Mr. Speaker, they could travel to Saudi Arabia. That is a very good point. Maybe they will travel to Saudi Arabia to see exactly how it does its arms trade business.
We heard from the members for Thornhill and Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan that the Liberals actually voted down the creation of a subcommittee that would have studied this issue. It would have started immediately. The great thing about subcommittees is that they feed back to the committee level, which could have decided at the end of the day what the next steps were, whether a report should be written, whether the government should take further steps, and make recommendations to the government. That could have been done at that committee level. That is committees' duty and area of responsibility assigned to them by the House.
It almost feels like something out of a Yes Minister episode. I feel as if Sir Humphrey Appleby would be quite proud of the obfuscation and sideshow the Liberals have put on so far, talking about human rights, how important the arms trade business is, and how important all of these jobs are, well-paying middle-class manufacturing jobs. It is something I have heard repeatedly over and over today. It is a complete denial.
What about the pipeline jobs? What about the oil and gas jobs back home where I live in Calgary, Alberta? I never hear anybody on that side say they care about those jobs. Every community in my riding has a Facebook page, where people post things they are selling. Early on in the downturn, they were starting to sell the spare cars they had, the Ski-Doos they had, maybe the RVs they had. Now I am seeing pictures of people selling their engagement rings because they cannot make ends meet. I never hear anything about them. What about their well-paying middle-class jobs in the oil and gas sector?
Where are they on that issue? Where are they debating that? Where are they caring about those people? I never hear that. There is never a mention of an Alberta energy worker. All we hear is this stereotype.
Bernard came here to Parliament Hill in person to plead the case of the energy workers. The guy actually works near Grande Prairie, in the oil patch. He relies on that well-paying middle-class job, but we never hear anything about it. However, that is not so when it comes to the arms business.
My father was a defence contractor for 35 years in this country. He worked at the Sorel shipyards. He was a shipyard worker in Poland, and when he came to Canada, he continued building ships for as long as he possibly could. When the Sorel shipyard was shut down, he became a defence contractor. That was the field he worked in, and so it is a business I know really well. It is a business that gave my dad a great middle-class job.
The Liberals are very defensive on this, but they are defensive for all the wrong reasons. They are defensive because they do not really have a record to defend on jobs, because they have not really created any jobs.
The matter before us is whether to create another standing committee, and that is what we should be debating. Do we need another standing committee of the House to look at an issue?
As I have told the New Democrats I have talked to, informally and in debate, I just do not believe that this committee is necessary. However, I do think that the Liberals made a mistake at the committee level, and they should have accepted the creation of a subcommittee, which was the proper area to have this. It is where they should have had this policy to debate, and they could have called witnesses. They could have called for specialists in the field to come to the committee to explain to them what to do, what type of human rights restrictions there were, and what type of issues should be studied further. That could be done, again, at the committee level.
There are several parts of the motion that I agree with, that Conservatives in general have mentioned that they agree with; and Canadians, I think, would agree too. The motion mentions that we expect a high standard from the government to continue to protect human rights abroad, which is fine. I agree with that.
There is a lot of good wording in the motion; it is just the standing committee concept that I think is wholly unnecessary. Again, we support establishing and maintaining international standards that would prevent arms transfers fuelling conflicts and supporting organized crime or, worse, terrorism. These are all concepts with which we, in principle, agree. The question is on the correct procedure. Where should we be having the discussions?
I think it is really unfortunate, because this could have been avoided if the Liberal members on that committee had just said yes to the subcommittee. We could have started this study right then.
Any member here could have sent a letter to the chair of that subcommittee and asked it to look at certain issues, and then suggested the witnesses. I have done it before. I have sent letters to chairs of committees suggesting areas of study. I have done it, and sometimes I have constituents who email me or send me letters to say they think something is a policy issue. I am not a full member of a committee, but I will still write to the committee chair to say that a constituent believes that a certain issue is worthy of study and I would like that taken under consideration.
Those are all worthy procedural, mechanical ways of doing the business of Parliament, of getting the ball rolling and getting studies undertaken.
It has been mentioned a few times before that there are end-user contracts. This is something with which I have a little bit of familiarity. Again, my father used to deal with defence contractors and was a defence contractor himself. However, we could have studied that. We could have actually asked if end-user contracts are appropriate. Do they work; do they function in all instances; should they be beefed up; should they be abandoned in favour of another model or mechanism to control how certain equipment is used by different countries, by our allies, by those who are maybe reselling them on a secondary market?
The member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie is correct that there is a need for Canadians, through Parliament, to oversee current and future arms sales. However, the foreign affairs committee already has the authority, as has been mentioned, to look at these issues. The Liberals have said this too, and it is a point that I do agree with.
However, the Liberals on that committee should have been the ones to say yes to a study and give it to a subcommittee of its members to look into it. That is where they could have done it. I am not of the view of establishing an entirely new committee.
I sat on the pay equity committee. I contributed to that debate and had fulsome discussions on it. However, I just do not think that a new committee devoted solely to a single, specific issue is a wise use of the resources of Parliament. I think it unnecessary to have a single-issue committee. I would much rather see it dealt with in a committee like foreign affairs with a subcommittee. I believe that is the best way to do it.
I will be voting against the motion, just on the principle of having a standing committee. It is admirable that they are trying to push the issue to have greater transparency on it.
I see my time has run out. I will yield to the chair.