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

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

Madam Speaker, does the member agree that we should reduce our trade with states who abuse human rights?

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, I believe that Canada has a very robust system in place to ensure that we negotiate trade agreements and deals with other countries. We have shown due diligence in the past in how we deal with other countries regarding trade relations, and will do so in the future.

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

Madam Speaker, I know the group Got Your 6 very well. It was lovely to hear about the impact they are having on our military veterans and first responders. As the member is a Mountie veteran, he knows that. and wears it on his sleeve.

The problem is this. The Minister of Transport stated it much more eloquently than the parliamentary secretary, the member for Fredericton, who called asking a question about it bogus. Both members are incorrect. The United States will not fully implement this treaty.

Therefore, the minister was incorrect with respect to that statement, but more importantly, the fact is that the treaty rejected or excluded law-abiding orders. They are all saying it is not in there. The parliamentary secretary even said that asking the question is bogus. The fact that it was excluded means that one would imply that it could be collected from individual owners, their brokers, or both.

Although I know they are not included in the talking points the Liberals are using today, they are genuine questions. However, when law-abiding owners have not been consulted, can the member tell the House how that type of language, bogus and phony, answers the questions of rural Canadians on this issue, because being treated by the government that way creates division, and resurrects the feelings with respect to the Liberal gun registry?

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, I probably intermingled with 200 to 300 people at the Got Your 6 event, people who have risked their lives to protect people around the world, including Canadians. Is the member saying that what those people want to do for recreation, and the concerns many of them have with respect to this act are bogus? They are law-abiding Canadians. That is why I am standing up to defend their actions. We should respect their concerns, and stand up for them.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to speak to this bill put forward by the Liberal government. During my tenure as parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs, I spoke many times to this bill on behalf of the government, and today I will speak about why there is opposition to this bill.

It is very clear that this is one of the election promises the Liberal Party made during the campaign without thinking about it. From their broken promises, like electoral reform, we know the Liberals opposed anything the Conservative government was doing, even if it was doing everything legitimately. They only had one focus. They would not do what the Conservative government wanted to do, which is why, on many occasions, they had to break the promises they made during the election campaign.

Getting back to this bill, during the time I was in government, there were many questions as to why we were not going to sign the Arms Trade Treaty. I have the talking points of the department, the same department that I represented in Parliament at they time. It said this bill was to enhance transparency and accountability in Canada with export controls, and allow accession to the Arms Trade Treaty, which is the major issue.

We are talking about joining the Arms Trade Treaty. The Arms Trade Treaty already has provisions in it. On the major issue of whether that is the right approach to take, of course it is. There is no question that the Arms Trade Treaty is designed to reduce gun violence right across the world.

I travelled all over the world in my capacity as parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs and went to areas where conflicts were taking place. As a matter of fact, I met a child soldier in Burundi who carried an automatic rifle. The point is that most of the people in these conflicts are getting arms through illegal trade, which is thriving around the world.

How do ISIS members have so many arms to fight with? They got the arms that were abandoned by the army. Nevertheless, there is a vast arms trade where conflicts today are still going on. In Africa, where I have been on many occasions, conflicts carry on. Conflicts carry on in Rwanda and Congo. Conflicts carry on in Burundi. Conflicts have gone on and on, because the illegal arms trade is thriving and people can access weapons.

In contrast, the question is, would the Arms Trade Treaty prevent that? This bill is an attempt to do that, but in Canada, having taken many actions over a period of time, we have controls that, at times, do match and even exceed the Arms Trade Treaty. We do have export controls in our system that ensure we control our arms trade exports. The question was asked whether we should sell arms to countries that abuse human rights, or whether we should not trade with them. Trade would give us the leverage to ask them to improve their human rights records, but we can always decide who we are going to sell arms to.

The issue again is the illegal arms trade. The largest exporters of arms in the world are not going to sign this treaty, and if they are not going to sign it, then how will it have an effect? Would it become another of the UN treaties that does not have teeth in it because major players are not signing it? Anytime we sign an international treaty, the question we need to answer in Canada is, how will it impact the domestic scene?

My colleagues have already indicated this very eloquently. During the time the parliamentary secretary, the NDP, and the Liberals were all asking us to sign the treaty, no one was talking about the impact on the domestic scene.

On the domestic scene, we have already indicated it could have a negative impact on sports gun owners. If it is going to have an impact, would there not then be two points to look at? Number one, is the treaty effective, because as I just pointed out, Russia and the U.S. will not sign it? Number two, will it have a negative impact on the domestic scene? Yes it will, as has already been indicated.

Therefore, what would be the point of signing something that has no value to us? Is it because the NDP and the Liberals want to look good and feel good, like sunny days, and sign the treaty? However, in reality, we are already doing it.

One of the reasons we did not sign it, when we were in government, was because it did not meet the major objectives. We already have and exceed a majority of those points that are mentioned in the treaty, but no one has addressed the issue of where it would overstretch itself in domestic laws. When we pointed this out to the UN, it did not want to change it. Maybe the reason was that in other parts of the world there was not enough sport hunting, or whatever. The fact of the matter is, when we are looking at Canada signing it, we must look at our laws to see how this would impact domestic laws. That has been made very clear.

It becomes pretty obvious that signing the treaty there would be three points. Number one, it was an election promise, and a thorough review was not carried out. Number two, this would impact domestic markets. Number three, it would not be very effective, because of the other players who export arms who will not be signing it.

We have said, and the government has said it, and I am sure my colleagues on the other side would agree, we need to make decisions ourselves as to who we are going to sell these products. Are we going to sell them to countries a, b, c? It is for us to decide, and we do have robust controls, and robust debates going on as to who we should and should not sell to.

One of the aspects of the treaty is that we take away these controls. The treaty would take away the controls from DND as to what it can decide, who can decide, and what it can do. Why are we giving our authority, our sovereignty, over to a treaty that is not a very strong treaty. If this was a very strong treaty, we could look at it. If the UN had come back and said it would take Canada's domestic concerns into account, then we would have signed it when we were in government.

I will just point out that it would not be in the interest of Canada to sign the treaty. We can take the provisions that are in the bill, if the government wants to, to enhance robust ways to ensure we have domestic controls, and exports controls, which we do. It is not a question that we do not have them. We already have them. Therefore, this bill and this whole thing is not really something that enhances anything around the world in stopping the arms flow, or the trade flow that is going on all over the world. Conflicts are going on, and we need to address the bigger issue.

Conflicts are going on around the world. There are conflicts in Africa, conflicts in the Middle East. ISIL is a danger. All of these places are fuelled by arms from the illegal arms trade. We have seen the movie about the blood diamonds, and the Kimberley process was one way to stop the trade in blood diamonds, which was fuelling the illegal arms trade. That was something that we supported. That was a positive step taken internationally to stop the arms trade. These are the kinds of initiatives that we need to take.

It becomes critically important to see how the illegal arms trade is thriving. This is where we can go and where we can put our efforts. There is no point in telling us, because we already have it. It is not that we do not have a record. We already have it. We have good controls, so there is no point in our being penalized to do something that is not going to be effective because the treaty unfortunately does not have teeth.

We can continue. We can return to the UN and suggest we look at this whole thing again, but at this time we would not be supporting it because we do not think it is in the best interests of Canada to sign the Arms Trade Treaty.

On the international scene, the proliferation of arms is a major concern. The North Korea issue right now of firing ballistic missiles over Japan and not signing this treaty is a cause of concern. Whether it is nuclear weapons or small arms, proliferation is now on the rise around the world. Collectively we would have to go around and ask how we get there.

Following the Cambodian dictatorship, when thousands of people lost their lives, and now with the wars that are going on, there has been a terrible legacy of arms floating around in the world. The UN ought to do better and see how it can somehow get these arms back out of these places. I visited Cambodia and also saw how the mines in Mozambique were maiming people. We had a program to blow up the mines, and I actually had an opportunity to blow up a mine in Cambodia.

The dangers from conflicts and the arms that have been deployed are a cause of concern, and we must carry on addressing them. Of course we all remember that after the fall of the U.S.S.R., we came to remove nuclear weapons there so that they would be removed from the market. The issue is how we can access and address whatever is fuelling all these wars around the world.

Of course, a continuing issue here is what can be done with rogue countries that do not listen to these treaties and do not abide by the treaties. The best example is North Korea. It does not abide by any treaty and is now creating a very dangerous situation.

Having been to South Korea and North Korea and the demilitarized zone, I can tell members that it is a very dangerous situation. I talked to the South Koreans, who live under a constant threat that anything can happen. We can make very big statements, but those who live under this shadow have a very different experience, and they look to countries like ours to see how we can defuse the situation. Canada has a unique position in the world, with our diplomats and so on. We have a good reputation and we can use our good offices.

However, it is critically important that our good offices not be used to go out and sign something that is of no consequence. We should focus our energies on ensuring we get arms out of circulation so the illegal arms trade can be minimized and conflicts can reduced. For example, how do the pirates in Somalia get their weapons? Where do they get their weapons from? How do all these people manage to get weapons? There are no weapons factories at all in Somalia. How does al Shabaab get its arms? These are issues we need to discuss. We need to find out how and why these terrorist groups have easy access to arms. Now we come along, bringing this treaty, and say that this will try to stop it. Well, this treaty is not going to stop it.

Domestically, Canada has robust controls over the arms industry. Canadians should be proud that because of robust arms controls, Canadian arms are not used overseas and are not part of the many conflicts going on. Should it come to light that this is not the case, we can take corrective actions.

Again, one needs to look at the larger picture and ask what we can do to achieve reduction of tensions and wars around the world. That is the objective of the government, as well as of the NDP at the United Nations. That is what we want to achieve. Working collaboratively, we can achieve that. However, when people say that we want to sign a treaty that is totally ineffective and intrudes on our laws locally, that will make Canadians uncomfortable. We already have robust controls to ensure we are not fuelling wars around the world with our arms. Canadians can be proud of that.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member has spoken quite eloquently about how ineffective this treaty will be, yet his colleagues are suggesting it is going to do things it does not even say it is going to do. I am a little confused.

I would like to point out that the Government of Canada has required records on the export and import of arms since 1942 to ensure compliance with the Export and Import Permits Act. This legislation would make no changes to the type or nature of the information currently required from those individuals seeking to import or export arms. There is no change to the system that existed under the Conservative Party previously. They were happy with it then.

I am curious. What has changed for the member, and why does he not like it now?

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

Madam Speaker, it is very simple and straightforward. I said right from the beginning that there are two elements to this bill. One is to enhance transparency and accountability of the export controls, which are very robust. The member has just pointed out that we have had it since 1942. That does not change.

Why are we going to go do that when, as you yourself have pointed out, it is already there. We are talking about the Arms Trade Treaty. We are not talking because someone says—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member that he is to address the questions and comments to the Chair and not to individual members.

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

Madam Speaker, after 20 years, I should have known that, I should be doing that. I apologize.

We are talking about the Arms Trade Treaty. The treaty is what concerns this bill, and not the controls. The hon. member has pointed out rightly that we clearly have robust controls in this country.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Calgary Forest Lawn for his fact and opinion filled speech.

He will forgive me for asking a question that may have already been asked, but I would like to know his reaction to the fact that trucks manufactured in Canada are sold in Saudi Arabia and are used against civilians. I would simply like his opinion on that.

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

Madam Speaker, we have a robust relationship with Saudi Arabia, both in trade and politically. I have been to Saudi Arabia many times. If we see credible evidence that this is what is happening, it allows us, through our connections with Saudi Arabia, to talk to the Saudis and tell them that this is unacceptable and that our vehicles cannot be used to suppress human rights. It is very clear—and that is the whole point—that within our control regime, we do have the ability to tell them that if they are doing that, they did wrong.

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

Madam Speaker, I am continuing to focus on how the government, in its approach to debate on this subject, is suggesting that any Canadian who may have a question about the breadth of this treaty and its application is somehow making bogus arguments. We have heard many of our members suggest specific passages in the legislation, by reference to the treaty, that they have concerns with. We have heard that a specific exclusion of lawful firearms owners, hunters, sport shooters, and things like that, was rejected throughout the treaty process.

When we approach statutory interpretation, if there is silence or uncertainty, we sometimes will read in favour of what the treaty or the piece of legislation is trying to do. Therefore, the silence here is a genuine question. Could the member tell us his thoughts, as the dean of our caucus, on how that attitude of not listening to valid concerns of Canadians back in the mid-1990s, when a different Liberal government was introducing a long-gun registry, made people feel like they were part of the problem, because their questions and any concerns they had were not even taken as genuine?

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

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Durham for his new position as critic for foreign affairs. I am sure he is going to do a great job holding the government accountable.

Coming to that point, when I am speaking very clearly as the dean of the caucus knowing about this, the other side is just presenting talking points that were given to them to justify this. They have not been told what is wrong and what is not wrong. They have just been saying to go ahead on this thing.

It is our job on the opposition side to say what is wrong with what they are doing and what they have done. Therefore, naturally, we will not expect them to give an answer to us, but just stick to their talking points. As we all know, all my colleagues have stood up and said very strongly why we do not want to sign this treaty.

To answer my friend's question, they are relying on their talking points.

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

Madam Speaker, the member across the way continually tries to regurgitate an issue from the 1990s, knowing full well that this legislation has absolutely nothing to do with the gun registry. The members across the way know that. That is the reality. They then try to say that the government is not listening to Canadians. There has been no government in recent history that has listened to Canadians more than this government.

I would challenge the members across the way. Under Stephen Harper, how many town halls, outreach programs, and consultations were done under the Harper government over 10 years? They could count them on one hand.

The Conservatives need to calm themselves down and not get too excited. This has nothing to do with the gun registry. I am sorry to disappoint them all, but that is the reality.

The member has travelled all over the world. Does he not believe, as Liberals believe, that Canada has a leadership role to play in the world? This is an arms treaty, the first of its kind, and it can have a profound, positive impact at making our world a better, safer place to live. The Conservatives would do well by supporting the legislation, just like every other G7 country and NATO country. You name it—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn.