Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Are there any record-keeping changes in this legislation?

[Richard Arbeiter]

Once again, others can chime in. There are no changes to the record-keeping aspect here. As I noted also in my opening statement, we have been submitting reports to UNCAR since 1993. That is 25 years. The text of the Arms Trade Treaty actually stipulates explicitly that the same information that has been provided to UNCAR can be provided to the ATT secretariat. There is no change in the substance and content of our reporting requirement as per the ATT.

[Wendy Gilmour]

From an export and import permits program perspective, there is no change for Canadian firearms owners to the existing process to export or import their firearms in and out of Canada. The record-keeping that is attached to the Export and Import Permits Act is specific to the administrative practice for us to indeed verify compliance with the Export and Import Permits Act. It is also used by Canada Border Services Agency under the Customs Act, so it is the normal record-keeping required for administrative practice for export and import permits, and there are no changes in Bill C-47 to anything that is currently the case right now.

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay. I have a question on a different issue, land mines.

As Canada is already a signatory to treaties such as the Ottawa treaty on land mines, how does Canada ratify the ATT through Bill C-47 within those existing frameworks?

[Richard Arbeiter]

International conventions like the Ottawa convention and the ATT are intended to create an international standard and are intended for all states parties to try to come up to that standard. We view the Ottawa convention not only as a Canadian success but certainly as an international success, because it created a different kind of international norm that we still feel has positively, significantly, and constructively affected both those within the treaty and those outside the treaty, 20 years later.

The Ottawa convention deals with a different category of weapons than the Arms Trade Treaty does, so to respond to your question, they are certainly complementary to one another, but they are not integrated in that sense.

Our hope is that, indeed, the Arms Trade Treaty over time can create the same kind of standard that affects how other countries choose to regulate the export of arms for the weapons included in the ATT within their territories. Fundamentally, the goal of the ATT was to create that kind of a standard, to learn the lessons from the Ottawa convention and other conventions that have been developed and established over time, and to encourage as broad adherence as possible to the elements contained within the treaty.

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

How will Bill C-47 impact the reduction of terrorism around the world in the context of import and export? How do we monitor it? You did touch on that issue a little. Can you explore a little more whether it's going to help reduce terrorism around the world?

[Richard Arbeiter]

Sure. I can start on that, and others can come in as well.

Fundamentally, the ATT is seeking to establish common standards that reduce the illicit trade in arms. Terrorist organizations and groups do seek to acquire arms, including the arms that are included in the treaty. The thinking is that, as states introduce stronger assessment criteria within their systems, that will help to capture arms that may have been procured by terrorist organizations, whether through better brokering controls or better assessment criteria, as those states, particularly in areas affected by conflict, introduce in their system a higher standard of export controls that reduces the ability of terrorist organizations to acquire the weapons in the same way they may have done in the past.

The assessment criteria in article 7 that my colleague Ms. Gilmour and I spoke to speaks about assessing the risk to peace and security that the export of the particular weapon could have, and it obligates states to take that into consideration in their assessment of whether the particular weapon should be exported.

Again, by obligating states parties to take that into consideration, our hope is not only that the system will be stronger, but that states themselves will assess that criteria within their decision-making process.

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Do I have time to add something?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

No, Mr. Sidhu. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Ms. Laverdière, you may go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here today.

I'd like to preface my remarks by saying how pleased I was to hear so many references to the Ottawa convention, or Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention, and the fact that it had influenced the behaviour of states outside the treaty.

I would think it could serve as a model in the case of nuclear disarmament. I, for one, think it's a shame that the minister never mentioned the Ottawa convention in her major address on foreign policy. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the convention, after all.

Now, I'll turn back to the subject before us.

There's obviously no denying that my colleagues in the NDP and I are thrilled with Canada's decision to join the Arms Trade Treaty. That said, I have serious reservations about the implementation bill, and I'm not the only one, given some of the comments we've heard to that effect.

My first question is this. Is the government open to amendments to the implementation bill allowing Canada's accession to the Arms Trade Treaty?

[Richard Arbeiter]

First, thank you for the question.

Second, I don't think that's a question for department officials but, rather, for committee members. Our role isn't really to comment on the development of the bill.

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

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.?

[Richard Arbeiter]

I'll answer that first, before turning the floor over to my colleague.

Earlier, someone asked whether industry had been consulted. I would just like to point out that we also consulted very closely with members of civil society, including most of the stakeholders who contributed to the document. We conducted a number of consultations over the past two years. The discussions are ongoing because we very much appreciate the perspectives of civil society here, in Canada, and internationally.

[Wendy Gilmour]

Thank you very much, Mr. Arbeiter.

Ms. Laverdière, thank you for your question.

I'm going to switch to English so that I can give you an exact response.

First of all, as I outlined in my opening statement, there is nothing in the ATT that requires states to have exactly the same type of export control systems across the ATT states parties, and there's nothing in the treaty itself that precludes states from entering into arrangements for expedited permitting or some means of generalized permitting, to allow for special defence relationships and to answer to their own defence and security interests.

I'll ask Robert to speak specifically to the element in the treaty that speaks to non-discrimination, but we are entirely consistent with the treaty and the non-discrimination clause by having different risk management frameworks for different types of exports to different countries. The overriding principle in our establishment of export control policies with respect to the United States is the support for the special defence relationship that exists between our two countries. The integrated North American defence industrial base, which as I said is a formal arrangement that dates back to 1957, is not inconsistent with the ATT. I'll speak to reporting provisions in a moment, but I'll first let Robert speak to the non-discrimination clause.

[Robert Brookfield]

The first paragraph of article 5 of the Arms Trade Treaty states that the treaty must be implemented in a “consistent, objective and non-discriminatory manner, bearing in mind the principles referred to in this Treaty.”

The non-discrimination issue is very broad, and the treaty provides for a lot of flexibility. It really comes down to the facts and situation. As Ms. Gilmour mentioned, the situations are not the same in Canada, the United States, and other countries.

Russia and China have very similar situations, with a difference at the political level only. The non-discrimination provision takes into account the facts. The treaty does not merely require that all countries be treated the same, because the facts are different.

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

My understanding of the expression “non-discriminatory” is very different. To my mind, it means that everyone should be treated the same way.

You also said you were going to comment on the “reporting provisions”, to use your exact words.

[Wendy Gilmour]

When I speak French, I start in French, but, then, I always switch to English to refer to specific terms. My apologies.

At the moment, Canada produces a number of different reports based on our export permit data. We report to Parliament on military exports under group two of the export control list. This is the report that will become a statutory requirement under Bill C-47 if adopted by Parliament, with a statutory tabling date to make it more transparent and predictable for those who are interested in these statistics.

As Richard has said, we also report to the UN Register of Conventional Arms on specific exports of categories of items as defined by the UN on an annual basis. Reports to Parliament and UNCAR do not include our exports to the United States because as a result of our expedited permitting process we don't capture the data in the same way for exports to the United States. Instead, our exports to the United States are reported under the harmonized tariff and reported by Customs Canada to Statistics, so the two reports don't line up.

Again, the practice by many other states parties who have now had the Arms Trade Treaty in effect since 2014 has also been—where they have these types of expedited permitting—to not include those types of statistics in their reporting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

We'll now go to Mr. Saini please.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much for being here. I just want Ms. Gilmour to clarify one point. I think somebody mentioned a different article, but article 12 subsection 1 of the ATT requires states to keep national records of exports of conventional arms, something that Canada has done since 1947. Other than changing the length of time, is there any other reporting requirement?

[Wendy Gilmour]

The ATT does not create any reporting requirement that Canada currently does not do. Richard spoke to that, and maybe he can clarify in a moment. As I outlined during my remarks, the data that is collected and kept by the export permit programs is specific to the administration of the Export and Import Permits Act and allows us to ensure compliance with the act and to provide information in the event of a determination or suspicion of non-compliance—a violation of the act. There is nothing in Bill C-47 that would change our current practice—six years' retention of data—which is consistent across other Canadian statutes as well.

[Richard Arbeiter]

I'll just again reiterate what was articulated in my opening statement with regard to article 12. Article 12 requires a state party to have a national domestic record-keeping system in place. There is no requirement to share these records with the ATT secretariat or with other states parties. General record-keeping for compliance, as you've noted and Ms. Gilmour noted, has been on the books since 1947. These requirements are not new, and they will not change with Bill C-47.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much for that clarification.

I have a question about clause 16.

One of the things I've noticed in clause 16 is that the fine for a summary conviction is now $250,000. I understand that's a dramatic change from 1991 when it was $25,000, and prior to that it was $5,000.

Can you talk about why there was such an increase in penalties, and what impact you think that increase will have?

[Wendy Gilmour]

I don't, off the top of my head, know what the inflationary change between $25,000 in 1991 and today would be, but it would be considerable.

What is important with respect to the provision in Bill C-47, and the change to the penalty for a summary conviction, is that the intent is to ensure that Canadians and those who are subject to the provisions of the Export and Import Permits Act are understanding the fact that its offences are serious, and that an offence under the act is serious.

Indeed, there are changes to the Criminal Code, which perhaps Robert can speak to, in Bill C-47 that embeds the offences under the Export and Import Permits Act.

From a perspective as the administrator of the Export and Import Permits Act and the program, I'm being told there are other examples of summary conviction penalties in other statutes, which we also took a look at. The United Nations Act has, as its summary conviction penalty, up to $100,000. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act has up to $300,000, so this ensures consistency.

My point would be that it is very important for Canadian exporters, who are subject to the Export and Import Permits Act—and soon, should Parliament adopt Bill C-47, Canadian brokers—to understand the seriousness of complying with the act, and their responsibility to apply for an export permit or a brokering permit, and then to abide by the terms of those permits.

It simply modernizes this provision in the existing EIPA, and we believe sends an important signal to encourage compliance with the act and all of its provisions.

[Robert Brookfield]

It adds to the maximum for summary convictions. The indictable offences provision already exists to provide an unlimited amount of potential fines, so this is really giving tools for prosecutors to ask and for judges to order larger amounts in the case of the prosecution and conviction.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I want to pick up on one point you mentioned in your preamble. You mentioned in some of your comments the effect this will have in certain vulnerable countries.

The latest statistics I've read is that right now the illegal arms trade in Africa is about $18 billion U.S. annually. That equals the amount of foreign aid that Africa receives, which is about 15% of GDP if you drill down that number.

By trying to make this a more transparent process, and maybe trying to redirect that development aid, how do you think the implementation will be on the ground for this treaty? Where do you see the benefits in Canada trying to accede to this treaty, not only to maintain our leadership in world affairs but also to implement it, and affect the people we're trying to save in all countries?