I think we would simply say that, from a human rights research perspective, sadly the U.S. record speaks for itself.
Those are commendable things that you heard in your briefing, but I also shared with you recent research that we've carried out that documents flagrant disregard for crucial standards regarding international human rights and international humanitarian law.
We have documented the fact that weapons from the United States are being used by Saudi forces to commit war crimes in Yemen, for instance. It was the U.S. Department of Defense's own audit, which we then dug into in greater detail, that revealed these recent concerns. A full $1 billion's worth of weapons transferred to Iraq and Kuwait, a very volatile part of the world—Iraq most obviously an area where there is a multiplicity of parties responsible for grave human rights violations and abuses—cannot be accounted for. That's $1 billion's worth of weapons.
Provisions that may be in place are certainly not delivering the goods when it comes to guaranteeing to the international community—but in our particular context, Canada, an actual arms trade partner with the United States—that it won't lead to those kind of violations. That's why we say that more than one-half of our arms transfers cannot be exempted from this legislation and from the scope of the treaty. In many respects—I'll use strong language here—in our view, to exempt one-half of Canada's arms trade from the legislation and application of the treaty makes a mockery of our accession.