Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by thanking the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie for her incredible work on this issue, and for bringing this issue in today's motion as part of our opposition day.
The motion comes at a very important and crucial time for Canada. Over the last number of years we have seen some cracks appearing in the government's narrative that all is well and all is under control with respect to our arms exports.
I want to read the first four main points of the motion for the constituents of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, and indeed all Canadians, so that it is clear what the motion is about. It states:
...(i) Canadian arms exports have nearly doubled over the past decade, and that Canada is now the second-largest exporter of arms to the Middle East, (ii) Canadians expect a high standard from their government when it comes to protecting human rights abroad, (iii) Canadians are concerned by arms sales to countries with a record of human rights abuses, including Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Sudan, (iv) there is a need for Canadians, through Parliament, to oversee current and future arms sales...
Those are the facts.
I am most troubled, because we have heard that the Liberal government will not support the motion, which means it is basically against parliamentary oversight and more accountability. It is not putting its money where its mouth is. It is just a lot more talk from the Liberal side, with no real action on this front. That is a real disappointment.
I will enjoy bringing this to light time and time again. As we approach 2019, we will have a whole textbook full of examples of the Liberals saying one thing and doing another.
Every Canadian has a right to know what the government is doing with respect to the business of arms deals. I do not believe it should be a secret. Canada is selling arms to countries with terrible human rights. I want to be clear. This is not a normal export. This is not about whether one supports the defence industry or not. We are not saying that we should be stopping our arms exports. We simply want to know if the arms go to countries that have a real accountability mechanism, and whether we can track those arms after they have been sold to those countries. After that it seems to be a big black hole.
These are not normal exports. They are designed with one purpose in mind. They are military grade weapons and hardware. Let us be frank about this. They are designed to kill other people, or put down unrest or enhance security. For that reason alone, we need more control over how they are being used.
The oversight that we need to establish for our arms exports is not an unprecedented change. We have had a few members in the NDP raise this. The United Kingdom, which is one of the biggest arms exporters in the world, has a parliamentary oversight committee that was set up many years ago. Some members have argued that the NDP by advocating for this committee is somehow going against our own defence industry. Would those members use that same argument against the British? Would they say that the British are against their own arms industry because they want to have more accountability and oversight? It does not make sense.
We need the tools to look at exactly how this export regime is working. The British committee examines all aspects of arms deals, from licensing to broader policy issues.
Because of the government's history of not being forthcoming with information like that, we have to look to the fact that the government is ultimately accountable to Parliament. Of course the appropriate ministers have to stand in the House and explain themselves. However, that often comes with a lot of effort from the opposition side. Also, if the government is lucky enough to hold a majority in the House, it can quite easily dictate how it releases that information.
Polling among Canadian shows that people are against selling weapons and negotiating arms deals with countries that are serial human rights abusers. If we had this committee, we could be doing what the U.K. is doing right now, and reviewing the exports to Saudi Arabia in particular. The evidence is that our military-grade weaponry and hardware are being used in Yemen, and also to put down political dissent.
The fact that our exports have gone up so much to the Middle East, which, frankly, is a powder keg right now with so many conflicts going on there, I do not see why the Liberal government would be against this type of oversight. Back in the day we used to sell mostly to our fellow NATO allies. Those absolutely are countries with which we can do business. However, when it comes to ones with questionable human rights, that is where we need to have far more oversight.
The reason for a new committee that would specifically look at arms exports is because arms exports do not fit into any one simple category, and this needs to be clearly explained for the government side. For example, arms exports could rightfully be brought up at the committees on international trade, or defence, or foreign affairs, or labour and human rights. They all have stakes in this one issue. Therefore, it is prudent that we set up just one committee so we can look at those multi-faceted issues.
Saudi Arabia has been mentioned a lot in this debate. It is the world's second-largest buyer of military equipment from our country. We have been told by the Conservatives, and now the Liberals, that Canada has strong export rules, and that we are supposed to prohibit sales to countries whose governments have a persistent record of serious violations of human rights of their citizens unless it can be demonstrated that there is no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population. I would submit to the House that this certainly is not the case with Saudi Arabia.
We have also heard questions from my hon. friends on this side, because there is a lot of secrecy about the arms deal that was done with the military government in place in Thailand. Of course, Thailand has been experiencing an amount of unrest.
The other thing is that this summer Canadians were treated to the news story that the government had weakened its arms export policy. We do not control or track the use of arms exports overseas, so there is no way of telling how they are being used.
I appreciate that we are going to eventually sign-on to the arms trade treaty, but we still do not have a timeline. Of course, officials from Global Affairs Canada have suggested that the expected treaty will not raise the current standards for Canadian arms exports.
We heard about the Streit Group in the news and how some of its machinery ended up going to Sudan. This is the problem with these arms companies when they have bases of operation in many different countries. They might have a base in Canada, but if, like the Streit Group, which has operations in the United Arab Emirates, it kind of muddies the water and becomes harder for us to track them down. Therefore, if we have a committee whose sole purpose is to examine these issues, we can focus with laser-like precision on this issue.
In 2012, the Streit Group was accused of violating international law by selling armoured vehicles to Libya. The UN has been involved in that and has brought this to light.
Saudi Arabia certainly has a very large record of human rights abuses. We know that Canadian-made tactical equipment was used by Saudi forces in raids against dissidents. We have seen evidence of military gear with the made-in-Canada stamp, and so on.
We need this parliamentary oversight for our arms exports before we are treated to more bad news. I do not think we can wait for the legislation for the arms trade treaty to come forward.
This is very much like the national security committee that is being proposed. We need to have a multi-party standing committee with the ability to summon witnesses, really review some of our export rules and any treaties that are coming about, and with laser-like focus, spend the time on that.
I appreciate the chance to stand in favour of this motion. I certainly hope some members will come to their senses and see to it. It really is in the best interest of our country.