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

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before I go to questions and comments, I want to remind members that the only person standing up during the discussion should be the person who is speaking. When I ask for questions and comments, other individuals can stand up at that time.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague spoke at length about indigenous people's constitutional right to own firearms and hunt. I fully support that right, but I am a bit confused, because it seems as though we are talking about two different bills.

I have been following this issue for years and I have never seen anything in the Arms Trade Treaty that would have any impact whatsoever on the right of indigenous people or any other Canadians to hunt. I also do not see anything in the implementation bill that would affect that right.

Could my colleague please tell me exactly what section of the Arms Trade Treaty would affect this right?

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

Madam Speaker, I look forward to working with my colleague at the foreign affairs committee, as a newer member of that committee. I would suggest that she is going to hear that exact concern if this bill comes to committee in the next month or two, and we are debating that right now.

What is interesting about the concern being expressed from hunters and sports shooters is that they are a cross-section of Canadians, including indigenous Canadians who have some unique rights. Their concerns are founded based on vague language in the treaty. They are also concerned in terms of the breadth of the term “broker” in the treaty. They are also very concerned by the fact that some countries, Canada included, wanted a specific carve-out for lawful firearms use. What we are talking about here is reasonable: why that was excluded despite Canada intervening and other countries asking. That would have given the certainties that lawyers like to see. They do not like ambiguity. They do not like uncertainty. The fact that it was rejected leads to that question.

The committee review process of this bill, I hope, will bring some of those concerns to Parliament and to one of our committees; so then we can at least see that these are not phony arguments, as someone on the government side suggested. These are genuine concerns, and the fact that those concerns were rejected in the final negotiating rounds of this treaty leads some to believe that the treaty's intention is to regulate those types of civilian uses of firearms. Sometimes if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, perhaps it is a duck.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the intelligent speech that I heard from my colleague from Durham. My question for him is based on the following premise.

In 1995, I believe, Allan Rock, who was the minister of justice at the time, introduced the Canadian long-gun registry under the presumption that it would reduce crime. Lo and behold, what we found out across Canada is that criminals do not register their firearms. The premise of the Arms Trade Treaty from the United Nations is to keep communities more safe in various countries because they want to track the movement of firearms, much like the failed long-gun registry did here in Canada.

Does my colleague from Durham believe that illegal international gunrunners will be registering their firearms with the United Nations?

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Alberta, who does a lot of work with hunters and anglers in Canada and knows that their questions are legitimate ones, which this Parliament should not only consider but consider respectfully because they are real concerns.

The member also touches on really the glowing hole in this treaty. He has identified it by the concern we have globally of arms getting into some conflicts. The fact is that three of the largest six trading nations in these types of goods are not part of this treaty. Canada is not a major producer of military equipment or nuclear, chemical, or biological. We are a producer because we are a technology-laden country with diverse manufacturing and trade, but we are not a leader.

In the context of the fact that it is vague in certain areas, Canadians should be rightly concerned about how this treaty would apply when we already have a very effective regime in Canada. I have heard no Canadian saying to me that we need to reform the Export and Import Permits Act. No one has ever said that.

I highlighted in one of my points the area control list empowered by this legislation. There is also an export control list. The government already has in its tools the ability to control or limit countries and what goods go out of Canada. We already have this ability, so the valid concerns about this treaty lead to my not wanting to support it.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Madam Speaker, if my hon. colleague takes offence to the use of the word phony, I am happy to continue talking about the bogus argument that the members are making, as my colleague the Minister of Transport used when it comes to the argument that they are trying to insinuate that this would in any way affect law-abiding gun owners in Canada. It will not.

Based on some of the other confusion that the member displayed in his speech around the significant regime to which Canada is party, let me remind him that the ATT deals specifically with the conventional arms trade—often arms that go into conflict zones, that disproportionately affect women, children, girls, and vulnerable people. Was the previous government unaware of that, or did it simply not care to take a leadership role to fix that?

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

Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the parliamentary secretary. Therefore, as parliamentary colleagues, I invite him to collaborate on two things. First, I will go to a meeting of the Trade Controls Bureau with him, when he gets a briefing on what it has done since the 1940s with respect to the superior approach to regulation. Second, he knows my friend Brian Macdonald, who is an MLA in his area. I want him to go with Brian Macdonald to one of the hunting areas in New Brunswick to hear these concerns first-hand before using words such as phoney or bogus.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, today marks the International Day of Peace. Canada often holds itself out as a peacemaker. However, if we truly want peace, we need to stop the proliferation of arms, particularly in areas troubled by unrest, in war-torn countries where human rights mean nothing.

However, Canada's recent track record in this respect is rather troubling. Many Canadians would be troubled to learn that in the last 10 years Canadian arms exports have nearly doubled. Moreover, Canada is the second most important arms exporter in the Middle East after the United States. Therefore, we are certainly heavily involved there.

Yes, Canada is now the second-biggest exporter of arms to the Middle East, after the United States. No one would certainly describe the Middle East as a calm, stable region.

Our arms used to be exported mainly to NATO countries. Now they often go to countries whose human rights records are questionable, to say the least. Saudi Arabia is the second-biggest buyer of Canadian arms and the second-biggest export destination for our weapons.

I am always troubled to see this kind of behaviour from a government that calls itself feminist, and I am not alone. Canadians do not support this.

The government has said that it has good measures in place to control its arms exports, and that it already has strong regulations. However, again, if we look at Saudi Arabia, the regulations state that we should not export arms to a country if there is reasonable doubt and risk that these arms will be used to commit human rights abuses. Although there is ample evidence for that being currently the case, the government is blind to it. Certainly, there is an investigation, but the Saudis have admitted that they want to repress people. The government is not only blind but seemingly deaf, on top of blind.

In August we learned that Canada watered down its own criteria for arms exports to countries with bad human rights records, and the government did this after pledging that Canada would accede to the Arms Trade Treaty, and after saying at that time that it would respect both the spirit and the letter of the treaty. Typically, the Liberals say that but do quite the opposite by watering down our criteria.

The best way to illustrate what I am talking about is to look at the number of export permit applications. Canada is exporting more and more to countries that do not respect human rights. How many of these export permit applications is Canada rejecting?

L'Actualité investigated and found that, of the 7,310 export permit applications submitted, only 10 were rejected. Ten. That says it all.

Most of our exports go to Saudi Arabia, which has been mentioned, China, Algeria, and other countries. That is why the government's decision to finally sign the Arms Trade Treaty gave people so much hope. This is something people have been calling for for years. We know that the Conservatives, for reasons that make no sense to most observers, steadfastly refused to sign the treaty. The NDP felt certain that the government would finally do something and that Canada would join the Arms Trade Treaty. Unfortunately, in typical Liberal fashion, the government has introduced a bill to implement the treaty. I know a lot of people were very anxious to see this bill.

This is another example of a typical Liberal bill. In other words, it is all talk and no action, nothing but a hollow shell.

First, the bill does not address at all the issue of our exports to the U.S., which is half of our exports. Therefore, all of these exports will continue to fall outside the scope of this law and outside the scope of the treaty. This in itself, to start with, is a breach of articles 1, 2, and 5 of the Arms Trade Treaty, so one of the first things we are doing is breaching three of the key articles of the treaty. It does matter beyond breaching the articles of the treaty. First, there is the matter of transparency. When we get the annual reports on arms exports—and I hope we will get them sooner and that they will be clearer, more transparent, and understandable—half of our exports remain unreported. Is that transparent? I am listening to my colleagues here, and they do not think it is.

Also, when we talk about meeting the letter and spirit of the ATT, it means that arms or armament parts can be exported from Canada to the U.S. and then exported elsewhere. President Obama put a ban on exporting arms from the U.S. to Nigeria because of human rights concerns. President Trump made a deal—the art of the deal—with Nigerian authorities and lifted this ban, and now the U.S. is exporting planes and armaments to Nigeria made of components coming from which country, do members think? They come from Canada. It would be important to cover our exports to Canada.

The government will probably say that it is too difficult to do, because half of our exports go to the United States, and yet other countries manage to do it, including Australia and even Great Britain, one of our NATO partners. They have systems in place to track exports to the U.S.

We cannot say that we will respect the spirit and the letter of the treaty, and then violate specific articles or disregard the spirit and the letter of the treaty because it is too difficult. It has to be one or the other. Canada either complies with the treaty or it does not. Obviously, the government has no intention of complying with it.

Another huge problem is that the bill does not say anything about the assessment criteria that will be used for exports. That is rather strange, for this kind of bill.

That is a huge problem.

One expert asked me, after looking at the bill, where the meat is. The meat will be in regulations. The concrete criteria to oversee arms exports will be put in those regulations, regulations that do not have to be debated in the House, that will not be discussed among representatives of Canadians across the country, regulations that can be changed at any time by the current government or any subsequent government. This is very weak.

This is just smoke and mirrors.

On top of all that, there is another problem. In the briefing documents we received from Global Affairs Canada, it says that the regulations will set out the criteria the minister will take into account before issuing export permits.

We already have criteria in place that the minister must take into account when evaluating export permits and as a result we are selling arms to Saudi Arabia. The Arms Trade Treaty makes no mention of the criteria that must be taken into account. It talks about obligations and specific and serious restrictions. It provides a clear limit. Such and such is prohibited, the other is allowed. However, in the departmental information it says “must take into account”.

Obviously, this will be clarified in the regulations, the very regulations that no one in the House can debate. What is more, those regulations will be drafted behind closed doors.

There is another problem. Actually, there are quite a few, so I have to choose which ones to mention. According to the information in the briefing note provided by Global Affairs Canada, the Department of National Defence will have its own system for implementing the legislation or the treaty. I do not get it. The left hand will do one thing and the right hand will do another.

How does that work?

Is there a chance that this creates some sort of loophole?

How will this work?

As far as I can tell, there is no plan here.

What the government is basically telling Canadians and the world is to just trust them. However, in matters of disarmament, I am sorry to say that I do not think the Liberal government can be trusted.

The NDP have tried to enhance transparency and oversight. We tried to create a committee that would, on an ongoing basis, study this issue of arms exports. This is something that Canadians care about. What did the Liberals say? It is no surprise that they said no.

When we asked the government to show the same kind of courage Canada has shown with regard to land mines and participate in the efforts of over 120 countries in the UN to work on nuclear disarmament, it said that maybe it would not work and that it was too difficult, as if it could not walk and chew gum at the same time.

Let us come back to Saudi Arabia. We are selling arms to a country that abuses human rights, despite our feminist foreign policy. The minister first told us that we could not do anything because it was a done deal. I happen to disagree with this, because a minister can suspend an export permit. We then learned that he signed the export permits after he and the Prime Minister had told us that it was a done deal. As I said, Canada should only export arms to a country if there is no reasonable risk that these arms will be used against civilians or to commit war crimes.

The Liberal government is not even respecting that. How can we trust the regulations it will put in someday once the bill passes, or how it is going to respect those regulations?

Again, with respect to Saudi Arabia, when I asked the government yesterday about the arms deal with Saudi Arabia, I was basically told that the government had asked the Saudis to respect human rights. While I am very pleased that the government did that, I am somewhat skeptical about the efficiency of the manoeuvre.

Nonetheless, we are going to support this bill because we have been asking for a bill on this issue for such a long time. We really want to see Canada truly accede to and abide by the Arms Trade Treaty.

I hope that the government will show good faith and agree to make amendments in committee. That is why we are going to vote in favour of this bill. However, this so-called implementation bill must be improved because right now it is not very effective. Canada and the entire world expect nothing less.

I said at the beginning of my speech that today is International Peace Day. We know that the illicit and irresponsible transfer of conventional weapons is a major cause of suffering in the world because it leads to all kinds of violence.

We want to put an end to that through the Arms Trade Treaty. We want to put and end to situations where companies based in Canada or third countries can sell weapons to South Sudan. We want to put an end to situations where Canada officially laments the tragedy in Yemen, which is currently experiencing a major humanitarian crisis, but continues to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, which leads the very coalition alleged to be committing war crimes in that country.

We need to clean up our arms export system, and unfortunately, this bill does not do that.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Madam Speaker, I followed the comments of my colleague opposite very closely, and in particular those that referenced Saudi Arabia. I remember during the election campaign the leader of third party making a solemn promise at the gates of the very factory where these vehicles were being manufactured, to the union that represented the workers, and to the leadership of the workers specifically, that come hell or high water, the NDP would honour the contract between the factory and Saudi Arabia.

The member for London—Fanshawe made the same promise, the same commitment, in writing to the workers, to the leadership of the union, and to the corporation. They publicly held a press conference and declared that they would not, under any circumstance, with no qualification, withdraw the trade deal between Saudi Arabia and the plant in the member's riding of London—Fanshawe.

I am curious as to how they described that promise, why they made the promise, and how they were going to fulfill it in light of the information the member has just shared with us, which predates that promise being made. Why did the NDP members campaign so fervently, so deliberately, so specifically on honouring this contract and then come into the House after the election and say they were just kidding?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, I get the impression that he was speaking with a bit of hyperbole and exaggeration.

First, I would like to point out that we have always said the workers and the equipment in London could also be used to supply the Canadian army, which is in dire need of such equipment. Taking care of these workers and their future is a top priority.

I wonder if my colleague is aware that Saudi Arabia executed many dissidents last year, or that serious allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity began to circulate this year, or that vehicles similar to the Canadian LAVs have been seen in Yemen and eastern Saudi Arabia, where political dissidents are being fiercely repressed. All this has been reported in the news in the past few months, and I would be happy to share the articles with my colleague.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, I do appreciate listening to what the member had to say today, as well the others who have spoken to this issue in the House.

As a new member of Parliament, the ATT is new to me. There is a lot of information to process. I am hearing conflicting perspectives on the Canadian trade controls bureau and its effectiveness. I believe we all want similar things. It is just a matter of how we come about getting them.

It seems to me that the member has a great deal of experience on this file. I have a question in relation to the UN and the expectations that we have in the House on accountability and transparency, and on measuring outcomes. For those countries that have already ratified this treaty, is the member aware of the UN's current assessment of the effectiveness of the treaty to date, in controlling and limiting illegal arms sale? Are they able to measure and determine if this is being effective?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

Monitoring is certainly important, and I think it is something that needs to happen, collectively, on two levels. If I remember correctly, the United Nations has an office dedicated to tracking this type of file. Monitoring needs to happen collectively, through the United Nations, but it also needs to happen domestically. In Canada's case, half of the arms exports will not be tracked or reported in any way. There will be no assessment or ongoing monitoring, activities that I think are absolutely essential.

This brings me back to what we can do. The United Nations has a whole section dedicated to disarmament and to tracking these files. I was thinking that Canada could also create a committee that would meet regularly to monitor this extremely important issue.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am wondering about one very particular point. Since the Liberals have taken power here in Canada, there has been a transition in the United States to the administration of President Trump.

There is one aspect of the ATT that I think should concern all of us, and certainly my Liberal colleagues, particularly those who have said they stand up for human rights and want to raise Canada's reputation in the world. The exclusion of armament exports by Canada to the United States in the ATT is almost like a money laundering scheme, or an ethics or conscience laundering scheme.

Armaments can be produced in Canada, exported to the U.S., and be included in some armaments export deal to countries that are known human rights abusers—I think the member raised the case of Nigeria earlier, on which Canada has raised concerns about its human rights record.

Canada can say that we will not directly export arms to Nigeria, but in fact through the current bill, as proposed now, we can manufacture those same armaments in Canada, send them to the United States, where President Trump has said that he has no problem with Nigeria's human rights record, assemble the weapons there and send them on to Nigeria where they are then used to suppress human rights activities, to suppress minority groups within that country. That is one example, and there are other examples that we could call forward.

We would then condemn the Americans and say it is not right that they are sending those weapons to that country and killing people, including human rights activists.

The Prime Minister is at the United Nations today, making a declaration. In fact, in some ways I think he is counterposing his views to what President Trump said earlier to the in his bellicose statements encouraging more war, more conflict, and less peace. I encourage the Prime Minister to make those statements, and I am sure he will.

However, is there not some hypocrisy in then putting forward an Arms Trade Treaty here in Parliament that essentially attempts to wash Canada's hands of any involvement in any weapons sale to countries that we publicly condemn, yet privately allow our weapons to continue to be exported, allowing our manufacturing to contribute to our involvement in human rights abuse?

I am not sure how the Liberal government can countenance this level of hypocrisy. Or, it could just make the change and say we will not exclude the United States from the ATT. I am sure my colleague from Toronto would raise his constituents' concerns about this. I am sure my colleague from Winnipeg, who will speak on this later, would also do so. We should be saying that we will not sell weapons to that country. We cannot do indirectly what we are not willing to do directly.

If we are not willing to sell weapons to Nigeria because of human rights concerns, then how, for heaven's sake, can we sell them to the United States, which is willing to do the exact same thing in a more direct fashion?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question and for the expression he coined, which I am going to borrow.

I am going to reuse the expression “conscience laundering” like money laundering. Yes, it is a big problem, it is a big issue and it raises a lot of points, which I mentioned in my speech.

I pointed out the fact that regulations could be changed by any government at any time. Yes, something has happened in the United States, where we now have the Trump administration. In Canada, hopefully we will not get similar surprises, but administrations can change. However, at some point, we could get a government that is even more inclined to not fulfill our commitments to the arms trade treaty and further weaken the regulations. These things have to be put into law. That is one of the things we will ask for at committee.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to address this important issue. Many Canadians have taken a great deal of interest in this because they expect the Government of Canada to demonstrate leadership on the world scene on important issues.

I take exception to some of the comments made by my colleagues across the way, especially when they use the word “hypocrisy” with respect to this issue. The member for Spadina—Fort York brought up a wonderful example. Let me put it in the clearest fashion I can.

The New Democrats take the high ground, or try to be the moral authority on a particular issue, and use the word hypocrisy. Let me remind my friends that the leader of the New Democratic Party, in the last federal election, said to workers, unions, and anyone else who would listen that the NDP would honour and respect the agreement with Saudi Arabia. Today we have heard members across the way talk about how bad it is and that the government should not honour it, yet their very leader committed his party to honouring it. There is a consistency problem within the NDP ranks and we hope that over the coming months they can deal with that, but we will have to wait to find out what their actual position is on issues such as this.

Getting back on track, I want to focus my attention on what we are debating today and how it came to be.

The Conservative Party should be familiar with what we are talking about today. There are a number of new Conservative members in the House, and I recognize that. However, when Stephen Harper was prime minister, he had delegates at the UN discussions. They were a part of the discussions in 2012 that ultimately led to the agreement. For whatever reason, and I do not quite understand why, they never signed that agreement. A member has said that he knows why they never signed it. Would that member please tell us why? Would that member please share with Canadians why the Conservatives refused to sign off on the agreement even though they participated in the discussions? Every G-7 country, with the exception of Canada, along with our NATO partners, have signed the agreement. I do not know why Stephen Harper was against it at the time, nor why the Conservatives still are to this day.

Our government is quite different, thank goodness, than the previous government. We recognize that there is a role for Canada to play on the international scene, and it is expected of us. In fact, today the Prime Minister is making his second address to the UN today.

This is important. These treaties are about making the world a safer place. Good, solid, responsible governments around the world understand and appreciate the importance of getting engaged in these things. A the end of the day, why would we not make the best efforts we can to make our world a safer place?

When Lloyd Axworthy was a minister a number of years ago, he played an important role in signing off on the land mine treaty. Canada led the way in dealing with land mines. Far too often, we hear the horror stories of land mines that are still there today. At least Canada, as one of many nations, recognized it was the right thing to do.

Once again, we have a treaty that was negotiated back in 2012 and then entered into force in 2014. However, we cannot thank the previous government for that. It chose not to be one of the countries to ensure it became enforced. Instead of having a desire to show leadership on the issue, the Conservatives felt it was more appropriate to sit back and take no action on this front.

Within two years, we have seen many things take place since the change of government. My favourite was our first piece of legislation, which was all about giving that tax break to Canada's middle class and having the 1% of Canada's wealthiest pay a little more in order for those in our middle class to have more money in their pockets. Whether it is that initiative, the infrastructure initiatives, senior benefit programs, the Canada child program, or the assisted dying legislation, so much other business of the House has been dealt with in two years. This treaty is also one of those priority issues. Within two years, we have have had the department go through what has taken place, and now we have are in a position to debate it today.

My gut feel is that the Conservative Party does not necessarily understand what we are actually debating, or at the very least the principle of what we are debating today. If we listen to the questions of Conservative members, they are more interested in trying to relive an old argument about the gun registry, which was brought up in the 1990s and is something on which the Prime Minister has been very clear. They are regurgitating it. They are the Conservatives/Reformers of the past. They have completely lost touch with what Canadians expect of an official opposition, and I am okay with that to a certain degree.

We just had a break, which was a wonderful opportunity to go into their constituencies and listen to what Canadians had to say. However, obviously, the Conservative Party has lost touch with what Canadians truly expect of government. We are having this debate, but they want to change the scope. They want to go back to the past. Therefore, I will tell them what we are actually talking about, and it is not domestic gun registry policy.

We respect gun owners in Canada, and we have been very clear on that. We have had clear answers even to those unrelated questions or concerns, which I believe the Conservative Party is just trying to stir up for political purposes, possibly trying to create a wedge issue. As opposed to trying to demonstrate that there is strong leadership within the Conservative Party on this file, they are trying to change or go outside of the scope of the legislation.

What is the scope? It is all about conventional weaponry. If members read the bill, this is what we are talking about. Listen to some of the Conservative members who have already spoken. They who are talking about nuclear weapons, biochemical weapons, and we all know about the gun registry and issues of that nature.

However, this is actually the core of the treaty which states:

This Treaty shall apply to all conventional arms within the following categories:

(a) Battle tanks;

(b) Armoured combat vehicles;

(c) Large-calibre artillery systems;

(d) Combat aircraft;

(e) Attack helicopters;

(f) Warships;

(g) Missiles and missile launchers; and

(h) Small arms and light weapons.

That is what the treaty is all about.

One of the Conservative MPs, I think it was the member for Durham, asked, why are we agreeing to this treaty when we have already things in place to do it? The member and the Conservatives are missing the point here. Number one is to understand what the treaty is all about, and get a sense of why it is being debated here today and where it is actually coming from. The United Nations, all other G7 countries, and all other NATO countries have already accepted it.

In fact, one of my New Democratic friends, just the other day, said there are different types of legislation, and that some legislation is fairly straightforward and should receive quick passage. I would suggest this is one of those pieces of legislation. At least, we can have it go to committee, and let committee deal with it. If anything, this government has demonstrated very clearly that, where committees do good work and are prepared to come up with ideas that can improve legislation in a very real and tangible way, and have been able to demonstrate that at the committee, we are open to those types of amendments.

This legislation should not be all that controversial. It is actually fairly straightforward. We could be doing a great service, I would suggest to look at the scope of the legislation, and accept it for what it is, as opposed to just opposing for the sake of opposing, and then trying to generate ideas as to why one is opposing it. Let us just move forward with it.

I am not trying to limit debate in any fashion. If people want to get engaged, such as I do, and talk about the importance of the treaty, that is great. I would ultimately argue, especially when we get treaties that are coming from the UN, and we have such wide support from all the G7 and NATO countries, our allies, that this is a very strong positive.

I look forward to the legislation ultimately passing. Through its passage, we would send a very important message, that at the end of the day, we recognize there is weaponry distributed throughout the world, manufactured in many parts of the world, but circulated in every region of the world.

Unfortunately and sadly, there are far too many cases that countries get this weaponry from wherever it originates. Obviously, we are most concerned about Canada, but we are not just limited to Canada. If it falls into the wrong hands, and at times it might end up doing so, we need to put up safeguards to minimize that risk.

That is really what this treaty to me is all about. It is minimizing the risk. If those responsible countries around the world choose to do nothing, we will have more terrorism and more violations of human rights.

When we have treaties of this nature, and this particular treaty dealing with those items I have listed, there will be a responsibility. It has often been said that Canada has a population of 35 million or 36 million people and, looking at the world population versus the population of Canada, we would wonder how much clout do we really have.

I have heard member after member on all sides of the House, New Democrats, Conservatives, and Liberals, talk about how Canada, even as a country with 35 million people, carries an incredible amount of influence around the world. Something that is earned, I would argue.

It is earned by the actions we take, and not just parliamentarians but Canadians in every region of our country demonstrate that concern. When a massive flood, earthquake, whatever it might be, takes place anywhere in the world, Canadians are the very first to participate, individuals, non-profit groups, governments, just name it, because we are not only very concerned about Canada but the impact of all the things around us.

Through the years, we have developed a very strong international reputation, a reputation of which I am extremely proud. Like many members, I have travelled outside of Canada and often people commend our country as being a fantastic place, and thank us. I had the privilege of serving in the Canadian Forces. I understand the carnage that can be caused by some of the weapons I have listed. I have marched and participated in Remembrance Day celebrations and recognitions of the achievements of our forces, the current and past members of the Canadian Forces.

I had those second-hand experiences by listening to those who had first-hand experiences and from what little first-hand experience I have, I have a basic understanding of the type of weaponry we are talking about in this treaty. Liberals want the treaty to pass, for Canada to join the G7 and NATO countries. We support this legislation and, ultimately, the treaty itself.

Let me highlight the important messages that need to be emphasized. The government is committed to taking a comprehensive, compassionate, and evidence-based approach on this issue. This was brought forward to us.

The summary of the bill states:

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) authorize the making of regulations that set out mandatory considerations that the Minister is required to take into account before issuing an export permit or a brokering permit;

(c) 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;

(d) increase the maximum fine for a summary conviction offence to $250,000;...

There is so much more that is happening. I want to very briefly comment on how important that industry is to Canada. It would be a huge mistake for us to ignore that, and perhaps I will have the opportunity to expand on that if a question is posed to me.