Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here today.
If I remember correctly, we met before, in 2012. You appeared before the committee at an information session on negotiations for the Arms Trade Treaty. You were able to share your concerns, which you had an opportunity to present again when you accompanied the Canadian delegation to those negotiations.
I must admit that at the time the Liberal members and we, the members of the NDP, had a lot of trouble understanding why the Conservative government only brought your organizations to New York to take part in these negotiations, and avoided bringing other very well-known organizations such as Project Ploughshares, and others who worked on these issues for years and had acquired great expertise. It seems to us, and we continue to think, that this was not a very balanced representation of Canadian civil society.
Honestly, we have some concerns regarding this bill which are rather different from yours. These concerns are very well summarized in an analysis of the bill done by Michael Byers from the Rideau Institute. The subtitle of that study is interesting. It is “An Act to facilitate arms exports to countries which violate human rights?”
I want to take advantage of having the floor to say that it would be very interesting to have this document distributed to all of the members of this committee for information. I also had the opportunity of asking for it—