Madam Chair, I thank the minister for his speech tonight and for his extension of Operation Unifier. New Democrats, too, agree with the other parties here in the House that this is an important mission for us to undertake.
One of the problems we have, though, in eastern Ukraine, is that the conflict is being made worse by the illegal flow of small arms and light weapons. It was last June that the government promised to accede to the Arms Trade Treaty, and we were promised that legislation would be introduced by December.
When I was speaking about my position on this, I promised to pass along this question to the next government speaker, so I am going to ask the minister. What is taking so long on the accession to the Arms Trade Treaty, which would help not just in eastern Ukraine but in other conflicts around the world?