Yes, I'm nearly finished. It's not very long, and I think it's very relevant to the current exercise, because it talks about exempting those who are not a subject of an application for permits, certificates, and other authorizations under the law. That's about half of our exports and our exports to the United States, so I think this is very pertinent.
Thank you. I will continue:
Second, we like and trust the United States. Sure, Americans are the world's largest arms dealers and consistently provide weapons to useful monsters. And yes, for those who care to inquire it is rather easy to find American-made weapons shooting, bombing, and crushing civilians worldwide. But the Americans are our buddies, and they pay a lot of bills, so there are clear incentives to suggest their arms-export policy is more defensible than it really is.
Let me remind everybody that we're talking about the former human rights adviser to Minister Dion. He continues:
I am not arguing that arms should never be sold, and believe that properly regulated arms sales can be justified. Canadian weapons empower some dubious allies, but our enemies are often worse.
But the sale of weapons is clearly the kind of thing that must be tightly regulated. They are by their nature dangerous and liable to misuse. As we benefit from their sale, we have a responsibility to minimize harm. Profit is complicity.
As the human-rights policy adviser to this government's previous foreign affairs minister, my job was to ask questions like: if we really believe in increasing transparency and accountability in Canadian arms sales, does it make sense to exempt all sales to our biggest customer by far?
Or: shouldn't Canadians know more, for example, about how Americans are selling Super Tucano ground attack aircraft with Canadian-made engines to Nigeria? Fearsome military planes, for an often ruthless government, powered by the maple leaf: this is business as usual and we keep no public record of it.
Whether or not—