Foreign Affairs Committee on April 27th, 2021

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

Is there then an obligation under the ATT to get assurances from the government involved that there will be no diversion to a third party or to a third country, or is that the end of the story?

[Kelsey Gallagher]

My colleagues are welcome to jump in here. An end-user certificate is implied to be the assurance. At the that there is perceived to be some risk, that could be mitigated by further assurances, verbal or written, whereby you go to the end-user—the consignee—and say that you want to be certain these won't be diverted, misused or so forth. That would be an additional assurance and therefore a mitigation measure.

[Cesar Jaramillo]

Absolutely. Any deviation from the end-user assurances is categorically a violation of the Arms Trade Treaty. There is no question about that. We cannot—

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

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we have limited time. If the end-user is Baykar and they take it, put it in a drone and they're the end-user and they say that's fine, there's really no control beyond that. The consignee, being Baykar, can presumably then sell it to whomever that company wants. Canada has no control over that. That seems to me to be a big hole, if that's correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Just give a very brief answer, please, in the interest of time.

[Kelsey Gallagher]

This could certainly be viewed as a loophole. We see this with other Canadian products, namely Pratt & Whitney Canada engines. The end-user is viewed as the company that's putting it into an airplane; therefore, the end-user would be viewed as Switzerland, which has a stellar human rights record. That plane is then turned around and provided to a serial human rights abuser. Yes, that is certainly something that should be addressed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Colleagues, we're inside of 10 minutes of scheduled time with our witnesses. I would propose, if the committee agrees, that we go to a quick round, allowing each party to ask a follow-up question of up to three minutes. Everybody will get a chance to ask that second question. This is respectful of our witnesses' time, but also of the constraints of our colleagues and the House of Commons. If we're okay to proceed on that basis, I would ask Mr. Chong to lead us off, with a brief question-and-answer follow-up.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to follow up on what Mr. Jaramillo has talked about, about his view that no political consideration should come into play when evaluating the applications for these permits.

I just want to note that in April 2020, last year, the Canadian government announced an extension of the ban on arms exports that had been put in place earlier, and subsequent to that announcement, the Prime Minister had a phone call on Thursday, April 23, 2020 with Turkish President Erdogan. The Prime Minister's readout made no mention of any discussion of arms exports during that call, but there were plenty of reports outside of Canada from reputable news organizations that indicated the arms export ban was discussed.

In fact, there is a publication by the name of Middle East Eye that Jamal Khashoggi used to write for prior to joining The Washington Post. There was a news article in that publication that indicated that President Erdogan had called Prime Minister Trudeau to discuss the ban. A Turkish official is quoted in the story, referring to the Prime Minister, as saying:

'Trudeau didn't provide any reasoning for his decision to extend the ban in the call', the Turkish official said. 'He said they would take some steps to alleviate Turkish concerns regarding the exports; that they would review everything case by case.'

I just want that on the record because there was some discussion earlier about political considerations in the approval of these exports.

I have a quick question for Mr. Jaramillo.

Earlier in testimony at another committee meeting we had, you indicated that Switzerland and other countries have a post-approval process by which they go to the country to verify that the conditions of the permit are being upheld. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

[Cesar Jaramillo]

On the first point, I want to make it very clear that it is not a matter of opinion or interpretation to say that there should not be political interference. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but I am saying it should not happen, and certainly not in a country like Canada that prizes itself on having strong export controls. It should not be. The relevant legislation, domestic or international, does not make allowances for such political interference.

On the question of post-export verification, I think the circumstances and this very experience show the dire need for Canada to establish effective post-export monitoring and verification mechanisms, whether it be through its consulates in the recipient countries or through other measures, and consult with allies as appropriate to establish such mechanisms so that we can be assured that our exports are not being misused and that the end-user assurances are being upheld.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much.

We'll have Ms. Sahota, please, for three minutes.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Pytlak, I want to get your view. We've heard from a panel before you as well, and there has been a lot of conversation about having an independent, impartial arms export control agency, but I haven't heard a lot of examples given as to what we should model this export agency after.

Also, regarding the test that has been talked about, the test needs to be changed, and it needs to be a risk-based test. If we were to move to such a test, I want to have more examples of what that test would look like and whether having such a test would create very unstable conditions for our defence production industries, our economy here, or if it would it give our businesses stability in knowing that they can continue production of certain goods because they would have a market for them.

[Allison Pytlak]

Those are very good questions.

On the question of risk, this is the language of the Arms Trade Treaty. The treaty says “overriding” risk, but I know that the Canadian government uses “serious” risk. Other countries use “clear” risk. This has actually been a subject at the Arms Trade Treaty meetings that have been taking place this week. Intersessionally they've been unpacking and comparing how different states parties understand and use these different terms across their own implementation of the treaty.

The risk criteria are already there, which I think sometimes is easy to forget in looking for the certainty of what will happen with the item in question. It is really important to be mindful of the fact that the treaty is meant to assess for the risk of something happening. I do think that the more states parties to the ATT can engage with one another and provide examples of what that looks like when they've made denials based on risk helps build international understanding around what that looks like practically. That might help give some of the certainty that you're speaking of to those who are concerned.

I completely agree that parliamentary oversight or some other independent oversight mechanism would be a really good route to go in Canada and elsewhere. I think it sort of speaks to some of the concerns that Cesar and Kelsey raised around the possible politicization of processes and arms transfer decision-making. I think it also speaks to why we have these export controls in international law and checks and balances in the first place. I really welcome this committee having a conversation about this today. I meet often with legislators from different countries in the context of ATT work, and my impression is that it's a very big issue. International arms trading is a very dense issue. The more that can be done to build capacity understanding on that will really improve arms export controls globally.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Very quickly—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Ms. Sahota. We're out of time.

Mr. Bergeron, you have the floor for three minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

We know that Turkey and Canada are allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, a defensive military organization. Obviously, allies tend to want to help each other out so that all allies are as well equipped as possible for collective defence.

With that in mind, would you say that Turkey is using its NATO membership to obtain high-tech products from its allies, which it then uses to develop extremely effective weapons for local or regional conflicts, thereby increasing its geostrategic influence?

[Cesar Jaramillo]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron. I would say that Turkey has certainly shown itself willing to leverage its membership in NATO to get other countries to skirt their Arms Trade Treaty obligations. We cannot control that. We cannot control what the Turkish government does or the phone calls their political leaders make. What we can control is the strength of our own export decisions, our authorizations and our denials.

To be blunt, NATO membership does not in itself generate a reason for an exemption or different treatment or differential treatment of Turkey. They can try it, but we should not allow it.

In the final report on exports to Turkey, which was issued just weeks ago, the Canadian government says they are assessing export permits on a case-by-case basis and assessing whether there are exceptional circumstances, including NATO co-operation programs. I will tell this committee that from the perspective of the Arms Trade Treaty, which we follow very closely—we have attended every conference of states parties—that is not a valid exemption. Allies don't let allies commit human rights violations. Allies don't enable allies to skirt obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

We fully understand that no permits were granted to export this equipment to Azerbaijan. These were permits granted for exports to Turkey. The understanding was that Turkey shouldn't use these weapons outside its borders in offensive missions or in regional theatres of operations.

Should our recent experience prompt Canada to pay much closer attention to how it conducts business with its NATO allies or any other alliance?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Make it a brief answer, please.

[Cesar Jaramillo]

Yes, it should, but the risk was foreseeable at the time that the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh erupted. Turkey had already exhibited similar behaviour and Canadian equipment had already been found in places where it shouldn't have been.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

For the final round of interventions this afternoon we will turn the floor over to Mr. Harris for three minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Jaramillo, may I suggest that caution needs to be used when we hear about including exemptions related to NATO operations. That's been used in the past to also indicate that there are several other exemptions, including the one in relation to bilateral relations and interference in bilateral relations. I would be concerned about that if I were you.

I wanted to ask another question of you, Mr. Jaramillo, in relation to the concerns about Libya and the fact that there was an arms embargo in place. Is your assessment about Libya influenced at all by the fact that Turkey was supporting a United Nations-recognized government there? Is that a factor in that consideration? Why, or why not?

[Cesar Jaramillo]

I can appreciate the question, but I cannot speculate as to the factors that were in place.

I can say with certainty that the embargo was in place and there was every expectation that the Canadian government would have known. If exports continue despite an arms embargo, there are only two explanations. One is willful blindness: They knew, but didn't act on it. The second is, perhaps embarrassingly, that we didn't know when we've should have known.

Neither one really paints a positive picture about the strength of our export control system.

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

You're still asserting that this makes Canada in violation of the arms embargo as well?

[Cesar Jaramillo]

Yes, indeed, and it's in violation of the Arms Trade Treaty, which specifically prohibits exports to countries where there is an arms embargo in place.

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

Thank you.

I have one question in relation to the issue of gender-based obligations.

Do you share Global Affairs Canada's assessment that there's no substantial risk of gender-based violence in the context of arms export to Turkey? You did mentioned something about that, Ms. Pytlak. Could you elaborate on that slightly?