Mr. Speaker, when this bill was studied at committee, we heard many different criticisms by different groups for different reasons. I think we can see a certain relationship between the criticisms, on the one hand, that this bill is targeting people it should not be targeting, namely law-abiding firearms owners, and on the other hand, its preservation of the fundamental structure of our existing system, one in which decisions about arms sales are ultimately discretionary.
When we had public servants before the committee, I asked specifically about a recent arms deal, the one with Azerbaijan, because I know it is of concern to many in the Canadian Armenian community because of the reality of an ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Artsakh region. There were border clashes recently, which most people agree were started on the Azeri side and that resulted in many people being killed. We posed those questions, and we were told at committee that this was a matter of commercial confidence, so we could not even get an explanation about that.
Although we might disagree on the particulars of some of these arms sales, surely we should be able to get answer to questions, especially when these questions are not about commercial particulars but about regional peace and stability in the region and how an arms sale might affect that? At the same time, does the member agree with us that this bill inappropriately targets responsible firearms owners in Canada by including things like small arms that could be used for sport and hunting.