Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, for outlining some of the concerns that members of both your groups have with Bill C-47. I would describe them as very reasonable concerns, and I appreciate your expressing them in a little more detail today.
For your benefit, I will speak for a moment on where we've been so far in committee, and then I will have a few questions specific to your concerns.
First, we heard from government officials from the trade and export controls bureau that essentially Canada had one of the world's leading import and export regimes. I added to the testimony to say we've had that since the war.
They weren't able to give detail on any of the violations you were referring to, Mr. Torino. They said that they don't know of any violations in a brokering aspect or under the act as it currently stands, but they have undertaken to get that.
Ms. Gilmour who appeared said that we're already complying with 26 of the 28 elements of the ATT, and have done since long before the UN brought forward a treaty. In fact, the two elements—really there's just one, the brokering changes, and the second element is a change from policy to law. Policy has already been implemented, since the Mulroney government, and they are going to change from a policy direction into law. You could say there's really only one change being made by this legislation because there hasn't been a problem in Canada.
We recently heard from Amnesty International that they view this as not a step forward because the U.S. and mainly the large military equipment exporters around the world are not parties to this ATT.
That's why we're here today, and now we're hearing from those concerned.
Mr. Torino, you mentioned that you were involved as an adviser on the ATT from 2006 to 2014. Did Canada ask for an explicit carve-out, not in the preamble, but in the treaty itself? Did Canada advance that specific exemption for lawful firearm users, sport shooters, or hunters as part of the UN discussions on the treaty?