Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for joining us, Mr. Christie. My thanks to all your colleagues who are also here to help us with the work of our committee.
It is no secret that a number of people are hailing the decision announced yesterday by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nevertheless, it must be said that many human lives were likely lost in coming to that decision. Alarm bells were certainly ringing. There is an Arabic proverb, I am told, saying that when something happens to us once, it's not our fault, when it happens to us twice, it may be a coincidence, but when it happens three times, it is our fault.
In the case before us, you yourself pointed out that, in 2019, questions had been raised following Turkey's incursion into northern Syria. In December 2019, the United Nations panel of experts on Libya submitted a report to the UN Security Council. The report indicated that Turkey and others had routinely supplied arms to the parties to the conflict in Libya, sometimes blatantly and with little effort to disguise the source.
Then came the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Meanwhile, Canada had approved the export of equipment, some of which, as we know, was used to manufacture drones. They were used not only in Libya but also in the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and possibly in northern Syria. After at least two alarm bells, we approved, a little casually, I would say, the export of that equipment to Turkey.
Is that not a high price to pay?