Debates of Sept. 29th, 2016

Opposition Motion—Creation of a Standing Committee on Arms Exports Review

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find it really troubling that the government is supporting arms exports to regimes that have refused to protect human rights and that have attacked their own citizens. In Sudan, for instance, the social situation is extremely dire.

Does my colleague believe that the decision to support arms exports to Sudan will undermine stability in the region?

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay, who is always very compassionate in his interventions.

We have the moral duty to ask questions about very complex matters. Yes, we do have a responsibility towards the countries where we send Canadian arms. We must ensure that our arms are not used against civilians.

We heard some Liberals say that people in Canada would lose their jobs. The people who work in military arms factories are also asking what we are doing and whether our arms are killing women, children, or people who speak out about their country's domestic policies. In some countries arms are used against dissidents.

Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and China are among the 10 main destinations for Canadian military products, according to a 2015 Global Affairs Canada report. The data is quite recent.

MPs know that we do business with countries that clearly do not respect human rights, but they look the other way, saying it is no big deal because we are making money. That is nonsense. I do not agree, and neither does my party. I believe that most members also do not agree.

[David Lametti, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

Today, I will be talking a lot about Canadian jobs, which are often unionized, well-paid, and highly skilled jobs that we have the duty to protect. However, first, I would like to point out, as some of my other colleagues have already done, that this government is working hard to improve the rigour and transparency of our export controls and is trying to combat the illicit trade of weapons worldwide.

We are keeping our election promise to accede to the Arms Trade Treaty, which is designed to promote responsibility, transparency, and accountability in the regulations surrounding the global trade of conventional weapons. It is the right thing to do and we are proud of our approach.

The promotion and the protection of human rights are an integral part of Canada's foreign policy. As the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs has often said, this is a Canadian value that we will continue to defend at every opportunity.

In addition to these efforts, members on this side of the House know that highly skilled, well-paying jobs in the manufacturing industry are essential to the growth and prosperity of the middle class.

We also know that many of the companies targeted in today's motion play a key role in the Canadian economy. This innovative sector generates spinoff effects in the rest of the economy, integrates Canadian exporters into global logistics chains, and supports well-paying manufacturing jobs across the country.

In 2014, the manufacturing sector contributed $6.7 billion to Canada's gross domestic product and supported nearly 63,000 jobs across the country. Close to 640 companies work in the defence and security sector. Most of them are small and medium-sized businesses. They play a key role in other manufacturing and high tech sectors, again, across the country.

There are hon. members in this place who have sought to misconstrue the true nature of this sector. It is a vast, diverse sector and is present in many of the communities we have the privilege of representing.

For example, there is Canada's dynamic aerospace sector, which includes aircraft fabrication, structures, and components; maintenance, repair, and overhaul; air-based radar and other sensors; and space-based systems and components. There is Canada's maritime sector, which includes ship fabrication, structures, and components; and Canada's ICT sector, which includes communication and navigation systems, satellites, cybersecurity, software, electronics, and components.

These businesses are responsible for thousands of high-quality, high-skill jobs, and the benefits are felt by families in communities large and small. All across the country we have highly skilled workers performing maintenance, repair, and overhaul services on a wide variety of vehicles, aircraft, and Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard ships.

Each region of Canada has benefited from substantive investment and the development of specializations in a variety of defence manufacturing activities. For example, there are strong aerospace clusters in Quebec and in western Canada. There is an Ontario-based vehicles cluster. There are shipbuilding clusters on two coasts and defence technology clusters in Montreal and Ottawa. In some communities, these businesses are key to supporting the broader community. A prime example of this is southwestern Ontario, the home of Canada's vehicle manufacturing sector. Maintaining these high-skill, high-paying jobs is critical to the region's broader manufacturing sector.

I emphasize once again that these are not low-skill, part-time jobs. Workers are in fact characterized by their high level of skill. Engineers, scientists, and researchers accounted for more than 30% of the defence industry in 2014. These are professions our government proudly supports in a 21st-century, knowledge-based economy.

Because the sector is highly-skilled and innovative, the jobs in this sector are high-paying. In 2014, the direct jobs from the direct defence sector provided an average compensation close to 60% above the manufacturing sector average.

Canada's defence businesses possess strong linkages into important global value chains, generating high-value exports. Roughly 60% of Canada's defence sales are attributed to exports, representing an export intensity that is close to 20% higher than that of the overall Canadian manufacturing average.

As I mentioned earlier, the defence and security industry is made up almost entirely of small and medium-sized enterprises. Although the sector is export oriented, these small businesses owe much of their livelihood to larger supply chain opportunities.

Our defence industry requires exports to be sustainable. Of course the majority of our exports go south to our American friends. Canada is a proud partner in the North American defence industrial base. We are, and will continue to be, good neighbours and good partners in North America.

Canada's defence firms are sources of technological dynamism and have contributed to innovations across a range of sectors, including aerospace, space, marine and information communications technologies, or ICT. This is particularly true with respect to technology spillovers flowing from defence related research and development in areas such as propulsion, detection, navigation, communications, composites and materials.

Of course, this is much more about economics. Canada's defence and security industry helps enable mission success for the Canadian Armed Forces, both at home and around the world. The Canadian Armed Forces could not be successful in what it does without the Canadian industry ensuring that our military has the right skills, equipment and training to succeed on every mission.

Without a commercially viable defence and security sector, industry support to our armed forces and its objectives would not be possible. As an example, in the maritime sector the national shipbuilding strategy is re-establishing an important industry and supporting Canadian technological innovation. At the same time, the strategy and the renewal of the Canadian Coast Guard fleet are essential to the Government of Canada's ongoing efforts to keep Canadians safe on the water and to help navigate the billions of dollars in cargo that travel through Canadian waters each year.

Our government understands the importance of an armed force that will monitor our coast lines, protect our continent, contribute to international peace and security, and help during natural disasters, but all of that is impossible without the active role played by our businesses and workers.

To sum up, Canada’s defence and security industry makes an important contribution to our economy. It provides high-paying, innovative work to thousands of Canadians in various economic sectors all across the country. We should be proud of the Canadians working in that industry.

The NDP should not so callously abandon the thousands of workers whose livelihoods depend on the survival of those companies.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I found that an absolutely fascinating 10 minutes of my life, to hear probably the most put together numbers of ridiculous comparisons of side issues, such as the supply chain opportunities, the knowledge-based economy, technological dynamism, technology spillovers, mission success, and then of course the insensitivity of the NDP. The issue here, and the member never mentioned it once, is whether there should be a committee to oversee the sale of arms to countries with dodgy human rights records. I would think that is not being insensitive.

I do not want to bring the conversation down, but let us talk about South Sudan, about massacres, about rapes, about the 170 armoured vehicles shipped into South Sudan, and about the weapons that Canadians are putting into Yemen. Let us talk about the fact that we now have a salesman to sell more weapons into the Middle East. How many credible regimes are there in the Middle East? Can we even count them on more than two fingers? That is now the second largest.

I did not hear a single word about what the government will do to ensure we are not just selling weapons to countries that rape and kill their citizens. To me, that is a Canadian value. I might be insensitive, but it is the role of Parliament to ensure we stand up for something once in a while and ensure that when we sell weapons to countries, they are indeed allies that are sharing our values and not just murdering, raping and torturing their own citizens.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I said at the outset of my comments in French that we were committed to greater transparency, ensuring that we did not export arms to places where we should not be exporting them, that we committed publicly to implementing the ATT, and we remain committed to that. We have been committed to that since the beginning of our mandate and even before, during the election campaign.

Obviously, what is happening in South Sudan is horrific and we condemn that violence. We are doing our best as a government being proactive in ensuring that these kinds of arms sales do not happen in the future.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, given the sensitivity of many of the issues that come before the House, one does not question the importance of human rights. There are other standing committees. We can talk about the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development or the Standing Committee on National Defence. Our committees are charged, through Standing Orders and the desire of Parliament, to deal with important issues.

Would my colleague not agree that there are subject matters such as this that are quite doable in standing committees? In fact, my understanding is that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development is planning to deal with this specific issue. I do not quite understand why the New Democrats want to form another standing committee when there is already a standing committee that is quite capable of dealing with what is being suggested in this opposition motion.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has hit on the main problem with the motion in front of us today, and that is it is superfluous. Standing committees deal with this and there are also a number of different parliamentary institutions, such as ministerial responsibility, that place responsibility where it should lie and allow these matters to be dealt with in a substantive and effective way.

There is no reason for this kind of duplication on this sort of committee. There are already committees in which opposition members participate in a very meaningful way, and will continue to do so.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to address the motion before us today. There are a number of things that come to mind. I would like to start off by talking about the importance of human rights.

This is fairly universal. Canadians truly care about what is happening around the world. I do not question that. The Liberal party does not question that. The Prime Minister and the Government of Canada not only do not question it, but are very much proactive on that file.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau brought Canada its Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We are a party of the charter. When I think even of my years in the Manitoba legislature, I cannot help but think of the late Izzy Asper, a gentleman who had the idea of having a human rights museum. Today, we have the Canadian human rights museum in Winnipeg, its first national museum.

There no doubt are individuals on all sides of the House who have played a leading role in different capacities in dealing with the issue of human rights. However, I do not believe for a moment that we should have to abandon our thoughts on human rights. We can be strong advocates, but at the same time recognize Canada's valuable contributions moving forward on a wide number of fronts.

We need to recognize Canada's defence industry. It plays a critical role not only in Canada's and other United Nations' militaries around the world, but it also plays an important role in providing thousands and thousands of jobs in all regions of our country. Our middle class is very much dependent on those jobs. There was a time when even New Democrats appreciated those jobs.

There is the multi-billion dollar, multi-year deal with Saudi Arabia, which the NDP is criticizing today. However, that was not the case a few months ago during the election. In fact, the leader of the New Democratic Party was very clear with Canadians, saying the New Democrats would not back out of the agreements. A local NDP member of Parliament guaranteed that the New Democrats would fulfill those contracts with Saudi Arabia. I found it interesting when one of the members said that some facts had changed. The only fact that has changed is that we are no longer in an election. While we were in the election, the New Democrats seemed more interested in those defence industry jobs. Today, they seem to have written that industry off.

Canada is one of the most proactive countries and is very much aware of human rights. We have things in place to ensure that as much as possible we have a responsible exportation policy.

The New Democrats are proposing yet another standing committee. One of the members said that the government of the day, the Prime Minister, said yes, to a separate standing committee on pay equity. It was an NDP motion. We acknowledged it as a good idea, we accepted it, and we voted for it. However, this motion is not a good idea. This is just not necessary.

I am surprised the New Democrats have chosen to politicize such an important issue to the degree they have. I could pull those very specific quotes where we hear hypocrisy oozing out on the issue. I wish I had the vocabulary to demonstrate, like Pat Martin used to do from the New Democratic benches. I am sure people would recognize that what is happening today on this issue is of the utmost importance and Canadians need to be assured that the Government of Canada is in fact doing its job.

We are committed to enhancing both the rigour and transparency of Canada's export control progress. We are pursuing many parallel paths to do so. The foremost is ensuring that Canada becomes a member of the United Nations armed trades treaty, known as the ATT.

The ATT aims to stop unregulated arms transfers that intensify and prolong conflict, lead to regional instability, facilitate violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses, and hinder social and economic development. It also promotes responsibility, transparency, and accountability in the global arms trade.

Canada already closely controls the export of all goods and technology listed on the export control list. This includes all dual-use goods and technology, not just military goods as required by the ATT. That would include things like chemicals that could be used in chemical warfare. It also includes nuclear-related things. The Government of Canada is aware of many different things and that is one of the reasons we have these export rules.

The government is committed to delivering more transparency so that the export control system combines national security along with human rights, along with Canadian jobs, and there is nothing wrong with defending Canadian jobs, and a domestic defence industry that supports Canada's military. It makes sense.

We have demonstrated tangible leadership with regard to the Arms Trade Treaty. The government is committed to ensuring that Canada becomes a state party to the Arms Trade Treaty.

Winnipeg is the home of Lloyd Axworthy, who is playing a leading role with respect to the ban of landmines. We have done all sorts of things on the global front dealing with humanitarian causes. Not only are we looking internally, but we are also looking at how Canada can play an international role at making sure the right thing is being done, that human rights are being advocated for in all regions of the world.

With the entry into force of the ATT in December 2014, Canada must accede to the treaty to become a state party to it. This process is being pursued as a priority by the Prime Minister and the government, but it will take some time as legislative and regulatory changes are expected and necessary before Canada can accede to the treaty itself.

I would encourage my friends in the New Democratic Party to look at the standing committees that we currently have. The NDP member on the foreign affairs standing committee would be aware of the fact that the foreign affairs committee is looking at this very issue. As opposed to playing politics within the chamber on this important issue, I would encourage members to look at that standing committee and its commitment to do a study, which is on its agenda. I would encourage them to pursue that.

I posed a question earlier to an NDP member. I asked what the party's position is today with regard to the Saudi agreement. During the election campaign, those members were clear that they supported it. The leader of the New Democratic Party made it very clear as did the member of Parliament from London. I would ask the current members as they stand up and address the debate today if they have flip-flopped. If they have that is fine. I respect that. However, they should at least be transparent with Canadians as to what they hope to accomplish and whether they support the Saudi Arabia agreement.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give my colleague some information that is a little more up to date. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. I am familiar with the issues the committee works on. Yes, we are going to address the issue of Canada's accession to the Arms Trade Treaty.

That being said, I encourage my colleague to read the motion. It is not about the Arms Trade Treaty, but rather about ongoing monitoring of various aspects of our arms exports abroad, as well as the broad trends and existing and future agreements. There is a whole range of issues that require ongoing monitoring by a permanent committee, and not just an ad hoc study that will sit on a shelf somewhere.

I would also like to inform my colleague about the situation in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen, including the number of people who were executed by the Saudi Arabian government in January after the election, the fact that we have seen images of Canadian arms being used in Yemen, and the fact that reports also now indicate and we have every reason to believe that Saudi Arabia, which is using Canadian arms, is responsible for war crimes in Yemen. Yes, that all happened in the past year, so I hope my colleague can understand the issue.

That being said, I know that Canadians want more information. They really want the House of Commons to follow up on issues that matter to them and they do not have a lot of information.

I am therefore using this opportunity to ask the following question: can my colleague tell me whether in 2015 the Government of Canada approved the sale of arms to the Hong Kong police, which represses dissidents, including booksellers and others? Can he answer me with a yes or a no?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful that the member actually acknowledged that the foreign affairs committee is in fact looking into the issue.

One of the things that I would suggest to the member—

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I said the opposite. I said that the committee was not looking into these things. The hon. member is putting words in my mouth.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Order. That is a point of debate.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, if the member would just calm down a little, she would understand that what I have indicated is that they are in support of the foreign affairs committee looking into this particular issue.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

At the end of the day, what I would suggest—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

If I could just interrupt the hon. member for a moment, I am having a hard time hearing what is being said with all the shouting going back and forth. I am sure you have a lot to say to each other. If it is something that is very important, shouting across the floor is not going to do it. You can just take it to the lobby or another room, and I am sure it will work out much better.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I hope we can kind of reset the clock on this.

The member proves the point I was making. In her question, she said that the standing committee on foreign affairs is in fact dealing with the issue. Is it dealing with it directly? What do members think they are going to be talking about when they talk about the Arms Trade Treaty? At least in part, they are going to be talking about what is in the motion. If the New Democrats really want to see an independent, stand-alone committee, maybe that will come out of the standing committee's recommendations. We do not know. We should at least allow the standing committee the opportunity to have a good, thorough debate and discussion on the issue.

It is interesting that it is the members opposite who are asking for more transparency, but when I posed the question they avoided a very important point. When they talk about Saudi Arabia, the NDP used to support the agreement. We have no idea whether or not they support it today. When we ask the question, the New Democrats evade it. They do not want to answer the question. Canadians have a right to know where the NDP is on the issue. The leader, during the election, when he was concerned about jobs and who knows what else, made it very clear that he supported the Saudi Arabia agreement.

However, to listen to the NDP members today, we doubt that. We begin to believe that they do not support it. Why can they not answer that very basic question?

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this important debate. Before I begin, I should indicate that I will be sharing my time with the member for Windsor West today.

I think it is really important that we start with what we are talking about and what we are not talking about. This is a forward-looking motion that is designed to achieve greater transparency and greater oversight. It calls upon Parliament to create, by amendment to the Standing Orders, an oversight committee for the issue of arms sales abroad and related procedural matters to that particular motion.

The objective is to say, learning from what we have done in the past, how we can do better in the future. The proposition in the motion that is before Parliament today is that we create a committee that would study this because our allies are doing a much better job and because we lack the information they have to do that job. That is what I would like to focus on in my remarks today.

In the last couple of days we have been dealing with another important initiative, Bill C-22 in which the Government of Canada has liberally adverted to the experience in the United Kingdom with its security intelligence oversight committee, and called for greater accountability through that process and greater access for parliamentarians to information about national security operations in our country.

Today's motion would do the same thing, but in a different context. It would create oversight of how arms exports occur in Canada, particularly when we learn more information about human rights abuses that may or may not be occurring in a particular country.

Let us examine the situation in the United Kingdom. Just as the government would want us to learn from their experience in national security oversight, I am suggesting that the House could profit from learning about the United Kingdom experience in this same area.

It was over 15 years ago that the United Kingdom set up a parliamentary committee on arms export controls. That committee had people drawn from a whole variety of other parliamentary committees to examine all aspects of the United Kingdom arms exports, from licensing to broader policy issues such as human rights. Every year in that country there is a government annual report on U.K. arms exports, and it has recently been focusing on exports to countries of concern, many of which are the subject of the debate we are having here today. It is looking at the role, for example, of U.K. exports to Saudi Arabia and the war in Yemen, which of course are very much at the core of why this debate is before us today.

That is about oversight, but what about the need for greater transparency and information? The British public, through that committee, has had much more access to information about what is going on so that they can hold their government to account as to the extent to which arms exports are being sent to countries most people in Britain would not want to receive them.

What is the situation in Canada? We have an Access to Information Act, but its exceptions swallow the rule. The moment anything to do with international affairs or foreign policy comes up, it is a black hole. The ability to actually find out what is going on is very limited. This committee would be an opportunity to hear, not just from the public, NGOs and the like but also from people in industry, which is perfectly appropriate, as well as government representations and indeed the public so that we can have a broader national conversation about this important issue.

I had the honour of working with the former member for Mount Royal, Irwin Cotler, a champion of international human rights, and we are on a committee called the Raoul Wallenberg human rights committee, with members drawn from all the representative parties here. We had the opportunity to meet the wife of Raif Badawi here in Ottawa, who was arrested and imprisoned in that country for insulting Islam, sentenced to 10 years and a thousand lashes. That international human rights debate was the subject of great concern across this country.

We have understood in recent years more than we understood before about where Canada's arms are going. I will admit, I had no idea the extent to which Canadian arms abroad have become an important component of international trade in arms. Canada's weapons exports have nearly doubled over the last 10 years. I confess, I did not know that.

In fact, Canada is the second-largest arms dealer in the Middle East, according to Jane's All the World's Aircraft, the defence industry publication. Now Saudi Arabia is the world's second-largest buyer of Canadian-made military equipment after the United States. I do not think many Canadians are aware of that information. It may be that I am the last to know these things, but I find it very disturbing, as I think a lot of Canadians would, that we have become such an important arms export contributor in the international sphere.

Therefore, I ask myself, what do we have to hide as a country? Why can we not know more? Why can we not know the human rights records of the countries to which we are sending arms? Yes, we have assessments, but those human rights assessments have been watered down over the years. They are not as available as they should be to the Canadian public and to us so that we as the representatives of the public can have a better idea of just exactly where our money is being spent, where our arms are going, and the extent to which we are contributors to world peace. I think that is something that we need to look at very carefully.

Apparently our existing arms export rules have changed over the years. They are supposed to prohibit sales of military hardware to countries “whose governments have a persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their citizens”, and here is the condition, “unless it can be demonstrated that there is no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population”. Well obviously there are problems, because we have seen in the Saudi example how arms sent to that country for domestic purposes have been diverted to put down Shia protests in one part of the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia, and, it seems, to be used by the Saudis in countries like Yemen, where human rights atrocities have been so widespread. Over 6,000 people have been killed there.

Do Canadians realize that their arms may be used in that theatre of war? Do we not need to know whether light armoured vehicles, which are used for the suppression of those people, are in fact made in Canada? Maybe that is good public policy. Why can we not have a committee tasked with doing just that, not as an add-on to other work that the foreign affairs committee might be doing but as a stand-alone committee to address what is obviously a growing and important industry in our country, and its ramifications? Why is that any different from what we do with other committees that look at an area of our economy and address its ramifications?

Why would the House be opposed to greater transparency and accountability through an oversight mechanism like the British have? Why does the current government refuse to see that what it proposed two days ago in one bill, following the U.K. example of oversight and transparency, should not be used a couple of days later in another important area of our economy and society? That is what is before the House today. I really fail to see how this can be politicized as if we were somehow trying to talk about past events, who supported what and who did not, and how much information we had at a particular time versus how much we have now.

Anyone who has seen the videos of the repression of Saudi citizens with Canadian light armoured vehicles at least has to ask questions about whether we are on the right track. We do not have time, as parliamentarians, to cover every single piece of policy. Why can we not give a multi-party committee the opportunity to look at it, to get the information that members need, and to report to Canadians what it can legitimately report to them about what is going on with our dollars abroad?

That is what is before us today. I urge the House to support a motion that would provide greater accountability and greater oversight of our arms export industry.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This is a question for my colleague more on the form of debate today. My colleague just gave a very impassioned speech, and earlier in the House the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie also gave a very impassioned speech. While we might not all agree on this, sometimes we get passionate.

The member for Winnipeg North used a turn of phrase that a couple of my colleagues mentioned. He told the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie to “just calm down”. I am just wondering if my colleague would like to comment on the appropriateness of that turn of phrase, given that there were a lot of other men who gave speeches in the House today that were equally impassioned, but that turn of phrase was not used to them.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, if anyone felt offended by it, I would apologize. However, I would let the member know that it was a point of order that was raised as I was answering the question at the time. It is not necessarily to justify it, but it is just to apologize.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

That is more of a debate. I am not sure if this is going anywhere.

The hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill, very briefly.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I accept the apology from my colleague opposite. However, I would note that he has a very bright and dynamic young woman as a daughter who is a member of the Manitoba legislature—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I am going to have to cut that off, because I believe that is going to debate.

The hon. member for Victoria.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if I have much to add on that.

I understand the debate that the member for Calgary Nose Hill is having with the member for Winnipeg North. I hope I was not accused of using any inappropriate language. I do not have anything to add to that debate.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the crux of the motion that we are discussing here today really is accountability. I would like my friend to talk about what the Liberals have to fear with greater accountability.

What we are asking for here, quite simply, is parliamentary oversight via a review process done by elected officials sworn to serve this country and to ensure that the products we export, which are similar to asbestos or other toxic materials, do not cause significant health dangers and the death of others.

What is wrong with accountability?