Mr. Speaker, I have to start by saying what a delight it is tonight to hear the Conservative members from Alberta giving accolades to Premier Notley for taking strong action to protect rural Albertans. It certainly is an important issue, but it is absolutely not what we are here to debate tonight. I am pleased to say that I will be the first speaker tonight who will actually speak to Bill C-47. My colleagues and I are opposed to this bill, but for completely different reasons.
Why is this bill important and why is it important that we get it right? Canada is now the second-largest arms dealer in the Middle East. In the past 25 years, Canada has sold $5.8 billion in weapons to countries with deeply questionable human rights records. In 2014-15, only 10 export permits were denied out of over 7,000 applications. Reports over the past year have indicated that Canadian sales of military-related equipment have increased to countries with poor human rights records.
It is time for the federal government to step up. I am pleased to say that the response to my colleague, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, has been the same as the response to me on this issue, in terms of the Liberals' attitude to the arms trade deal.
Over 30,000 people have signed an Avaaz petition since last Friday asking the Liberals to fix this bill. The petition reads:
As a concerned Canadian, I strongly urge you to pass an arms bill that will stop exports to any party involved in human rights violations, and to close the crazy loophole with US arms exports. It's unacceptable for Canadians to have zero visibility into where our weapons end up and we urge you to ensure that bill C-47 addresses that.
As I mentioned, in my almost 10 years in this place, the most responses I have ever received from my constituents have been those opposing the sale of the LAVs to Saudi Arabia. There we are: Canadians are not happy with the approach the government is taking.
Therefore, while we welcome the decision by the government to move forward and to become a state party to the Arms Trade Treaty, we are deeply troubled at the approach it is taking because, frankly, it is not living up to the treaty.
When the Liberal government announced that Canada would finally accede to the Arms Trade Treaty, my colleagues and I, particularly my colleague from Laurier—Sainte-Marie, were thrilled. Of course, my former colleague, Paul Dewar, was outspoken on this for all of the years he was in the House of Commons.
Sadly, instead, Bill C-47 is one more broken Liberal promise. They are not, in fact, taking the action necessary to actually implement in Canada, into Canadian law, the full Arms Trade Treaty. As many people have said, they make a mockery of the Arms Trade Treaty.
The first derogation from this treaty is a massive one, in that the bill does not cover any of our exports to the United States. We do not know the exact percentage, and I will tell my colleagues why in a minute, but well over 50% of our arms exports are to the United States. We do not know the actual percentage because those exports are not tracked, and not even reported. Thus, we have no idea how many of our arms are being sold to the United States. This is important because we exclude from this bill any arms that are manufactured by a Canadian manufacturer here in Canada, but sold by another nation. That is, in fact, what has been going on with Canadian manufacturers of arms for export. They simply sell them to an American entity or a similar entity they have incorporated in the United States, and those in turn sell them to foreign entities who are major human rights violators. This is all the more important now as President Trump is lowering the bar for export to countries that are serious human rights violators.
Members here will recall the proposed sale of helicopters to the Government of the Philippines. They will remember that the president of the Philippines had boasted about throwing a man from a helicopter and that he would do it again. However, there are reports the company in question now plans to send helicopter parts to the United States, assemble them there, and then send them to the Philippines. Clearly, that is a cannon hole we are shooting through this arms treaty. It violates the letter and spirit of the Arms Trade Treaty. The treaty calls for universal adherence. That means that Canada should have laws in place that prohibit any sale by Canadian corporations to nations that are major human rights violators.
The second derogation is that in some cases in Canada an export permit is not even needed. Agreements between the defence department or with the Canadian Commercial Corporation do not require a permit, and they are free to sell to whoever they want. Those are also exempted from this bill.
What does Bill C-47 do to solve the problem? It does next to nothing, because Canadian corporations that are major arms manufacturers and traders have already figured out how to get around this, and the Liberal government is enabling that with this bill before us right now.
There was the infamous case of the light armoured vehicles, LAVs, sold by a Canadian manufacturer to Saudi Arabia. Despite clear reports of human rights violations, the current government refused to even investigate the sale. First, it suggested that the deal had already been completed by the Conservatives. Then it denied that there was any real evidence of the nefarious use of the LAVs by Saudi Arabia. Then, when the reports became so clear that there were in fact human rights violations going on with those very LAVS, it investigated, but again denied there was proof of human rights violations enabled by the use of Canadian LAVs.
There is also the embarrassing case of a UN report of a Canadian company selling 170 armed vehicles to support the brutal civil war in South Sudan. I just sat through a briefing by Global Affairs officials advising us of all the aid that Canada is giving to a number of African nations, including South Sudan, because of this brutal war. Human rights observers, including UN experts, have documented how South Sudan's army has engaged in massacres, rapes, looting, arbitrary arrests, and a scorched-earth strategy against civilians since the war erupted. Tens of thousands have died in the violence since then, making it one of the world's bloodiest conflicts. A UN expert panel said in a report submitted to the Security Council that the armoured vehicles sold to South Sudan were manufactured by the Canadian-owned Streit Group at a factory in the United Arab Emirates. The company simply takes the parts, has them put together in another nation, and then sells them to these human rights violators. It is absolutely absurd for Canada to be saying that we should be imposing sanctions on South Sudan and pouring in dollars to deal with the human rights abuses when in fact we are putting in place a law that would enable Canadian manufacturers to sell the very arms that are causing the atrocities in South Sudan.
In closing, we have heard from tens of thousands of Canadians who are absolutely opposed to the direction the government is taking. It is an international embarrassment. If the government wants to be on the Security Council, it should take back its bill, revise it, and make it consistent with the Arms Trade Treaty.