Very good. Thank you.
Now, I'd like to discuss one of the main problems with the bill.
I imagine you're familiar with the document produced by a host of organizations, including Amnesty International Canada, Project Ploughshares, the Rideau Institute, Oxfam International, the Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises, or CGPME, and many others. The document summarizes a number of flaws in the bill that were raised by various experts and stakeholders. Multiple organizations have been working for years, decades in fact, on the Arms Trade Treaty issue, some dealing specifically with the arms trade issue as a whole.
Article 5 of the treaty requires, and rightly so, that “Each state party shall implement this treaty in a consistent, objective and non-discriminatory manner….”
However, our control system will not take into account our exports to the United States, and that includes export permits as well as reporting. No additional information on arms exports to the United States will be provided. We talked about transparency, a concept I support. Nevertheless, the failure to include these exports does nothing to improve transparency, especially given anecdotal evidence showing, for instance, that Canadian arms components ended up in countries like Nigeria after going through the United States. The evidence remains anecdotal since we don't have any information on that.
Why is Canada implementing the treaty in a discriminatory manner? Why doesn't the new system include our exports to the U.S.?