Mr. Speaker, once again I want to thank my hon. colleague for his passion and advocacy for human rights.
Our government is dismayed and appalled that Syria will take on the presidency of the conference on disarmament. We believe that it is inappropriate for Syria to take this presidency. Almost three weeks ago, when the ministers of foreign affairs of the G7 met in Toronto, a conversation on this matter was initiated by our Minister of Foreign Affairs. I will quote the communiqué that came out of the G7 conference. It states, “We deplore the fact that Syria will assume the Presidency of the Conference on Disarmament in May, given its consistent and flagrant disregard of international non-proliferation and disarmament norms and agreements.”
We will continue to publicly denounce this development. We have been calling on the conference to change its rules of procedure to prevent countries which violate their disarmament obligations from holding the rotating presidency. We also call on countries to voluntarily recuse themselves when they know that they have not been upholding their international obligations.
I want to assure the hon. member that our government is seized of this issue and we have been publicly and diplomatically raising it with our allies, like-minded countries, and members of the UN.
I also want to make a distinction. We, of course, know that the UN can work better and we want to see the UN improve and reform itself, but there is a difference between raising cynicism about the institution and constructively contributing to reforming the UN, and that is where I see the difference between me and my colleague.