Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 7th, 2017

[Christyn Cianfarani]

Right now, imports and exports are tracked under the three programs: the controlled goods program, the Export and Imports Permits Act, and the automatic firearms country control list. Effectively, as a Canadian, when you export, you are tracked into which regimes you are selling your goods and services.

What the UN ATT will do is look at the third parties that are acting as agents or brokers, which is that extra layer of movement of goods and services between countries, from country to country, by an agent or a third party. That additional activity is heavily targeted on the movement or diversion of defence goods and services between nation-states and between organizations and persons.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. Saini.

Mr. Sidhu, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all three of you for your testimony this morning. I think the pressure is on Ms. Cianfarani.

[Christyn Cianfarani]

I'm a popular lady, I suppose.

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

You mentioned that $10-billion industry and that we have 650 outfits producing firearms. It's good that you're protecting human suffering, but my thinking at the other level is about what kind of mechanism your associations has so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

We see that once a week around the world we have a mass shooting. How do we prevent that? What's your take on that?

[Christyn Cianfarani]

Our obligations under the regulations begin and end with the conclusion of our contracts. Effectively, we're governed under these regulations from the time at which we enter into a contract with a third party or a nation-state to the time of completion of that contract with the third party.

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

Okay.

[Christyn Cianfarani]

I would also like to point out that I'm not sure in your prelude whether or not your facts were aligned.

We're 63,000 Canadians, about 800 companies—ISED will tell you about 650—and 4% of our industry deals in small arms, firearms, and munitions. The vast majority of our industry makes aircraft components, parts, and maintenance, repair and overhaul for airframes.

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

You mentioned Canada's absence from the ATT. Now with Canada's accession to the ATT, what kind of impact do you think it's going to have on your industry, being the Canadian part of that?

[Christyn Cianfarani]

Well again, this will add additional activities within our corporations to regulate, track, and record, and most likely additional governance structures for the activity of brokering within our companies.

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

Can you compare other countries that have benefited in being part of the ATT?

[Christyn Cianfarani]

I haven't done any studies on other countries and their behaviours with respect to the UN ATT and whether or not that's changed their behaviours.

I would suggest that would be a study that would have been undertaken by Global Affairs Canada vis-à-vis Canada's position and other nations.

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

Is there anybody else on the panel who would speak to that?

Mr. Woodley.

[Thomas Woodley]

Relating it to the previous question by Mr. Saini, when I was talking to members of Parliament about the Saudi arms deal, a lot of people, as I mentioned a moment ago, had concerns about it but didn't want to go up publicly against the deal. One of the excuses I heard for the deal was that if Canada doesn't sell these arms to the Saudis, somebody else will.

I think in terms of levelling the playing field, if we can get everyone to sign on to the ATT, then you won't have a situation like, “Well we're missing out on this business, because if we don't do it, the Russians or Germany or Italy will do it”, or something like that.

I think it's important for all countries to have an honest implementation of the ATT, such that these rogue regimes don't have recourse to go to another country that will sell them those arms. I think it does level the playing field in a very important way, as long as everyone implements it in an honest way according to the intent of the treaty itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. Saini.

[Anna Macdonald]

If I may add as well, I would say, yes, we've seen some impact already from the ATT when we look at the arms transfer decisions that governments are making around the world. Previously, there was no global regulation on the conventional weapons trade. We had a patchwork system of regulations where some individual countries had export controls that were quite strong, others had weak controls, and some had none at all.

One of the positive things that we've seen already with the 92 states parties that we currently have and 40 or so additional signatory countries is governments moving to put controls in place for both the export and import and also the transit of weapons through their territories, which is an important step towards reducing the diversion that a previous questioner was talking about. Diversion is clearly an enormous problem particularly in the field of small arms and light weapons, but not only for that, in terms of the illicit trade.

When we have analyzed specific countries, for example, relating to what Thomas was just saying with regard to arms exports to Saudi Arabia, we have seen some countries have stopped their arms exports to Saudi Arabia and associated coalition partners because of the humanitarian atrocities taking place in Yemen. Others have placed additional restrictions on their authorization mechanisms to reduce the number of weapons that are going to Saudi Arabia because of the conflict and the situation in Yemen. Yes, we are starting to see some changes in government behaviour both in terms of decision that they're making, and also around the world, importantly, in the establishment of systems where there were previously none.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Ms. Macdonald.

We'll go to Mr. O'Toole, please.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses today.

I'm going to use what little time I have to ask Ms. Cianfarani some questions.

It's nice to see you. We served in the military together. You've transitioned very well.

How many people are employed by the aerospace, defence, and security industries, writ large, in Canada?

[Christyn Cianfarani]

There are 63,000 if you take the military portion of the aerospace industry.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

It's probably one of the lead industries in terms of the employment of Canadian Armed Forces veterans.

Would that be fair to say?

[Christyn Cianfarani]

Certainly, a lot of veterans come out and seek employment in the industry. It's very familiar. They know very well the goods and services that we produce.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

That's everything from security right through to flight simulators and the like. Everything would be caught within that industry's scope?

[Christyn Cianfarani]

Absolutely.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

I'm going to refer to the testimony by Mr. Gilmour and Mr. Arbeiter, from the department, who said Bill C-47 was an attempt to “universalize best practices”. Almost all parties have acknowledged Canada has had since about the 1950s these best world-leading practices.

You've mentioned that 26 of 28 elements of the ATT we're already in line with. I would suggest that actually it's 27, because we've had formalized policies since the 1980s and those policies are now going to be law.