Evidence of meeting #41 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was weapons.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Policy Coordinator, Oxfam Canada, and Member, Control Arms Coalition
Perhaps I can add that we hope it will cover all weapons and ammunition, components of weapon systems, and that it will be comprehensive. We hope the criteria will cover three key areas: it will take into account international human rights law, international humanitarian law regarding conflicts, and development; it should not increase poverty or corruption.
Those three criteria areas are crucial.
Liberal
Dominic LeBlanc Liberal Beauséjour, NB
Perhaps I could ask you.... One of the discussions is with respect to some draft wording, which has been made public or at least has been discussed publicly in a preamble. I understand the argument about using national discretion in the application of obligations. It's restating the obvious in terms of the supremacy of domestic statute law over international obligations, but if it makes people feel better to restate that, that's fine.
If one of the objectives of a treaty is to help develop international standards, and you begin by saying we're prepared to work with other nations under this treaty process to develop international standards but of course none of these international standards will in any way have an impact on our domestic or national standards or national discretion, don't you find that a bit contradictory? On the one hand, a treaty should be to bring countries together and develop at least the framework. And God knows international law is far from perfect, but if it starts the process of creating international standards, do you worry that we then evacuate that within the same process?
Policy Coordinator, Oxfam Canada, and Member, Control Arms Coalition
I don't worry seriously about it, because frankly this is about the international trade in weapons; it's not about domestic regulation. I think Canada has actually provided useful clarification that it should not be about domestic ownership of guns, but it is about the international trade in weapons.
There are very specific rules about trade in bananas, in iPods, in you name it, just about everything, and not on weapons. It seems ridiculous.
I think we can have international standards. Obviously it will take time before every country can live up to them, so helping countries that don't have the actual capacity to enforce the standards should be a key part of the treaty. At some point this will help us move towards international norms that would stop weapons from reaching human rights abusers or from leaking out into criminal elements.
Liberal
Dominic LeBlanc Liberal Beauséjour, NB
Thank you.
Perhaps a very quick question to Mr. Friedman. You use often, and it's become a sort of au courant phrase, “law-abiding citizens”. You would agree with me, though, that in a system of the rule of law, like Canada, a citizen can't choose which laws he or she will abide by. You would agree with that, right? To be a law-abiding citizen, you have to abide with all of the laws, including ones you may not agree with.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much.
We're now going to move to our second round. We're going to start with Mr. Dechert for five minutes.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to each of our panellists for being here.
I'd like to start with Mr. Fried. I think you said earlier that you believe the ATT should not target the legitimate civilian use of firearms by sport shooters, hunters, etc. How would you propose that the ATT be drafted in a way so that it doesn't unfairly target those users?
Policy Coordinator, Oxfam Canada, and Member, Control Arms Coalition
I confess I'm not a lawyer and an expert in the drafting of treaty negotiations, but I will say that the proposed solution of including preamble language sounds right to me, as long as it's clearly in the preamble and allows us to get beyond what we consider a misconception that this treaty is about domestic regulation, which it is not. It's about international trade.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
So you think that's sufficient as far as it goes, according to the current proposal.
Policy Coordinator, Oxfam Canada, and Member, Control Arms Coalition
As far as I know, but I'm not an expert on this.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you.
I want to raise with Ms. Holguin the whole issue of the socio-economic criteria. How would that work? Earlier my colleague Mr. Van Kesteren raised the issue of the mujahedeen in their struggle against the Soviet Union. Things just popped into my mind, like would Fidel Castro have been able to acquire the weapons necessary for the revolution in Cuba, or other places like that, with the socio-economic criteria that you're suggesting?
Policy Director, Oxfam-Québec, and Member, Control Arms Coalition
I will respond and then I will pass the time to Hilary to respond to this one.
How we think it will work is it will indicate.... As I said before, I think there first of all needs to be a clear recognition that there is a link between the lack of control of the arms trade and the availability of arms.
It was said before here that small arms possessed by civilians don't harm. As I said, I come from Colombia, and I've seen it: small arms are being carried and they're doing a lot of harm.
In the last meeting in February at the UN, at which I was present, the representative for the Mexican delegation said these arms are used for recreation in Canada, but in Mexico they just change a little piece and then they are the ones being used.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Can I ask you about the socio-economic perspective, though?
Afghanistan is a poor country. It receives aid from many countries to help feed and educate its people, including from Canada. Does that mean we shouldn't supply weapons to the democratically elected Government of Afghanistan to fight, say, the Taliban or al-Qaeda?
Policy Director, Oxfam-Québec, and Member, Control Arms Coalition
I think the treaty is going to establish the criteria that every country will have to evaluate, and those criteria are going to determine whether the transfer could be made or not.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
So it's not just that we restrict any sale of weapons to a country that falls below a certain, say, GDP per capita?
Policy Director, Oxfam-Québec, and Member, Control Arms Coalition
No, but I think the idea is that the criteria will be established in a way that countries will need to evaluate.
Maybe you want to respond to this.
Senior Program Officer, Project Ploughshares, and Member, Control Arms Coalition
Just quickly on Afghanistan, I think the greatest concern there will be diversion. That would be a situation where one criterion might be more important than another.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
If you have al-Qaeda or the Taliban, though, what do you do? You need to obviously—
Senior Program Officer, Project Ploughshares, and Member, Control Arms Coalition
But if all the weapons are being diverted to the Taliban, how effective—
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
What I'm suggesting is, does this mean that we couldn't supply to the democratically elected government and the Afghan National Army, which Canada is training, along with its NATO allies...? Presumably, not many of those weapons get into the hands of the Taliban. Maybe some do, but that happens in every war. If you didn't supply them with weapons, how would they fight the Taliban? How would they fight al-Qaeda?
Let me move on—I know time is running short—to Ms. Homes.
I thought you raised an interesting point about Russia and Syria. You probably know that last week Parliament had a take note debate on what's going on in Syria. It's just dreadful, and we're all very disappointed in Russia's intransigence in that situation. If this arms trade treaty is entered into, do you think Russia would respect that treaty, with respect to selling arms to Assad to use against the people in Syria?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
I'll ask you to answer, Ms. Homes, but that's all the time we have.
Campaigner, International Justice, Security and Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Member, Control Arms Coalition
Very quickly, would it change their mind today? I think it would take a bit more work. What it would give us is more tools to say where that line is. Right now, those sales are not illegal. All we have is the argument of saying, look what's going on. We don't have an interrelated set of criteria by which we can judge what's going on, and Russia doesn't report as robustly as we'd like to, and so on. So it's that collection of things that would be brought to the table to increase the pressure on them. Right now, there's a fair bit of diplomatic pressure on Russia. Originally, it was Russia and China, and China moved. Russia hasn't moved as much, but there is significant pressure there. Maybe their position will change a bit. But it's a case of having more tools for that dialogue.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you. That's all the time we have, Mr. Dechert.
Mr. Williamson, we'll try to get to you after Madame Laverdière.
You have five minutes.