I'd like to quickly go back to the original question to note that it's not just a matter of the strength of the end-user certificates, and so on, that the U.S. has. It's the fact that they have quite different criteria for determining whether an export should be allowed. A very obvious example is Pakistan. We haven't exported any military equipment directly to Pakistan since they tested nuclear weapons using our technology. However, the United States has no compunction in that regard. Similarly, there was recent export of fighter aircraft to Nigeria where Canada I think wouldn't agree with that.
We're surrendering. We're surrendering our judgment as to where the goods should go if the United States is not part of our implementation of the ATT.
With respect to all of article 7 being in the regulations, that's wonderful, except for the government's own description of those regulations, which is in the summary at the beginning of Bill C-47. It says:
This enactment amends the Export and Import Permits Act to (b) authorize the making of regulations that set out mandatory considerations that the Minister is required to take into account
Presumably they mean the article 7 considerations, except that is not sufficient. Under the ATT they're not just to be taken into account; they shall be applied. That's the problem. The problem is not that they're not going to list all the items in article 7 of the ATT; it's what the minister has to do with them, how his discretion is or is not fettered.
The final point with respect to regulations, because I think a very important point was brought up, is flexibility. Why do we have regulations? We want to be flexible. I would argue that the appropriate procedure would be to have what is required. We know now that the article 7 criteria are required. They're obligatory under the Arms Trade Treaty. Put those in the act, in Bill C-47, but, of course, allow for regulations to update, to refine, in all of the areas that were mentioned. That way, you have the core in the act, and then you have flexibility for adding new items as required.