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?