Bill C-47 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Export and Import Permits Act and the Criminal Code (amendments permitting the accession to the Arms Trade Treaty and other amendments)

This enactment amends the Export and Import Permits Act to
(a) define the term “broker” and to establish a framework to control brokering that takes place in Canada and that is undertaken by Canadians outside Canada;
(b) require that the Minister take into account certain considerations
before issuing an export permit or a brokering permit;
(c) authorize the making of regulations that set out additional mandatory considerations that the Minister is required to take into account before issuing an export permit or a brokering permit;
(d) set May 31 as the date by which the Minister must table in both Houses of Parliament a report of the operations under the Act in the preceding year and a report on military exports in the preceding year;
(e) increase the maximum fine for a summary conviction offence to $250,000;
(f) replace the requirement that only countries with which Canada has an intergovernmental arrangement may be added to the Automatic Firearms Country Control List by a requirement that a country may be added to the list only on the recommendation of the Minister made after consultation with the Minister of National Defence; and
(g) add a new purpose for which an article may be added to an Export Control List.
The enactment amends the Criminal Code to include, for interception of private communications purposes, the offence of brokering in the definition of “offence” in section 183.

Export and Import Permits Act

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thoroughly enjoy hearing my colleague whenever he stands up. He used to stand up with the same rhetoric when he was in the opposition, talking the same way as he does now. Now that he is on the other side, nothing has changed. It is the same old rhetoric. All he cares about is that there was a consultation. He should really look back and ask himself why he did not follow through on electoral reform. Why did he not follow through? What is he doing now with the small business tax? What information and what consultation is he doing? One minute the Liberals say they are doing consultations and the next minute we hear the Prime Minister say that he is not going to change it. Is that consultation? All these things tell us to take a nice little breath.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, it has been a matter of shock and dismay to hear my colleagues from Conservative benches claim that anyone who reads this bill with an open mind, as I have, and cannot see a single thing that could possibly lead to an impact on domestic gun sales is somehow blinded by talking points. As an opposition member, I have a lot that I want fixed in Bill C-47, such as the loopholes that would allow weapons to be sold through the United States.

This is the Arms Trade Treaty. Its terms as a treaty speak directly to the illicit trade in arms, and the global export of arms. The Conservative talking points to create fear among legal gun owners make as much sense as complaining that in the acid rain negotiations the government of the day never consulted with people who make umbrellas.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Madam Speaker, when I was on the other side, the member brought the same question, and I already answered that.

These are not talking points. The fact of the matter is that we have pointed out and we keep pointing out what is wrong with the Arms Trade Treaty. This is the issue we have pointed out correctly over here: that it would impact us on domestic things. Whether she agrees or not is not the issue.

She may not see it, but others have, such as my colleague who was going to read all of the letters that he got from gun owners saying what is wrong with the bill. This is maybe how she should be consulting to get a broader picture on how things happen.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, The Environment; the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Status of Women; the hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia, Public Safety.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Perth—Wellington.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-47. Before I speak to the bill itself, I want to thank my colleague from Calgary Forest Lawn for his learned comments. As he mentioned, he is the dean of our caucus and was first elected to this place on October 2, 1997, when I was in grade 7. I believe he holds the record as the longest serving parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs. It is always a pleasure to speak in his shadow.

I will be splitting my time with my friend and colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles. I look forward to his comments as well on this important issue.

I find it interesting that we are debating Bill C-47 today because, after all, this legislation was first tabled in the House of Commons on April 13, 2017, more than five months ago. Granted there was a summer recess in-between.

Over the summer, like many colleagues I had the opportunity to travel around my riding, host round tables, speak to constituents, hold stakeholder meetings, go to people's homes and speak about the important issues that are affecting them. I did hear about the ATT on a handful of occasions. I heard from a couple of people who were in favour of it and a couple of dozen who were opposed. That is the joy of democracy; there are people on both sides of the issues.

I find it interesting that we are debating this today when the opposition has yet to be given a single supply day in this period. We have also been told that there will be no supply day next week as well. Here we are debating the government's agenda but have been given zero opportunities to raise a motion in the allotted days we are entitled to as the official opposition. Is the government simply trying to avoid accountability on key issues that it knows it is hiding from? An example is the changes to the tax rules.

As I travelled in my riding this summer, I talked to people about these tax changes. I talked to farmers who want to pass on their farm to their daughters or sons, but these tax changes would potentially prevent them from doing so. I talked to the small business owner who may want to hire one or two more people but may not do so because of uncertainly. Family doctors are concerned because the changes may potentially impact their patients. These are people I am hearing from in my riding but here we are debating Bill C-47.

We are debating this treaty and its implementation today, which is interesting because the mechanisms that we have in place today, the rules that have been in place in Canada for many decades, already achieve what the government purports to want to achieve through Bill C-47.

A perfect case in point is that since the 1940s, through the Export and Import Permits Act, the government has had the ability to exclude and prevent the sale and export of any number of items, including what it is trying to achieve through this legislation. One need only look at the export control list under the auspices of the Export and Import Permits Act to find that much of what the government is trying to achieve is already in place: group 1, dual use; group 2, munitions; group 3, nuclear proliferation; and group 4, nuclear-related dual use.

The government is once again using a symbolic gesture in an area where issues are already addressed through existing mechanisms that previous governments of all stripes have put in place over the years. For it to try to change to a system with no noticeable improvement is unfortunate and, frankly, not a good use of the House's time when there is so much more that we parliamentarians, that we Canadians, can be debating in this place on behalf of our constituents.

The collection of data, the collection of information, is also interesting when the fact of the matter is that under the regimes that are currently in place here in Canada through the Canada Border Services Agency and Statistics Canada, a lot of the information on items that are exported from Canada is already being collected and provided to the appropriate agencies within Canada, and yet the government here today is bringing in yet another bill to collect information that is already being collected.

What is interesting as well is that this is not the only tool at the disposal of the government. The government has many opportunities to restrict the sale of goods to foreign entities. One example is the area control list. Currently the only country that Canada has placed on that list is North Korea, but it is certainly open to the government to place any number of countries on that list if it has sufficient grounds to cut off all exports to that country. I do not think there is anyone in this chamber who would disagree with placing North Korea on that list. I think that would be right and correct, and all Canadians would agree with that.

If the government has concerns about another entity, as it has in the past, for example, with Myanmar and Belarus, which have both been on this list, the government could register those concerns through the area control list and add a certain country to the list to block exports altogether to that country. That is especially the case when we are looking at regimes that may use any number of products against their own citizens or against those in the region, something that we would strongly oppose.

I find it interesting to talk about the measures that are already in place and their strength, but do not always just take our word for it. I would like to quote a government official, from a June 2016 Globe and Mail article. In the article he is quote as saying that he believes we already have sufficient restrictions on arms exports:

“Canada already has some of the strongest export controls in the world which means that we already meet the vast majority of the obligations under the arms trade treaty,” said the senior official in a briefing.

In a real sense, this treaty was designed to bring other countries—many of whom have no export control regimes in place—up to the high standards that Canada and our like-minded allies already apply through our robust export control regimes," the official said.

That brings me to my next point, the other countries that are missing from the ATT, namely Russia, China, India, and the United States, which has signed it but not yet ratified it. Whether or not it will is not a decision for this House to make, but certainly one that is questionable given where it now is.

That is not say that we as Canadians should not act on the world stage. Certainly, we Canadians have always played a leadership role on the world stage. I think of our former government playing that leading role internationally on a number of fronts over the past 10 years.

However, to sign on to this treaty and to bring forward the legislation to ratify it at this point, without the key players having signed on or ratified it, I think is a challenge. Mr. Speaker, I think you would agree that it raises more concerns than it answers.

In preparing a few remarks for today, I came across the press release from Global Affairs Canada when this bill was tabled on April 13, 2017. It states:

To implement necessary changes, in March 2017 Canada announced an investment of $13 million to further strengthen the country’s export control regime.

Granted, I was relatively young in 1995, but I remember another Liberal government promising that a certain long-gun registry would cost $2 million, and yet, over the years, the Auditor General found it cost upwards of a $1 billion.

I find it interesting that the government is proposing a $13 million price tag, but has not yet tabled a coherent plan for how that $13 million will be spent and where the cost overrides may or may not arise if that $13 million is used up relatively quickly.

I have heard members on the other side go as far as saying that claims or concerns of law-abiding gun owners are “bogus”. It is really bringing down the tone and the level of debate in the House to dismiss the concerns of legitimate, law-abiding gun owners as bogus.

I am very proud of my family. My late grandfather came to Canada in 1952. In 1974, he helped co-found the Swiss Rifle Club near my home town of Mitchell. I was proud, as a kid, to have been able to join him and my father at the rifle range to learn about the safety of guns and rifles, and I am proud of the legitimate gun owners in my riding and across Canada.

I know that my time has come to an end, but I look forward to continued debate on this matter and the questions that may come my way.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is not about a gun registry, which the member spent some time talking about, but about a UN Arms Trade Treaty. We heard some very compelling stories earlier from a member's speech about women in the Congo noticing that we had not signed on to this agreement, talking about arms trade and how it was used for sexual violence in other countries, and that it was actually a stain on the way our country was viewed in other countries internationally that we had not yet signed this treaty.

Speaking to the issue at hand, what this is truly about, which is signing on to this Arms Trade Treaty, does he oppose our signing on to this agreement?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what I will say is very simple. The rules and mechanisms already in place, from a Canadian perspective, in most cases—and I would dare say in all cases—far exceed what was being proposed in the ATT. For Canada to sign on to the ATT goes against what we have already achieved in this country. I do not want to read anything into the hon. member's comments, but I think what she would be concerned about is the international community and many of the other countries that have not signed on to this deal and will not sign on to this deal but are continuing to participate in activities that are vile and reprehensible. We can all agree that the example of Congo is a terrible situation, absolutely abhorrent, and something that all Canadians oppose. We can think of examples worldwide where there are terrible atrocities, which we, as Canadians and human beings, strongly oppose in the strongest language possible.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, do the member and the Conservative Party agree that Canada should reduce trade with countries that abuse human rights?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we as Canadians and as a Parliament need to overwhelmingly condemn human rights abuses wherever they may be found. It falls to the government in office to take action and make sanctions where appropriate, but as Canadians, parliamentarians, and human beings, we must call out human rights abuses wherever they may be found. I know in my party, and hopefully in all parties, what is happening currently in Myanmar is a good example of where those actions and language must be taken very strongly.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had the good fortune of visiting the riding of the member for Perth—Wellington not just for the lovely theatre in Stratford but for a business round table. I know that the member for Toronto—Danforth would have heard the same concerns I heard there from small business, because she has been critical of her government's ham-fisted approach to small business. We heard it that day at that round table.

I have a theory. Perhaps the government is signing on to this one UN treaty because it is planning to withdraw from three other treaties. I will name them: the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that Canada has been a signatory to since 1961; the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971; and the Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988. The Prime Minister's direction with respect to marijuana means that the government is going to possibly have to withdraw from those three UN treaties.

Is it the opinion of the member that this could be a one-for-three treaty swap?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Durham for his great question and hard work over the summer. I know he went to many round tables, but I appreciate his coming to my riding.

I think he is probably right, but the interesting challenge with withdrawing from those three UN treaties is that the government simply does not have time to do that in the time period before July 1, 2018, its arbitrary deadline for the introduction of the marijuana legislation, which it promised to do by July 1. It may well want to withdraw, but it has missed the boat in terms of signing on in time. Withdrawing from three and signing on to one is an interesting theory. I just wish it would do that with some of the regulatory burden and red tape that, writ large, is happening. If it could eliminate three barriers to small businesses in favour of one, that is a three-for-one deal that I could really get behind.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join the debate on Bill C-47, the act to amend the Export and Import Permits Act and the Criminal Code.

When it comes to imports and exports, the Canada Border Services Agency officers are on the front lines. They are responsible for enforcing the Canadian laws governing the people and goods that come into our country.

I would like to take a few minutes to acknowledge the CBSA's officers, because the work they do and the huge responsibility they have in keeping Canadians safe and keeping goods moving into our country rarely make the headlines. I think every member in this House is aware of how important CBSA officers are. They keep our country safe, and I know I speak for many when I thank them for their dedication and their vigilance.

I would also like to take this opportunity to recognize the Customs and Immigration Union for their leadership. I want to thank the national president, Jean-Pierre Fortin, and his team for the fantastic work they are doing. My team and I will be meeting with Mr. Fortin very shortly for what we expect to be some very fruitful and informative discussions.

Let me be clear about this. The Conservative Party has always supported efforts to establish international standards for arms transfers that help prevent illicit transfers that fuel conflicts and encourage terrorism or organized crime. We also believe that the treaty in question should recognize and acknowledge the legitimacy of lawful firearm ownership by responsible citizens for their personal and recreational use, including sports shooting, hunting, and collecting.

The spirit of such a treaty would obviously focus on military and security equipment. If the treaty language cannot make the difference between military equipment and hunters and sportsmen, that language must be reviewed.

In September 2016, the CSSA, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, called on Minister of Foreign Affairs to re-examine, re-evaluate, and re-think the decision on the treaty. In other words, the Liberals are sloppy in their approach to representing Canadians. As a matter of fact, it leaves Canadians unsure of who the Prime Minister is working for. Is he looking to impress the U.N. or is his heart with Canadians?

The Liberals are unfair to Canadians. As is the case for small business, there have been no consultations addressing concerns about how this bill could affect hunters, sports shooters, and recreational users. The Liberals have never been very concerned about these people and have never taken them seriously in the past. Today, the same thing is happening. The Liberals do not care about them and in light of the bill they introduced, Bill C-47, I am convinced that they have no intention of considering their concerns in the future, either.

Canada already has an internal system for monitoring and controlling the exports of military and security equipment, which meets and even exceeds the conditions of the UN treaty. The government will therefore have to demonstrate why we need to enhance the process already in place.

The Government of Canada's Trade Controls Bureau is responsible for enforcing the Export and Import Permits Act. This bureau has made it possible for the minister to prevent the sale of military equipment to various countries for many reasons, including security risks.

The Liberals must explain what precisely it is missing. We have yet to be shown that the Trade Controls Bureau is not effective. We already have what we need in Canada.

Canada already limits the movement of military material that is strategically used in two ways, including nuclear energy and materials, missiles, chemical or biological products, and cryptologic equipment.

I spoke earlier of the CBSA role. CBSA and Statistics Canada collect information on all items exported from Canada and classify the information using categories negotiated by the World Customs Organization. Do members think we are doing enough? I think so. Now, if that is not enough, I will also tell members that Canada has a blanket ban on risk countries under the Export and Import Permit Act.

Through an act of Governor in Council, a country can be placed on that list. Therefore, we are well covered here. However, the Liberals have tabled Bill C-47, and the burden is on them to show why we must sign this treaty.

Canada is already doing better than the treaty in question. Canada is a world leader in the diplomatic process. Canada is a model for other countries to follow, not the other way around. I am proud of my country. I am proud of our parliamentary system. I am proud that Canada is easily the best country in the world to live, to work, and to raise a family.

Since we will be debating this bill over the next few days, I hope that we can talk about it from the standpoint of what is currently happening in Canada. Canadians' needs have to be considered as we debate this bill. Then we can consider the needs of the UN.

Let us not forget that we could work with our NATO and UN allies, and that we will continue to do so, for example to restrict arms sales to North Korea.

We will also work in conflict zones and we will prevent anyone who might threaten world peace from pursuing technological activities. Of course, Canada will always be a partner for peace.

When we talk about responsible countries leading the way by example, no country other than Canada comes to mind. Countries that do better than Canada simply do not exist. It is time that we recognized that.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that often comes up in my riding is the long-gun registry. Firearms owners in my riding do not trust the Liberals when it comes to firearms and firearm registries in our country. I hear from them all the time their concerns that this is the first step in bringing forward a long-gun registry. I wonder if my colleague has any comment on that, and in particular how it would affect perhaps also the sovereignty of Canada.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that was a very good question from my colleague.

Indeed, we have seen that the Liberals have always hated hunters, the honest people of this land, because they still want to bring back the long-gun registry.

This UN treaty covers hunting firearms, not just military-grade weapons and missiles. In fact the treaty mentions hunting firearms. This means the gun manufacturers and their customers will have trouble buying and selling hunting rifles. To please the UN, we are going to make the law-abiding hunters of Canada pay the price. Maybe the Prime Minister is acting this way because he is hoping for a Nobel Peace Prize, who knows.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the member. I will be asking the question in English. I am working on my French, and hopefully soon I will be able to ask him in the proper language.

I am very frustrated with how many people who have intervened today are reading so much into the bill. I ran in 2011, and I can assure everyone in the House I have absolutely no interest in talking about the gun registry.

My question for the member is this. Has the member had a chance to read the definition of “broker” under proposed amended subsection 2(1), which specifically defines “broker” as someone performing the transaction of arms from one foreign country to another? Could the member explain what this possibly has to do with domestic guns? How does this have anything to do those good Canadians who own guns, who are responsible gun owners?