simple answer is that China does not want to use the Northwest Passage to ship to Canada. It wants to use the Northwest Passage as a shortcut between China and the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. The world being a sphere, the optimal shipping route depends on where y