House of Commons Hansard #103 of the 35th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was export.
Bill Blaikie NDP Winnipeg—Transcona, MB
Mr. Speaker, I was not here for the previous vote and so I would like the Table to know that I am here for this vote and am voting with my NDP colleagues on this against the motion.
Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC
Mr. Speaker, I am feeling better and I will be voting with my party, that is to say, I will be voting nay.
Marcel Massé Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Speaker, I was absent and I would like it noted that had I been here for the last vote, I would have voted with the government.
Mike Scott Reform Skeena, BC
Mr. Speaker, just to be absolutely clear, I am voting in support of this motion.
Elsie Wayne Progressive Conservative Saint John, NB
Mr. Speaker, I will be voting in favour of the motion.
John Nunziata Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, I will be voting in favour of the motion.
(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)
Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker
I declare the motion carried.
(Motion agreed to and bill referred to a committee.)
The House resumed from November 19 consideration of the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-42, an act to amend the Judges Act and to make consequential amendments to another act; and of the amendment.
Judges ActGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker
The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment of the member for St. Albert to the motion of the Minister of Justice concerning Senate amendments to Bill C-42, an act to amend the Judges Act and to make consequential amendments to another act.
Bob Kilger Liberal Stormont—Dundas, ON
Mr. Speaker, if the House would agree I would propose that you seek unanimous consent that members who voted on the previous motion be recorded as having voted on the motion now before the House, with Liberal members voting nay.
Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral Bloc Laval Centre, QC
Mr. Speaker, members of the official opposition will be voting nay.
Chuck Strahl Reform Fraser Valley East, BC
Mr. Speaker, Reform Party members present will be supporting this amendment unless instructed by the constituents to do otherwise.
John Solomon NDP Regina—Lumsden, SK
Mr. Speaker, New Democratic Party members present this evening will vote no on this issue.
Stephen Harper Reform Calgary West, AB
Mr. Speaker, just for further clarification, I will be voting yes on this motion.
John Nunziata Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, as I almost always do, I will vote with the government on this matter.
(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)
Judges ActGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker
I declare the amendment lost.
It is my duty to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is: the hon. member for Saint John, taxation.
It being 5.45 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business.
Bill Blaikie NDP Winnipeg—Transcona, MB
moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of amending Canada's system of arms export controls by requiring that export permits for military products be granted only after the Department of Foreign Affairs has conducted and tabled in the House of Commons a Security Impact Assessment determining that the proposed export will enhance international security.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask the House to support Motion No. 290 which calls on the government to consider improving Canada's regime for controlling arms exports. I am proposing that the government should be required to determine that a particular export of military equipment would improve international security and table that security impact assessment in the House of Commons before granting an export permit.
This motion addresses the continuing threat that the international arms trade poses to international security over so much of the developing world. The persistence of the trade in arms at unacceptable levels in the aftermath of the cold war is creating a residual harvest of death that must not be overlooked in the sigh of relief that comes from not being as close as we were for years to the nuclear abyss. The arms trade today is fueled both by the hangover of the cold war and by the unabated addiction of the developed economies to the economic spin-offs of military spending.
The hangover is the need to get rid of stockpiles of outdated weapons and equipment while retrieving some economic benefit. In Canada we have seen this aspect of the problem in the government's attempts to peddle Canada's fleet of CF-5s, first to Namibia and now reportedly to the Philippines through some American broker that wants to barter the planes for a gold mine.
Elsewhere, as highlighted recently in a Veterans Against Nuclear Arms newsletter, the American government has recently sold off large quantities of inventoried advanced weaponry to more than 60 countries at bargain basement prices, worsening arms races between Turkey and Greece, Israel and Egypt and Chile and Argentina.
Equally ominous, the Russian arms industry is reported by the International Institute for Strategic Studies to be accumulating large stockpiles of military equipment and supplies that were ordered by the Russian armed forces but for which the Russian state is now in no position to pay.
The arms industries resist the shrinkage of military spending in the wake of the cold war through attempts to persuade governments they still need the "baroque arsenals" of the cold war, to borrow a term from the prominent British disarmament expert, Mary Kaldor, or that they need to continue to invest large sums of money in R and D for new weapons.
They also resist the shrinkage in their opportunities by cultivating new markets in developing countries. In a report released earlier this month, the International Institute for Strategic Studies has shown that the post-cold war decline in the international arms trade has reversed this year as arms suppliers eagerly seek out growing markets in the Middle East financed by rising oil prices and in east Asia, where there is a nascent arms race beginning to spiral into dangerous proportions.
As Oscar Arias, Nobel peace prize winner and former president of Costa Rica, has recently pointed out, there is something perverse in the fact that the five permanent members of the security council who are supposed to be promoting peace are also the five largest arms exporters and hence promoters of war and insecurity.
In Canada, we certainly conform to the perverse trend that Arias points out. There seems to be little indication of a fundamental rethinking of Canadian security policy. At the same time, as reported in recent issues of the Ploughshares Monitor , Canadian exports to non-NATO countries are going up with aggressive marketing in the east Asian region.
Potentially the most dangerous component in the cold war's harvest of death is the continued threat posed by the existence of
stockpiles of nuclear weapons and weapons grade nuclear material. Our cautious optimism about the steps taken recently toward a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty should not lead us to underestimate the scale of the dangers that will persist until the nuclear genie is put back in the bottle.
There is the environmental problem of storing plutonium which remains highly toxic for thousands of years, a problem that directly affects Canada because the Liberal government has expressed support for the idea of burning the world's weapons grade plutonium in Candu reactors and presumably burying the waste somewhere in the Canadian shield.
There is the possibility of nuclear terrorism, either through the theft of a nuclear weapon or through the construction of a nuclear device by a terrorist organization or rogue state.
I found Walter Lequeur's conclusion in a recent article in Foreign Affairs that such an event, far from a remote possibility, was better described as ``apocolyse soon'', to be highly unsettling. Not to mention that if Candus in Canada begin to use plutonium it will only be a matter of time before other Candu possessing countries argue that they too could have access to plutonium, with all the danger that such a development would involve for nuclear weapons proliferation.
The Liberal government's decision to go ahead with the sale of a Candu reactor to China, with no environmental assessment or public consultation, and in the full knowledge of China's willingness to help some countries develop a nuclear capability, gives Canada little moral authority to preach to the world about nuclear responsibility.
The flourishing of the arms trade and the persistence of the nuclear threat, despite the end of the cold war, has been a matter of immense disappointment, if not surprise, to those who thought that there were grounds for optimism at the end of the cold war in 1989.
For one thing, the collapse of the communist regimes came about in large part as a result of the mobilizing of popular democratic movements. If people power could bring down the military industrial complex in the east there was the prospect that the much more developed democracies could so in the west, especially since the military contest which had legitimized grotesque levels of public expenditures on the military had disappeared.
There were, therefore, high expectations that the end of the cold war could bring a large peace dividend to the former contestants in the cold war and to the international community at large. Military budgets could be greatly reduced and public spending could be redirected to more socially useful ends. International assistance could be given over entirely to legitimate development programs rather than military assistance.
This optimism rested on the assumption that with the end of the cold war and its horrifyingly surreal definition of international security as residing in the nuclear balance of terror, it would open up some political space for an authentic conception of international security as residing in the elimination of poverty, respect for the environment, respect for basic human and political rights and the notion of common security as opposed to collective security based on nuclear terror.
Governments could spend on international development and engage constructively in the political development of many developing societies as a way of achieving genuine international security rather than propping up authoritarian regimes as cold war stooges and militarizing their regional conflicts.
This assumption has not proved true. In the first place, the madness of the nuclear arms race and balance of terror has not given way to the hoped for conception of common security based on strengthening the international community through poverty reduction and environmental protection. It has instead been replaced by a vision of international society in some powerful circles which attaches no meaning or value to the international community at all, and which prefers a world where the U.S. plays the role of global policemen picking and choosing what merits intervention and concern. The jobs can sometimes be contracted out to countries like Canada as long as there are no vital strategic interests at stake.
In this dominant, neo-liberal vision of the world as a giant, unified marketplace, a playground for the few hundred multinationals that dominate international trade and where states are increasingly becoming marginal actors, the idea of common security is as scarce as the idea of the common good.
Globalization usually figures centrally in criticisms of the drift of the world economy. However, it must also be of great concern to those concerned about international conflict and the arms trade.
The proponents of globalization offer no prescription for the deep poverty and social and institutional underdevelopment of so many societies rooted in the accelerated polarization that is taking place as the market becomes the only forum for the international community. The resulting poverty and environmental degradation will be the main source of international conflict in the coming years.
A second danger posed by globalization is the complete absence of a moral compass for public policy generally and foreign and defence policy particularly. The growth of the notion that states do not have responsibilities that may interfere with the commercial interests of companies has led to the neutering of the state as a morally proactive agent in the arms trade as in so many other areas of public policy.
When the president of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada says, as quoted in the June issue of the Ploughshares Monitor that ``it is not for those who manufacture or assemble weapons to grapple with the moral issue of who the arms should or should not be sold to'', we are not surprised.
However, it is outrageous for the Liberal government to adopt such a position. When the Minister of Industry says, quoting again the same issue of the Ploughshares Monitor , that ``We need to recognize that there are and always will be conflicts-that we have Canadian defence firms with expertise, we have Canadians who are employed in these businesses, and we want them to succeed''. When we hear that kind of quote we know that the moral handicap which I talked about is now epidemic and metastasizing throughout the body politic.
The ethos of globalization has not offered a new vision of international security. It not only offers no solutions to the development problems that fuel international conflict and hence the arms trade, it offers no moral regime in the context of which governments could regulate the arms trade, which like all other human endeavours in the dominant market paradigm is seen as a market opportunity rather than as an ethical challenge.
Let me now turn to the particular problems of Canadian involvement in the international arms trade and propose a way forward to meet the challenges of developing a responsible public policy in response to the arms trade.
The Canadian defence industry is, according to the 1995 report of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agent, the 10th largest exporter in the world. Since the end of the cold war it has experienced a loss of American orders and has become proportionately more dependent on Canadian government orders. However, it has managed to catch the international trend and capture a growing export market in non-NATO countries.
One of the defining characteristics of Canadian exports is its role as a supplier of parts and components to American suppliers, a trait that led a recent Ploughshares Monitor article to label the Canadian industry as a bit player.
These exports are unregulated and unreported, making it difficult to trace the end user of parts. This has not stopped others from reporting on how often Canadian exports end up in the hands of regimes with appalling human rights records or who are engaged in destabilizing defence policies.
It also means that the policy decisions about where our military exports should be permitted is handed over to the Americans, not a very reassuring situation. When the Pentagon advises the Clinton administration, as it recently has, to lift the ban on exporting high technology weapons to Latin America, Canada becomes a silent partner to such a disastrous policy. To allow Latin American militaries access to high tech weapons threatens to turn back the clock on the process of democratization. It will reinvigorate the military establishments, whose past excesses are contained only under very fragile truces with civilian authorities in many Latin American societies, and will siphon moneys badly needed for social development into the sinkhole of growing military budgets.
What needs to be done to improve this situation? At the most fundamental level, Canadians need to insist on at least a little intellectual consistency in Canadian defence and foreign policy from the Liberal government.
The government cannot take a leading role in the movement to abolish anti-personnel mines, a commendable course of action, and turn a blind eye to the export of arms or components through American intermediaries to human rights abusers.
The government cannot take pride in the peacekeeping operations of the Canadian Armed Forces and at the same time allow Canadian arms exporters to supply arms to the same local conflicts which the peacekeepers might be sent to address.
Look at Canadian military exports to Turkey, which totalled close to $26 million from the years 1990 to 1993, and may include a potential sale of CF-5s to the Turkish air force. Why should a government that otherwise professes to be seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict between Turkey and Greece, or the Turkish government and the Kurdish community in Turkey for that matter, be arming the Turkish government?
The same could be said of the dramatic cuts in Canadian development assistance under the Liberals. They are part of the international trend to abandon the poorest of the poor to the mercies of the global market, a policy which will only engender more international and civil conflict and the need for even more peacekeeping missions.
You should not boast of your skills as a firefighter if in your spare time you are an arsonist, or at the very least play a lot with matches.
The motion I am putting forward today is a proposal for a concrete improvement to the Canadian regime for arms export controls. It is inspired by Ernie Regehr's proposal published recently in the Ploughshare's Monitor .
The proposal set out in the motion would require the government to prepare a security impact assessment before granting any export permit. It would have to table the report in the House of Commons. This measure would bring two major improvements to the current regime.
First, it would place an onus on the government to show not only that the receiving party met certain standards of not being on a particular blacklist of sanctioned states, but the government would have to demonstrate that a particular export would enhance international security. This would force the government to pause before allowing an export to a country or region that might otherwise have an acceptable bill of health in terms of human rights performance or not being in a particular conflict at the present time but which in any case could be destabilized by an emerging arms race.
For instance, the government would be forced to demonstrate how particular arms exports to east Asia or the Middle East, where destabilizing arms races are now escalating, would serve the interests of regional or global security.
The second benefit would of course be increased transparency, a chronic problem in the international arms trade which is habitually conducted under the table. The tabling of the security impact assessment in the House of Commons would in itself add to the transparency of this secretive trade. Greater transparency will in and of itself assist in the task of building responsible behaviour in the arms industry.
This proposal is not of course the only improvement needed to our public policies on arms exports. One of the main problems remains the export of components to American manufacturers of weapons systems and other military equipment. Because there is no export control or even reporting at all for the export of arms or components to the United States, Canadians have no way of knowing who the end users of Canadian exports are, or more to the point, who is killed or terrorized by such weapons and by whom. Without some regime to bring this problem under control, Canadians remain in the hands of American policy makers for the moral decisions about to whom lethal instruments made in Canada should be sold. Clearly this is not an acceptable situation.
This motion, had it been chosen to be votable and debated and voted on, would have been an opportunity for the House of Commons to have expressed itself on what I regard as a morally urgent matter. Unfortunately it was not so chosen, so we only have this hour of debate before us today and we are not really in a position to seek unanimous consent for the passage of the motion at this time.
I hope this might be one small step toward moving the government in this direction. I recall when the Liberals were in opposition many suggestions were put forward in the spirit of this private member's motion, in particular by the member who is now the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Liberal government.
I am hoping for a sympathetic hearing from the government on this. It is an opportunity to follow up on the goodwill created by the government through its actions with respect to the banning of anti-personnel land mines. If that stands alone, if it is not followed
up by meaningful action on the arms trade, then certainly the community within Canada which concerns itself with the arms trade will not be deceived. It will not think that the government's actions will suffice if the government does not go beyond the land mines strategy which it has now and seeks to do something about something we can do right here in Canada now.
We do not have to wait for an international consensus on how Canada regulates its exports of arms. This is something we can do ourselves. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is very good at creating international discussions. He is very good at creating the image of something being done or something about to be done. We wish him well in all that.
However here in our own backyard, here in our own regime with respect to how we regulate the export of arms, the government can act now. It could have acted today by facilitating the passage of this motion. Certainly many Canadians are with me at this time in hoping that the government will soon act on this issue.
Francis Leblanc LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Foreign Affairs
Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate on the motion of the member for Winnipeg-Transcona.
We share his concern for the need to reduce global arms and the need to prevent as much as possible arms from entering the hands of people in countries that systematically abuse human rights and which use the arms to terrorize populations, and to proceed on the whole scale of the arms reduction agenda. However, the proposal of my hon. colleague would make major alterations to Canada's export control system. I remind the House that Canada's export control system is already one of the strictest in the world.
Also our government is constantly reviewing regulatory restrictions such as export controls and making adjustments when needed to ensure that we maintain the strictest possible system. I would like to explain to the House what makes our system of military export controls the strictest in the world.
Canada was one of the first countries to set precise criteria for arms export permits. It remains one of the few countries to include the respect of human rights among its criteria. We played a lead role in this, setting an example for other countries.
Our criteria enable us to: protect the national security of Canada and its allies; abide by all UN economic sanctions; avoid situations
involving hostilities or threat of hostilities; and take into consideration the human rights conditions of the recipient country, including the possibility of goods proposed for export being involved in cases of human rights abuse.
Last June 18 the Minister of Foreign Affairs addressed the House on this very issue. He reaffirmed his commitment to strict, tough controls. In fact he told the House that he had further tightened the implementation of export permitting to ensure that Canada's policies were fully met.
The new measures put in place in 1996 include more rigorous analyses of security issues and threats of hostilities, fully considering (a) the regional stability and security relationships; (b) relations between neighbouring states; and (c) internal conflicts such as civil wars. Also included is a stricter interpretation of human rights criteria, including increased requirements of end use assurances to minimize the risk that Canadian equipment would fall into the hands of those who might use it to abuse human rights. They also include even stricter controls where firearms are concerned, including examining the gun control laws and practices in recipient countries to satisfy ourselves that Canadian firearms would not slip into the illegal arms trade or fuel local lawlessness or violence.
Canada's export control system includes one other aspect which makes it one of the world's best. I refer to its transparency. Every year we issue a detailed report of our military exports to countries other than the United States, and have done so since 1990. This report shows the value of our military exports in 21 separate categories of goods for each country except the U.S.
Canada was one of the first to be in favour of such detailed reports and played a significant role in creating the U.N. Register of Conventional Arms in 1992. Today, we are taking further steps toward ensuring better compliance with reporting requirements by all countries, as well as the exchange of more detailed information in this area.
In its level of detail, Canada's annual report on military exports goes far beyond the public reporting done by even our closest friends and allies internationally.
Most Canadian made military goods go to the U.S. under defence production sharing agreements which date back to the second world war. Of the rest, over 87 per cent support close allies in NATO and those with whom we have defence research, production and security arrangements, such as those on the so-called automatic firearm country control list.
It seems to me that Canada, however modest its role, is already highly successful in supporting its allies where security is concerned, while severely curtailing its exports in situations which might give rise to strategic concerns of one kind or another. In addition, by declaring our exports, both large and small, we are demonstrating more transparency than any other country.
Our government has worked tirelessly for peace, international security, and to support social development. We will continue to do so.
I would like the House to note the following Canadian initiatives: to bring about a worldwide ban of antipersonnel land mines, which is currently gathering very good momentum internationally; to gain world recognition of the problem of excessive military spending in some less developed countries that might leave little public funding for education, health and other social needs.
There is the initiative to help found a new export control regime. The Wassenaar arrangement is dedicated to increasing responsibility and transparency in conventional arms, an organization that for the first time embraces former cold war adversaries and new industrial economies in Asia and Latin America.
Another initiative is to direct large proportions of our development assistance expenditure to building institutions that promote human rights and democratic development, including a free media and civil policing.
This government has taken an extremely active role internationally in peace building, in conventional arms control and in ensuring that Canadian military trade is conducted at the highest level of responsibility and transparency, a model for the rest of the world. We will continue to expand these efforts and will keep looking at ways to update and enhance our export control systems to ensure they fully adhere to Canadian values of international peace and security.
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Verchères, QC
Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity today to speak to Motion M-290 presented by the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona.
If the Canadian government were to agree to make export permits for military goods conditional on a security impact assessment, there is no doubt that military goods produced in Canada could no longer be used for inhuman and immoral purposes.
This motion could make a vital difference to many people who today are suffering the horrors of war, a war that is often, too often, waged with weapons produced here in Canada.
The last review of the current legislation, the Export and Import Permits Act, dates back to September 1986, when the Conservative
Party was in power. One wonders why this policy has not been revised and amended for more than ten years, although the world situation has changed considerably during that time. Consider, for instance, the fall of the Berlin wall, the breakup of the former Soviet Union and of course the drastic shift in the geopolitical balance.
Does the Liberal government truly believe that this legislation does not have to be adjusted to the current situation? Actually, a praiseworthy attempt was made in 1992. At the time, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade had appointed a sub-committee to examine more specifically the issue of arms exports.
This study produced some 20 recommendations which are now, unfortunately, gathering dust. This is because the Conservative government at the time decided that arms export controls were already strict enough and it was unnecessary to tighten up the regulations. The most troubling aspect here is that the current Minister of Foreign Affairs was among those who signed this report.
Furthermore, in a speech he had noted that Canada was moving more and more towards a peacekeeping role. Arguing in favour of a much tougher control register that would contain a list of the countries to which Canadian arms were sold, the present minister said this: "We want to make sure there is a system in which there could be a clear requirement that exports would only go to countries on the list and that there would be a transparency to that list so we would know who they are. We want to make sure that it would not be decided inside the bowels of External Affairs and all of a sudden an announcement would be made and before anything could be done it would be over. Furthermore, and it is a very important principle, we felt it crucial that Parliament should have a role and that the elected representatives of the people of Canada should be given some opportunity to determine whether we want to sell arms to country A or country B. Therefore, there is a requirement for tabling the name of any country that would go on this list to be reviewed by Parliament if we so decided".
The current minister concluded by saying: "The point of the matter is that we believed it was time for Canada to take some leadership". You will agree with me that, if the current Minister of Foreign Affairs wants to be consistent with the position he held when he was the opposition's critic on foreign affairs, he has no choice but to support Motion M-290.
The official opposition, that is the Bloc Quebecois, believes the Liberal government is once again using double talk. Indeed, it announces, in an official speech, that it is calling for restrictions and for the non-proliferation of weapons considered to be a source of instability but, at the same time, it refuses to tighten controls over exports of Canadian military products.
In a speech delivered in June, when the sixth annual report on Canada's military exports was tabled, the minister said he would
tighten exports of military products even more. How can we believe the minister considering that, so far, there has been no concrete proof of any tighter control. There is no conclusive evidence that measures were actually taken by the government since that speech.
Will the minister give us concrete guarantees about the measures he truly wants to implement? We even read in the newspapers that the OECD was going to hold an international symposium in Canada next winter, and that several studies were planned as background papers for discussion about stepping up control of sales of arms to third world countries.
The Bloc Quebecois thinks it would be ridiculous if these studies served only for discussion purposes. Action is long overdue. With each passing day, more innocent people die, too often women and children, killed by these arms, which have been bought by dictators or militia bent on imposing their rule by force.
Canada has, or should have, enough political maturity that it can now stop producing studies on this issue. It has now reached the stage where it should be able to take action.
Why does the government not simply take the opportunity of the upcoming symposium to table and have adopted, during a House of Commons debate, a new policy on arms export control. It could then show leadership by proving to all participating countries that it is possible to implement a law that has teeth but that also has a moral component, something which is too often missing in today's world.
Recent events in Haiti, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire and Afghanistan show once again how true it is that military products can be used for the wrong reasons.
It is distressing to see how the western world too often forgets the use to which these arms can be put. We read yesterday in the newspapers that, just between April and July 1994, a British company sold $7.3 million worth of arms to Rwanda. Now we know to what use they were put.
What is the Canadian government waiting for to take, without further delay, the lead of the international community and introduce tougher regulations on arms sale to very unstable parts of the world?
I repeat, the Minister of Foreign Affairs would waste no time taking action if he acted in a way that is consistent with what he said in 1993, and I will quote him again: "We must do a better job than we are doing to give a message to the world that the proliferation of arms must come to a halt. That is the reason for the recommendation to have a much tougher munitions control register. It was designed to say that we would not be party tosending arms to any area, region or country in which there are
human rights abuses, civil conflict, or dictatorships using those arms to suppress people or create violence or conflict".
However, Canada has knowingly sold arms to countries where respect for human rights is no more than an illusion. The Vancouver Sun reported last September that Ottawa had approved sales of military equipment to Indonesia for a total estimated at more than $362 million. This, although it is common acknowledge that Indonesia has occupied East Timor for more than 20 years and that more than 200,000 Timorese have been killed.
As far as China is concerned, Canada has apparently sold more than $50 million worth of military goods to that country in the past three years. Does the minister really believe that the Chinese government would never use those arms against opponents to the regime or against the Tibetan people who are now under Chinese occupation?
Yes, the Bloc Quebecois supports this motion and believes that the motion presented by the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona is a sensible one and should be an incentive for the Canadian government to review the Export and Import Permits Act. We hope that the Liberal government will be of the same opinion, even if all it can say is trade, trade, trade, in the process forgetting about the most elementary notions of human rights.
Charlie Penson Reform Peace River, AB
Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to Motion No. 290, the motion proposed by the member for Winnipeg Transcona dealing with military exports.
The motion has been read already, but for the benefit of those just joining us I would like to read it again. It is quite a mouthful:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of amending Canada's system of arms export controls by requiring that export permits for military products be granted only after the Department of Foreign Affairs has conducted and tabled in the House of Commons a security impact assessment determining that the proposed export will enhance international security.
I suppose my concern is whether there is a demonstrated need for what the hon. member is proposing. I question whether there is.
I would like to approach this question by comparing the motion to what the process is for export permits currently. Presently every exporter of a military product must apply to the Departments of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for an export permit. The procedure is handled by the export's control division of the department and takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. The division consults with other areas of the department such as the geographic region to which the sale is being proposed and the Canadian embassy in that country. It also consults with other interested government departments such as the Department of Industry and the Department of National Defence.
The consultation process, from the information I have received, is a fairly careful one. It is done in such a way as to protect the commercial confidentiality of the proposed sale. Making this process public in any way could result in the loss of that sale not only to another Canadian company but to a foreign competitor.
If there were public money involved, if this were a crown corporation, maybe the need for that type of transparency would be necessary, but we are talking about private companies here.
I am not sure what information the member for Winnipeg Transcona intends to be divulged when a security impact assessment is tabled in the House of Commons. After being tabled in the House of Commons, such an assessment would be part of the public record. It would be information out there for any competitor to use.
Even after sales have taken place the department has been careful to group all sales into categories. This is done so that precise information regarding the product and destination cannot be linked back to one particular company. This has to do with commercial confidentiality.
I have often had problems dealing with the department's hiding behind a veil of commercial confidentiality, but this particular case involves Canadian companies that are not receiving export subsidies on credit, unlike some of the ones that we have going through organizations like the Export Development Corporation. This is one of the ways in which the motion differs substantially from what is occurring presently, and I have not heard anything this evening which would justify making company information public.
Another way that this motion differs from the present procedure is the objective of the security impact assessment. The motion states that the assessment should determine that the export will enhance international security. The consultation which presently takes place only establishes that the sale will do no harm and will not have any negative impact.
We need to examine what we are exporting. Our military exports are mostly in the area of parts and components for aircraft vehicles and electronic equipment. We sell things like aircraft simulators and landing gear for military aircraft. We are careful not to sell military goods and technology to certain types of countries. For instance, we do not sell to countries which pose a threat to Canada or to our allies. We do not sell to countries involved in or under threat of hostilities. We do not sell to countries under UN security
council sanction. Furthermore, we do not sell to countries whose governments have a persistent record of serious human rights abuses. We are attempting to determine what an export sale will not do in terms of harming. Therefore I believe we have met the qualifications necessary.
I am not convinced there is a demonstrated need for flipping the criteria on their head and asking that it be proven that the sale will actually enhance international security. I would assume that many of the companies that produce military parts, components and technology for export are also furthering Canada's capabilities in producing goods and technology for civilian use. This is often the case. As long as our military exports are doing no harm, I believe their production and sale should be allowed to continue in the present format.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, in a speech delivered on June 18 of this year, stated that Canada's controls are among the toughest in the world. We have heard that stated a couple of times this afternoon. Nonetheless, he said that he was tightening up the controls further to ensure that exports did not end up in the wrong hands and were not used for unacceptable purposes. He instructed his officials to carry out more rigorous analyses of the regional, international and internal security situations of the countries where these exports were destined. Furthermore, we are applying a stricter interpretation of human rights criteria. We are also exercising strict controls to ensure that Canadian firearms do not end up in the illicit arms trade and that they do not fuel local violence.
Some people might argue that there is no need to be selling military parts or exporting them at all. I would make the case that many of these military exports that Canada develops and sells end up in things like CF-18 jets which Canada buys back from the United States. We use those jets to enhance our internal security. We use those jets as part of our NATO forces and NORAD forces to deliver security in regions such as Bosnia, Somalia and areas where Canada is asked to be police persons for the world. We could make the argument that these military parts which are being developed and exported actually enhance world security and Canada's security.
I want to deal for a moment with the ironic situation which we heard about this evening from the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona as well as the hon. member for Verchères. They talked about what the position of the present Minister of Foreign Affairs was when he was the critic for the Liberals when they were in opposition. They said that he has certainly flip-flopped on his position. I believe he has probably discovered, in much the same way the Liberals did when they opposed free trade in opposition, that now that they are in power it is a pretty good deal for the country. I believe they found in this area of security for the export of military parts that things are not as bad as they seem. We have a pretty fair process in place and unless there is a demonstrated need to change it, it should not be changed.
Like most Canadians, I want to ensure that our military exports are not destroying property or injuring people. I believe that our government's export permit system balances the need to ensure that our military goods and technology do not end up in the wrong hands while protecting the commercial confidentiality of our companies and allowing them to advance their capabilities and know how. There needs to be a much stronger demonstration of this balance before that can be undone.
I would be the first one to say that if that need can be demonstrated, that Canada should review this and have a more open process and have it reported to the House of Commons, if that need can be demonstrated, we would fully support it. But I do not believe the case has been made here this evening by the presentation that I have heard that would cause us to look at this and change the system. I would invite the members who have brought this forward that if they can show us convincing evidence otherwise, we would be prepared to have another look at it.
Robert Bertrand Liberal Pontiac—Gatineau—Labelle, QC
Madam Speaker, our government shares the concern of the member for Winnipeg Transcona about peace and international security.
As my colleague for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso has outlined, we have taken many concrete steps in this direction. We have also taken our responsibilities very seriously to ensure that Canadian military exports are helpful in supporting our allies and do not fall into the hands of those bent on disrupting peace and security in other parts of the world.
I would like to take a few moments to outline for this House some of the steps that are taken behind the scenes to fully meet this commitment.
All applications for arms export permits, unless they involve NATO countries or a few other similar countries, are subject to an exacting consultation process within the department and with other departments. This primarily involves assessments of each specific situation.
Officials look at a range of factors affecting international and internal peace and security. First of all, are the goods in question of similar, lower or higher technological level than the recipient country already has? This closely helps determine whether a sale would have a destabilizing affect on a region.
Would the goods help the recipient contribute positively to security arrangements in the region in question or to existing or
planned UN peacekeeping activities? Are there any risks that the goods proposed for export would threaten any UN or other peace efforts in or near the recipient country or any Canadian or friendly military peacekeeping or humanitarian effort?
These assessments are made by the Department of National Defence and the Regional Security and Peacekeeping Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, in conjunction with some of the geographical divisions. This averts any risk of diversion or deception concerning use or final destination.
As this House can see, we take our responsibility to protect peace very seriously. A second part of this same process is our strict policy against military sales to countries with less than perfect human rights records as well. In the area of human rights, the Department of Foreign Affairs human rights division and the country desks with their political, economic and social development experts perform a thorough analysis. They look at annual reports prepared by our embassies abroad on the human rights performance of each country for the proceeding year, including areas of deterioration as well as improvements.
They look at reports from such eminent international human rights watchdogs as Amnesty International, the UN human rights commission as well as reports received from like minded governments including the U.S. They look at, on a country by country basis, reports of Canadian and foreign based non-governmental organization offering factual or anecdotal information on human rights conditions in different countries.
They also look at concrete steps being undertaken by the Canadian government and by Canadian NGOs to improve the country's democratic and good governance institutions such a free press, democratic political institutions and an independent judiciary and civil police force.
Together, these elements give us a good idea of the human rights and security situation virtually anywhere in the world. If any doubt persists, because our information is incomplete or contradictory, our embassies investigate and report back to us. All of this is done prior to any recommendation concerning an application for an arms export permit. What is more, when the proposed recipient is a country with a potential for strategic concerns, the Minister of External Affairs himself looks at the situation in detail and decides whether to issue the permit or to deny it.
It can be seen that we already undertake a lengthy procedure to vet military exports. It is difficult to see how the member's proposal would enhance this analysis and scrutiny, but it is quite easy to see that the proposal would make a good system unworkable and make export control permits subject to unrealistic criteria. How could one possibly prove that a given export would enhance international security?
I think it is worth noting the common misconception that military exports are all arms or lethal weapons that figure centrally in conflict. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Canadian so-called military exports are made up almost completely of parts and components, electronic elements, repair and overhaul and protective and support systems.
Let me provide the House with a few illustrations. Canada is one of the world's foremost manufacturers and suppliers of bomb disposal suits and helmets used for disarming terrorist bombs and dangerous anti-personnel land mines. We also make and export to many countries bullet proof clothing and armour plating often to protect civilians.
Canada's aerospace industry is composed mainly of repair and overhaul and electronic subsystem manufacturers. We make no combat military aircraft in Canada at all. Yet aerospace makes up roughly 70 per cent of Canada's defence exports.
What else do we make and export? Devices to help land helicopters on to the heaving decks of ships at sea and radios and optical sights and flight simulators and even pellets used for target practice. Though misnamed as arms, these Canadian defence goods are vital to supporting Canada's own armed forces and to pulling our fair share internationally in our military alliances with the U.S. and NATO. The companies that make these goods also employ a lot of Canadians, between 60,000 and 80,000 directly and indirectly, independent studies tell us.
Our government is committed to peacebuilding and peacekeeping. Also, through various positive measures, we have encouraged the Canadian defence industry, including the aerospace sector, to gradually convert to civilian uses. Our initiatives in this respect were designed to maintain quality and highly paid jobs in Canada, while doing everything we could to support the conversion of goods and services in the areas of aviation, transportation and telecommunications to commercial uses.
The technological partnership program announced last year by my colleague, the Minister of Industry, ensures that the risks associated with research and development are shared with the industry, especially where businesses convert to new civilian applications.
The Canadian government is taking all responsible steps to prevent Canadian made military goods from being sold to destinations and end users that threaten peace and security internationally. In fact, our current level of in depth study and analysis is equal to any in the world. But we are doing more. We are supporting industry in its efforts to strengthen the civil commercial side of its business when converting from traditional military production and in this way retaining companies, jobs and invaluable high technologies in Canada.
Export Of ArmsPrivate Members' Business
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais)
Since no more members wish to speak and the motion was not selected as a votable item, the hour provided for consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the item is dropped from the Order Paper.
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.
Elsie Wayne Progressive Conservative Saint John, NB
Madam Speaker, on November 4 I asked the finance minister if he was aware of the fact that thousands of jobs in the Atlantic provinces are in jeopardy because of his harmonized sales tax.
The minister responded by saying that retailers will be able to take advantage of the input tax credit. Their costs would be lower and they would be in a position to pass their savings on to consumers.
Contrary to what the minister has stated, retailers will not pass along any savings to consumers because there are no savings to be had. Jobs are already being lost.
Today in my local paper in Saint John, New Brunswick, the MMG Management Group which operates Greenberg and MetMart stores announced the closure of 12 stores and the loss of 150 jobs as a direct result of the HST in New Brunswick. Seventy-nine people have been told that they will be laid off and the stores closed by the end of 1996, that is at the end of next month.
MMG's New Brunswick stores face over $1 million in annual costs to accommodate the harmonization. The input tax credit the minister spoke of amounts to $495,000 but this still leaves the company with a shortfall of $563,000.
The HST is nothing more than a blatant attempt by our present government to fulfil an election promise. I have to say that the only reason it went through was because of the three Liberal premiers in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. None of the other provinces have agreed to this.
It is not good for Atlantic Canada and puts the three Atlantic provinces out of sync with the rest of Canada. It is being forced on us to pad the Liberal version of a red book promise kept.
Under the agreement New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland must include or hide the 15 per cent HST in the ticket price of the item, known as in-pricing. However in the rest of Canada the provincial sales tax and the GST must still be added at the cash register.
The incentive for New Brunswick was a $364 million pay-off which the province has already received from the federal government despite an April 1 deadline for harmonization. This money already is being used by the provincial government and this was their incentive to sign this agreement.
The main problem is the patchwork approach to harmonization. The retail sector came here to see me. The Retail Council of Canada representing Sears, Eaton's, Canadian Tire, Shoppers Drug Mart and Hudson's Bay has stated these stores can operate with a single rate sales tax system either tax inclusive or tax extra across Canada. The retailers cannot manage a tax inclusive in a partially harmonized system.
A report prepared by Ernst and Young for the Retail Council of Canada makes reference to the Department of Finance announcement of April 23. The announcement promised that partial harmonization would bring about a simpler tax system for both consumers and business, lower costs and less paper work. Further it promised harmonization will also help lower prices through a reduction in the cost of doing business.
The retailers state the exact opposite will happen. The system will not be simple and the costs will increase. The software used by many companies will have to be altered to accommodate the regionalized pricing system and in the six major retailers this means changing over 132 software systems.
All of those retailers rely on catalogues and their catalogue business will now be forced to print an English and French catalogue for New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and then an English and French catalogue for central Canada and the western provinces. National TV and radio advertising will also cost more. The Ernst and Young report states that the annual cost to retailers in the harmonized provinces is expected to be in excess of $100 million. I have to ask what all this means to the consumer. It means that we will pay more. Why? In order to remain profitable, businesses and retailers must recover their conversion expenses.
The pride of this government is going to cost Atlantic Canadians dearly. It will hit us in our wallets and it will-