Madam Speaker, it does not surprise me that the Conservatives do not want to see Canada play a leadership role in the world. They never aspired to do this in their time in government.
I heard the member use the word “adequate” to describe our export control system. Our government aspires to something much more than adequate in the way we portray ourselves domestically and abroad.
Finally, this bill will do nothing that affects law-abiding gun owners. I will have the chance to explain more in my coming intervention.
This bill does three things to an already adequate export control system for Canada. It codifies in legislation the criteria by which decisions must be made, including peace and security considerations, human rights, and things like gender-based violence. I would hope that my colleague across the way would see the value of Canada considering such things. The bill also regulates the brokering of arms sales so that brokers must maintain that same level of scrutiny. As well, it adds a substantial risk test to make sure that when arms are sold into conflict zones, there is not a substantial risk that the criteria I just mentioned are contravened.
I would hope that she would agree that these are valuable regulatory aspects that Canada should take a leadership role in.