Foreign Affairs Committee on April 27th, 2021

[Peggy Mason]

Thank you very much.

The Arms Trade Treaty legal obligations give no exemption for allies. Every country that you might export to is an ally of another country. The Arms Trade Treaty obligations have to be applied fully in respect of all prospective recipient countries. We don't have an international legal obligation to export arms, but we do have an international legal obligation to export those arms in accordance with the obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty.

I think that's a very, very important point. In other words, the balancing analogy is not accurate.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I'm sorry, Mr. Waters, but maybe you can include that in your response to another member.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

If you have a very quick answer, Professor Waters, we'll give you the time.

[Christopher Waters]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree with both Professor Byers and Ambassador Mason about some of the proposed solutions.

Dr. Fry, in respect of the question of looking at two sides with intransigent views, at the very least, I think Canada should have engaged and pressed more robustly for progress with the OSCE Minsk Group. I'm not saying that Canada's involvement would have been a game-changer—it probably wouldn't have—but we should have been there really pressing hard for that process.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Dr. Fry.

Mr. Bergeron, you now have the floor for six minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I want to thank our witnesses for their contribution to the work of this committee. We appreciate it. Unfortunately, we still don't have enough time to delve deeper into the issues.

I have a question for Ms. Mason, the former ambassador.

Ms. Mason, when the Government of Canada decided, based on an extremely lenient report by Global Affairs Canada, to lift the moratorium on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the Prime Minister defended himself. He said that the government would appoint Minister Champagne to this department, along with an independent panel of experts with a mandate to advise us on whether to authorize a given arms sale.

Several months and one minister later, this panel still doesn't exist. We met with Global Affairs Canada officials a few days ago. When I asked about this issue, I was told that the panel was still being set up. However, a number of civil society organizations have written to the minister to express their interest in being part of the panel. Global Affairs Canada hasn't responded to the civil society organizations that expressed interest.

Do you see this attitude on the part of Global Affairs Canada as a way of indefinitely postponing the establishment of the panel so that it can continue to do whatever it wants, basically?

[Peggy Mason]

In short, that's unfortunately the case. Since civil society didn't have the opportunity to virtually consult this panel of experts, we missed the signs pointing to the seriousness of the situation.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I was talking about a lenient report prepared by Global Affairs Canada to authorize the lifting of the moratorium on arms sales to Saudi Arabia. We're dealing with a report of the same ilk, so to speak, on the sale of military equipment to Turkey. According to the report, there was no substantial risk that Canadian military goods and technology exported to Turkey would be used to undermine peace and security or to commit or facilitate any of the negative consequences listed in the act.

In light of such a lenient report on the sale of arms or military equipment, which has been used in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, possibly in Syria, and perhaps in Libya as well, how can we say that this doesn't undermine peace and security and yet decide to put a definitive stop to exports?

If these exports truly didn't undermine peace and security, why are we suddenly deciding to suspend the sale of this equipment to Turkey? Isn't Canada's position contradictory?

[Peggy Mason]

Yes, there's an absolute direct conflict. The difference is quite clear, because The Globe and Mail got evidence on the ground. It hired someone on the ground to take those pictures of the captured Wescam technology, and it couldn't be disputed.

While there's an abundance of evidence with respect to Canadian complicity in human rights violations in Yemen, with Saudi Arabia's use of Canadian-made equipment, there is no smoking gun. It's not as direct. There are many photos, but the photos are unofficial, and you don't have the kinds of statements that The Globe and Mail was able to make. Unfortunately, even though there is a huge amount of evidence, there's also another factor.

When you finally show photos, and show that LAVs have been involved, it is said, “Oh, those are old LAVs, they're not the new ones we're exporting”. That is an extraordinary statement, but even if true, the contract also includes ongoing service and maintenance of older vehicles.

There again, Canada is complicit, and it is not looking for any possible ways to stop these exports. It's really important to understand that Canada is one of the few, if not the last exporting nation, standing when it comes to this, including France. It's not the norm. Most of our allies stopped some time ago.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Would any of the witnesses like to comment on this?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

In terms of international peace and security, the Government of Canada knew as early as 2019 that Turkey was violating the United Nations arms embargo in Libya and that it was doing so with the type of drone that is, in fact, built around the Wescam system.

Even though the government did not have proof that Wescam equipment was being used in Lybia, there was certainly, within the expert community, no doubt whatsoever that we were implicated there. That should have been enough to stop the issuing of further arms export permits to Turkey.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

Thank you very much, Professor Byers.

We will now turn the floor over to Mr. Harris, for the final round of six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

First of all, Professor Byers, it's nice to see you again after so many intervening years. Thank you for coming to the committee.

You talked about the necessity of the current minister, Mr. Garneau, ensuring that there's a robust assessment of risk by Global Affairs Canada. One of the constant mantras of the previous minister—and even being told by officials within Global Affairs—is that we have one of the most robust arms-control systems in the world. Is there any credibility to that assessment, sir?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

Thank you for that question. It's good to see you again.

The assertion that Canada has one of the most robust systems is false. There is a loophole the size of a bus in our implementing legislation, and that concerns exports to the United States. Right there is a fatal flaw in that assertion.

Second, the actual implementing legislation does not completely fulfill the Arms Trade Treaty. They keep talking about substantial risk. Substantial risk is not the language used in the Arms Trade Treaty. You're required to take mitigating measures, and if there's an overriding risk in terms of those mitigation measures' being insufficient, then you can't export. So, it's not substantial risk; it's whether you can mitigate or not, whether you can eliminate risk. Even there the department is putting forward a bit of a misrepresentation as to what Canada's international legal obligations are.

But then, as I said in my introductory remarks, the department has gone on to apply the implementing legislation as narrowly as possible. For instance, it's arguing that these targeting systems will make a widget on the side of a naval ship when, in fact, they're the core of the system. It's narrowing the geographic and temporal scope. In other words, it's trying to balance the economic incentive for exports against the implementing legislation and is consistently failing to get it right.

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

What do you make of some of the exemptions that were developed over the course of...well, going from what allegedly was a ban in October 2019, which wasn't a ban at all—in fact, the department wasn't able to articulate what had been decided because there was no memorandum on it—to, in April, easing and doing them on a case-by-case basis, with exemptions that included good bilateral relations with partners—and in October we had a suspension. There's all of this very fluid kind of information with, apparently, no real control. What do you make of all of that?

[Dr. Michael Byers]

Oh, I think it's mostly smoke and mirrors designed to mislead people like you.

For instance, suspending the granting of new arms exports without touching existing arms exports really wasn't accomplishing very much apart from enabling the department to say it was doing something.

Now, the actual cancellation of the export permits, like Mr. Garneau did on April 12, is meaningful, and again I celebrate that. I hope you'll follow through with clear instructions to his department that the Arms Trade Treaty has to come first, that they have to stop compromising on our obligations.

But, no, the whole history is actually quite sordid. It shows a pretense at actually implementing, rather than dealing with our obligation seriously.

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

Professor Waters, I have a question.

You, obviously, talked about the relationships or the goings-on in Nagorno-Karabakh, but the department seemed to be making the case that they didn't know anything was going on in Azerbaijan until September, until they read Ploughshares' piece, etc. However, in the memos being released through our request for documents, there's reference to Global Affairs owing the minister's office a response to some questions as discussed at an April 21 briefing—and this is from the minister's office. For Azerbaijan, the question is as follows:

Azerbaijan: [Redaction] Could the item be used in the Nagano Karabakh conflict? Does the company still want the product—have we confirmed that with them?

What does that indicate to you, sir—on May 22 referring back to an April 21 ministerial briefing and an unanswered question?

[Christopher Waters]

Mr. Chair, what that raises to me is this: Why are we relying on Project Ploughshares? Thank goodness they had the temerity and the resourcefulness to bring this to everyone's attention, but why are we relying on an NGO when the NGO Project Ploughshares themselves have said in previous testimony before this committee that Global Affairs Canada has many times more resources.

I believe that any deep reading of the intelligence would have revealed—including because of Azeri arms sales and joint exercises—that there was a build-up of forces and that Turkey was behind this.

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

We also have a reference to a memorandum sent by our embassy in Ankara. I think they called it a “flash report” from Canada's embassy in Turkey highlighting a major escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The flash report also mentions that in June 2020, Turkey and Azerbaijan announced Azerbaijan's purchase of six TB2 drones but that the deal's completion had not been confirmed—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Harris, I apologize. We'll have to leave it there in the interest of time, but you'll have a chance to circle back in the second round on that question. It's on the record as you've stated it.

Colleagues, we've gone through the first round of questions. If we're disciplined, we should be able to get through a partial second round, at least to the point that every party represented will have a chance to ask its round of questions. Why don't we go straight into that second round now with a five-minute allotment for Mr. Chong?

Please go ahead.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you. I just have a quick question for Professor Waters before I go to Madam Mason and Professor Byers.

In April last year, the Prime Minister and the Turkish president had a phone call meeting. There were reports at the time that the issue of the arms export ban had come up and there were reports that the Prime Minister had agreed to take a look at it.

Do you think that was the point at which Canada decided to approve these drone systems for export?

[Christopher Waters]

Mr. Chair, I don't have any knowledge at all on that point, sorry.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Okay, thank you.

I have a question now for Madame Mason and Professor Byers about something they've been talking about, which is the establishment of an arm's-length agency to assess arms exports.

I'm always a bit hesitant about creating a new Government of Canada agency. The last time I checked, I think there were some 204 “ABCDs”, to use an acronym for them. It reminds me of a book I once read by Joseph Tainter about the collapse of complex societies, and I think at some point his thesis was that, by tacking on another agency, you get negative marginal returns.

That said, can you tell us what set-up other countries have and what best practice is in other countries for the assessment of these arms exports? Do they have independent agencies? How do they set it up? What are other countries' models that we can look at?

[Peggy Mason]

There haven't, insofar as we can determine, been any. No country that we've been able to find has set up an independent agency, so this would be groundbreaking for Canada. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before, most of the other countries, allies, are doing a much better job in-house of managing their obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty, so perhaps this is—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Mason, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you've worked at Foreign Affairs before. We were told by some of the officials that they process some 6,000 applications, and if that's on an annual basis, that has to be 120 a week.

How many people work in that group, roughly? Are we talking dozens and dozens, or a dozen? Do you know how many people work in that group?