Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 10th, 2020

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Of course, they also have the ability to hover or stay on point and identify targets for ground forces or other artillery forces as well, so they can be implicated in other violations even if they're not directly engaged in attacks that themselves violate international human rights obligations. I think that's another factor about drones that's been brought to our attention.

[Kelsey Gallagher]

That's correct.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

That satisfies me on that.

I am concerned about the idea of requiring states to reassess an existing permit when new information becomes available. In October of 2019, when Canada suspended the arms export permits to Turkey—just the granting of new ones, as you pointed out, but not interfering with existing permits—we were told that there were already 15 permits in existence, covering as many as 60 cameras, including replacements if they happened to be damaged. That wasn't interfered with at all.

It appears that these cameras were still being exported, even after the further suspension in April 2020 of arms exports to Turkey, under the previously granted permits.

Can I ask you whether that in itself would be a violation of the Arms Trade Treaty per se, as opposed to Canadian law in particular?

I would direct that to anybody who wishes to answer.

[Peggy Mason]

Could I jump in first?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Yes, Ms. Mason.

[Peggy Mason]

The most basic part of an export permit is an authorization to specific users for specific purposes. If either of those conditions is breached by diversion to an unauthorized user or an unauthorized use, that is a breach of the terms of the export permit. Therefore, the government has the full authority, and actually the obligation under the ATT and Canadian legislation, to stop further exports.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Do you mean even under existing permits?

[Peggy Mason]

Yes, that is even under existing permits. In fact, this business of keeping existing permits going is very unusual. All of the other countries—and with respect to Saudi Arabia, most of our allies—have actually suspended the exports.

Belgium, for example, doesn't export the turrets that go on Canada's armoured vehicles, the LAVs, to Canada because Canada will export them to Saudi Arabia. There's a blanket prohibition on Belgium exporting those turrets to Canada so long as the situation is what it is in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

This business of Canada saying that it has a moratorium, when it really doesn't because it's only new, future permits, is really very troubling. It's not the standard practice of others.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Ms. Mason, we'll have to leave it there.

Thank you very much, Mr. Harris.

We will now go into our second round. The opening series of that round, for five minutes, goes to Mr. Morantz.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here today.

In my short time in Parliament—I was elected in October of 2019—and attending these committees, I don't think I've heard a more damning round of testimony from witnesses regarding the behaviour of our government, a government that prides itself on its transparency in all aspects of its conduct.

It strikes me that this is really the root of the problem here, because we don't know why the export permits for the latest round of the Wescam drones to Turkey were approved. We do know that there was a conversation with the Prime Minister and President Erdogan in late April, and after that permits were approved.

What I'm struggling to understand is that we know there was an issue with diversion already. These Canadian drones wound up in Libya over a year before Canadian drones that were sold to Turkey also wound up in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. If risk assessments are to be taken seriously, how is it possible that the federal government would approve the sale of these drones to Turkey again, knowing that Turkey had already, as a NATO ally, violated the terms of the agreement by diverting technology to Libya?

Maybe Project Ploughshares could have a go at that one first.

[Cesar Jaramillo]

We don't know the details of the risk assessment, but I would emphasize that we do know without a doubt that they have been diverted. I want to emphasize the point that this is not a matter of opinion, speculation or interpretation, or that we're trying to stretch the perceived evidence. This is a watertight case. They have been diverted period, full stop. In fact, we're surprised that the investigation is taking so long and that they haven't come back with a decision of what's going to happen.

You are right. This should have been caught at the risk assessment stage because there was a precedent, and these exports that have now been found in Nagorno-Karabakh should never have happened. The only conclusion we can arrive at—we've been following the Committees on Arms Export Controls for more than 30 years, and we've attended every conference of the Arms Trade Treaty— is that we have a very flawed risk assessment process. Anyone who doubts the notion that we have a flawed risk assessment process should ask him or herself how we can be selling arms to Saudi Arabia, one of the worst violators of human rights on the planet. How come we're selling arms to Turkey, which is known to be diverting these weapons, and not have a flawed risk assessment process?

These incidents have set the bar impossibly low.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

It's clear. I mean, the writing was on the wall after the diversion to Libya. It's just very curious. Maybe we'll get the minister back at some point to ask him how that happened. It's a real curiosity.

Just out of curiosity with this whole issue of diversion, Turkey's a NATO ally. I suspect they're not happy with us because we stopped issuing export permits at this point. How widespread is the problem of diversion? How do other countries deal with it? Is Turkey the only country that we know is doing it, or are there other NATO countries that are buying arms and selling them to other conflict areas?

[Kelsey Gallagher]

Diversion isn't necessarily super uncommon, and it has negative impacts. The proliferation of weapons obviously has negative impacts and is a fuel for conflict. However, other countries, allies of Canada, have gone above and beyond to try to stem the threat of diversion. We've seen some positive examples of how to do this in other state parties to the ATT.

An example we could look at is the regime of post-shipment verification. For instance, Germany and Switzerland have an instrument kind of baked into their authorization. When they're authorizing export permits, there's a clause essentially where, if risk is interpreted, then officials from the country exporting the weapons can go to the recipient and essentially check in and do an on-site investigation to make sure that everything is sound. That is one step that Canada could take immediately to bridge this knowledge gap.

As my colleague Cesar was mentioning, this was an abject failure in Canada's risk assessment. If civil society can dig up examples of diversion occurring from Waterloo, Ontario, then certainly Global Affairs with umpteen times our resources could also do so.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

Those were my questions, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Morantz.

The next round goes to Mr. Fonseca for five minutes, please.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for joining us.

My understanding is that under the ATT, the minister must review the individual permit and the intended end use and user. If there is evidence of the stated answers to things not being the case, such as diversion, the minister then has grounds to suspend.

That's exactly what happened in Nagorno-Karabakh. I'm going to ask Mr. Jaramillo to say whether or not that's what happened in Nagorno-Karabakh.

[Cesar Jaramillo]

Yes, Mr. Fonseca. Thank you. That's a good point.

As I said in my opening remarks, we have been here before, where the government, faced with increased media scrutiny, announces a suspension. I will remind the members of this committee that this was not an instance of the government being proactive in identifying this diversion in Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a result of civil society and media pushing and making these allegations come to light. We didn't see any proactivity there.

In reaction to the media scrutiny, four times in the past three years, the government announced similar suspensions. Three out of the four—and the fourth is still pending—have reverted to the permits being reinstated. Every time, the suspension coincides with heightened media scrutiny and when the media attention dies down, the government reinstates the permits. This is a matter of fact. In the past three instances, they have reinstated permits to Saudi Arabia and to Turkey after the first announcement that we would not sell them anymore.

We're at the fourth instance, so we have to take this suspension with a grain of salt. This is not a matter of bad faith. It's simply looking back at the recent precedents. Every suspension is eventually reinstated. We hope this one sticks, but there are two lessons here. First is that the government was not being proactive. It was faced with this evidence that was put before it. Second, every similar occasion in recent years has not held. It has resulted in going back to the exports being reinstated.

We hope this is not the case with the latest announced suspension.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Jaramillo, I hear you, but the minister suspended them on October 5, and the Globe article—the media, as you are saying—came out on October 30.

[Cesar Jaramillo]

I don't have my dates in front of me.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Those are the dates I have.

[Cesar Jaramillo]

Right. I can't make an educated comment on that because I don't have my timeline in front me. There have been several media reports and there have been reports by civil society related to the arms sales.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

I'm just trying to clarify the timeline. That was the timeline.

Also, Mr. Jaramillo, earlier in some of your remarks to some of the other questioners, you mentioned that we're in a better position today. Can you expand on that?

[Cesar Jaramillo]

Yes. One of the great benefits of the legislative process called Bill C-47, leading to Canada's welcome accession to the Arms Trade Treaty, was the substantial risk clause and the two words “shall not”. As a result of this inclusion of the substantial risk clause, it is not optional.

It used to be that the government had an obligation to consider certain factors, but as long as the factors were considered, the minister could basically authorize exports anywhere. Now, the minister has a legal obligation. If a human rights trigger is identified, then the minister “shall not” authorize those shipments. We are in a stronger position now, because the minister, again, has the obligation to deny certain export permits.

The extent to which this will continue to be implemented remains to be seen.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Mason, the United States under President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the ATT. It was never ratified through the U.S. Senate. What are the prospects for a greater universalization of the ATT in the near term and in the long term?

[Peggy Mason]

It will be interesting to see what happens with the incoming administration, although it is the Senate that would have to approve. That might be difficult. It's important, though.

I think we should bear in mind that on at least three occasions, Congress, on a bipartisan basis, voted to stop American arms exports to Saudi Arabia. It was only President Trump's veto that stopped that. The United States, with respect to Congress, wanted to stop arms exports to Saudi Arabia.

There may not be a likelihood of the United States ratifying the treaty. It's unlikely to get through the Senate. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of pressure in Congress to act in accordance with the international legal obligations.