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.