House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was trade.

Last in Parliament August 2023, as Conservative MP for Durham (Ontario)

Won his last election, in 2021, with 46% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Export and Import Permits Act September 21st, 2017

Madam Speaker, I am sure the hon. member for Ottawa West—Nepean proudly represents a number of people who work with the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces.

She might find it strange that article 5 of this treaty actually prevents DND from potentially doing government-to-government transfers of assistance of a military nature, like we are doing with the peshmerga and our fight against ISIS. Canada's safe and effective regulatory regime for export of military equipment and such has never required such a drastic step as is in article 5 of this treaty.

Since the member also proudly represents a number of civil servants, I wonder if she would comment on why our current system is broken, the one we have had since the 1940s that leads the world, the one that has the Trade Controls Bureau, and the fact that the Export and Import Permits Act permits the government to have an area of control list banning countries entirely from getting anything from Canada?

A number of measures have effectively been regulated on a Canadian basis since the Second World War. We did not need the United Nations to tell us how to do this. In fact, our regime is superior to a number of the elements in here.

As an Ottawa and area member, could the member tell us what parts of the current regime, which Canada has been using successfully, have been failing and are in need of Bill C-47?

Export and Import Permits Act September 21st, 2017

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned why his party is supporting the bill today, but clearly he has also been paying attention to the debate in the House, and I appreciate that.

Does my colleague feel the language that the parliamentary secretary used in introducing the bill, when he suggested that basic concerns that some Canadians might have are either “phony” or “bogus”, is a good way to advance questions that Canadians have, such as hunters, sport shooters, and indigenous Canadians, who have a constitutional right to hunt? Answering those questions is a debate we should have as a part of the bill.

Does he think the tone used by the Liberals with respect to the introduction of the bill seeks to divide the rural parts of Canada that he and I represent from the urban parts?

Export and Import Permits Act September 21st, 2017

Mr. Speaker, we hear many Liberal members, including the parliamentary secretary, suggesting that even a simple question on the application of the bill to hunters and sport shooters is somehow, to quote the parliamentary secretary, “bogus” or “phony”. This member and a number of other members have raised some valid questions that hunters and sport shooters have because a carve-out for civilian users was rejected in the negotiation of this treaty.

I would like my friend to comment on how a simple question about the bill's application is a bogus argument that creates divisions between rural and urban Canadians and really belittles debate in the House. Could the member comment on that?

Export and Import Permits Act September 21st, 2017

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and good friend for his intervention and advocacy, particularly with the outdoor caucus work he does, bringing a lot more Canadians into contact with their Parliament on issues that concern them. There is one thing I want to raise and would like him to comment on.

The parliamentary secretary, in his speech on this bill, suggested that any concerns, even minor concerns, from the hunting community, sports shooters, even indigenous Canadians who engage in those things sometimes, on their constitutional rights to hunt, are “bogus”. This is his language. I would like the member to comment, in light of the fact that the previous government suggested to the UN that a carve out specifically in the treaty, carving out the lawful use of firearms by hunters and sports shooters, was rejected.

Would the member comment on how unfair it is for the parliamentary secretary to suggest that concern about the rejection of that carve out is somehow bogus? That is divisive language that often pits rural Canada against urban Canada. Could the member, in his experience working with the community, comment on just that style of approach?

Export and Import Permits Act September 21st, 2017

Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the parliamentary secretary. Therefore, as parliamentary colleagues, I invite him to collaborate on two things. First, I will go to a meeting of the Trade Controls Bureau with him, when he gets a briefing on what it has done since the 1940s with respect to the superior approach to regulation. Second, he knows my friend Brian Macdonald, who is an MLA in his area. I want him to go with Brian Macdonald to one of the hunting areas in New Brunswick to hear these concerns first-hand before using words such as phony or bogus.

Export and Import Permits Act September 21st, 2017

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Alberta, who does a lot of work with hunters and anglers in Canada and knows that their questions are legitimate ones, which this Parliament should not only consider but consider respectfully because they are real concerns.

The member also touches on really the glowing hole in this treaty. He has identified it by the concern we have globally of arms getting into some conflicts. The fact is that three of the largest six trading nations in these types of goods are not part of this treaty. Canada is not a major producer of military equipment or nuclear, chemical, or biological. We are a producer because we are a technology-laden country with diverse manufacturing and trade, but we are not a leader.

In the context of the fact that it is vague in certain areas, Canadians should be rightly concerned about how this treaty would apply when we already have a very effective regime in Canada. I have heard no Canadian saying to me that we need to reform the Export and Import Permits Act. No one has ever said that.

I highlighted in one of my points the area control list empowered by this legislation. There is also an export control list. The government already has in its tools the ability to control or limit countries and what goods go out of Canada. We already have this ability, so the valid concerns about this treaty lead to my not wanting to support it.

Export and Import Permits Act September 21st, 2017

Madam Speaker, I look forward to working with my colleague at the foreign affairs committee, as a newer member of that committee. I would suggest that she is going to hear that exact concern if this bill comes to committee in the next month or two, and we are debating that right now.

What is interesting about the concern being expressed from hunters and sports shooters is that they are a cross-section of Canadians, including indigenous Canadians who have some unique rights. Their concerns are founded based on vague language in the treaty. They are also concerned in terms of the breadth of the term “broker” in the treaty. They are also very concerned by the fact that some countries, Canada included, wanted a specific carve-out for lawful firearms use. What we are talking about here is reasonable: why that was excluded despite Canada intervening and other countries asking. That would have given the certainties that lawyers like to see. They do not like ambiguity. They do not like uncertainty. The fact that it was rejected leads to that question.

The committee review process of this bill, I hope, will bring some of those concerns to Parliament and to one of our committees; so then we can at least see that these are not phony arguments, as someone on the government side suggested. These are genuine concerns, and the fact that those concerns were rejected in the final negotiating rounds of this treaty leads some to believe that the treaty's intention is to regulate those types of civilian uses of firearms. Sometimes if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, perhaps it is a duck.

Export and Import Permits Act September 21st, 2017

Madam Speaker, I too enjoy when the Minister of Transport weighs in on things. I enjoyed his interventions much more when he was sitting on this side as opposed to that side, but that is the way Parliament works. I have the utmost respect for him.

In that list of items, one thing I found absent was our world-leading position as a country in space and some of our technology related to space. I know the minister knows the issue far better than anyone in the House.

In the last government, the sale of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates was prevented because of national security concerns. The member liked some of the arguments I made and did not like others.

Why did I sound defensive? It was because the parliamentary secretary ended his question and comment period in French by saying that this was going to be taking what Canada is doing to the next regime. I was listening without translation and from a distance, but he was leaving the effect that the regime Canada had in place was somehow inferior to Bill C-47.

My speech was intended to show that it is not. In fact, our tracking is far superior, and because of uncertainty—and with respect, I do think it is genuine, although he may suggest it is not genuine—all groups that have hunters and sports shooters, including indigenous hunters and sports shooters, who have a constitutional right for that, think it is unreasonable that one definition could not go in this treaty to carve out responsible and legal firearm use. To coin a term, I think that is a modest proposal, but because we do not have that carve-out and because I hear the language of the nineties creeping back in, I oppose the bill. However, I rest easy at night because our regime in place now is already doing more than this treaty would.

Export and Import Permits Act September 21st, 2017

Madam Speaker, it is my honour to rise today to debate Bill C-47, particularly after the speech from the parliamentary secretary, which ended with incorrect information to this place in response to the question from the member for the NDP. Actually, Canada would be worse off than it was before. He said that this would send Canada ahead with respect to the aims of the treaty. That is not only incorrect on the factual review of the treaty itself, but it shows the parliamentary secretary's lack of understanding of our current arms control regime in Canada.

Therefore, for his benefit, and for the benefit of the few of my Liberal friends listening, I will take him through that.

The bill is part of the Liberals' election promise to implement the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, the ATT, which has been debated in the UN, has been brought forward, and signed by some countries but not by others.

My remarks will focus on four key points. Three of those go to the inferior nature of the ATT when compared, side by side, with what Canada does now, and did do under the previous Conservative government, the Liberal government previous to that, and so on, back to the 1940s. I will give three points on how it is inferior and a final point on its inherent unfairness, lack of clarity, and over breadth.

First, this is inferior to what Canada does now under the Export and Import Permits Act and the regulations and orders in council that can be brought forward by government under that legislation. I hope the parliamentary secretary will take notes, because he will need to research this after I go through some of it.

The first point I make is on the Trade Controls Bureau.

We empower a department of the government, and have since the 1940s, to ensure that military equipment sales, issues related to security, crypto logical equipment, and nuclear biological risks are not only governed and tracked but are controlled. We have a bureau already, not in New York, in Ottawa, that has been doing this very effectively for many years. The Trade Controls Bureau has been empowered and does this for each Parliament. I would invite the member to look at the Trade Controls Bureau and see how we specifically address, track, and control trade in military equipment, other items of security, or other interests. All Parliaments have done it. Both Liberal and Conservative governments have done it.

My second point is that we specifically name, from a Canadian point of view, items for export that need to be tracked and controlled. I will review what those are for the member because they are called out specifically.

Military or strategic dual use goods, so some goods that can be used for a military or civilian purpose, are specifically tracked. Other items are nuclear energy materials and technology; missile related technology; chemical or biological goods; and crypto logical equipment and code breaking, particularly in the age of the Internet. Many companies in Canada are world leaders in this technology, like SecureKey and others. We already monitor, control, and, in many cases, restrict export of these technologies.

One problem in the past that we know of was that a previous government, the government of Pierre Trudeau, had some issues when nuclear technology was traded for peaceful use and was tracked, but unfortunately may have been used to develop capabilities with respect to weaponized use of that technology.

I use that as a point of reference to show how, over many Parliaments, Canada has done this. We did not wait for the United Nations. Had we done that, it would have been a bit of a lawless west. As a responsible parliamentary democracy, Canada has been doing this.

I invite the member to review the specific items controlled under the Export and Import Permits Act that we charge the Trade Controls Bureau to monitor.

My third point on how our existing system is superior to an inferior UN treaty is the tracking.

The items I just outlined, including military equipment, cryptological, nuclear, and biological, are tracked by both the Canada Border Services Agency and by Statistics Canada, and not just under our own reference points. We use the World Customs Organization tracking figures for these items. We track and limit the trade in these items far more than what the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty does.

An article in Ceasefire magazine calls the UN's ATT a failure. The third item it tracked was its lack of transparency. There is no tracking internationally under this treaty. Canada already does it.

I hope the parliamentary secretary rewrites the notes the government has been passing around on the bill, because they do not accord with our legislative record or Canada's responsible treatment of controlled technologies, including not only military but nuclear technology as well.

Canada was the fourth country to have controlled nuclear fission. We have 70,000 people in Canada that work in this area. Our CANDU technology is the best in the world in capability and its safety record. We have taken this very seriously since the 1940s and we track according to the World Customs Organization tracking codes for each of those items.

I have a fourth point at which I would invite the Liberals to look.

Right now, we have what is called an area of control list under the Export and Import Permits Act. That empowerment in the bill, through an order in council, can specifically limit sales of anything to a country. Right now the only country on the area control list is North Korea, and it is probably very good it is on there. I would agree with the government if it wants to keep that country on the list. In the past, the area control list has included Belarus and Myanmar.

Not only do we already have a system of controls, tracking, and itemization that is far superior to what is proposed in the bill, our legislation as it stands in Canada can ban a country entirely. That is a tool the government can use if it is about control of anything, not just our controlled items that I have said are tracked.

The cabinet is charged with making decisions on why countries should be removed from that list. As Myanmar opened up, it was removed from that list. It was the same with Belarus. However, we still have to track. We see problems in Myanmar right now with respect to Rohingya. Perhaps the civilian oversight of the miliary is not quite as it would seem.

The Liberal government has within its power now, not by the United Nations treaty, to limit entirely sales to a country. I would invite the parliamentary secretary to review that.

Finally, like many UN treaties, the main players are not part of the treaty. In global arms trade, there are six countries called the “big six”. Three of those countries are not part of this treaty. I am not worried, because Canada's regime, as I have been describing to the House, is superior to this treaty.

The treaty came as an election promise by the Liberals, but I want them to see that what Canada is doing now, and has been doing responsibly, is superior. If we want the UN to have the tracking, to have the transparency, we should be pushing to have these discussions before a treaty is brought forward. Many MPs on both sides of the House want to ensure that Canada adheres to its Export and Import Permits Act, so they need to know what a good job it is already doing.

Finally, another inferior and quite frankly short-sighted part of the UN ATT is article 5, which would suddenly include the Department of National Defence into the military equipment provisions of that treaty, preventing, or in some cases limiting, government-to-government transfers. We have never had to catch DND within our own export and import permits regime, because DND is the government. It is a crown ministry. It is part of the crown.

Therefore, if we want to do military-to-military aid, perhaps sending training materials to the peshmerga that our special forces are working with and training, this measure would encumber that process. I am quite sure that most Canadians believe that DND is responsible for its own equipment. Why then would we catch them in a treaty that most groups are calling a failure anyway, which does not involve three of the big six players in terms of the global arms trade?

Finally, I have listed five or six items demonstrating that what Bill C-47 proposes is actually inferior to what Canada is already doing.

The last item is about unfairness, and this where the politics of it come in. Just as we are seeing with small business, there is no consultation on concerns about overbreadth or the fact that hunters, sport shooters, or recreational users under a regulated regime of lawful firearm use could be caught within the confines of the measures in this bill. I have placed this last because, while the parliamentary secretary insists it is not the case, all industry groups insist it is, but without consultation, how does the parliamentary secretary know?

It is clear that he does not understand the export and import permit regime. Maybe he knows a little more about it now, which I think is part of why we have debate now in the House of Commons. It is to show that regulation in Canada is in many ways superior to what is done anywhere else in the world, including the United Nations. Before we even talk about what the UNATT does, we should talk about what Canada is doing already, and whether it is insufficient to limit and track items that we consider potentially dangerous: military equipment, nuclear technology, chemicals, biologicals, cryptology, or anything that could adversely impact our national interest.

On the last point, the cryptological sales, we have seen the current government green-light sales to China of pretty much any technology out there. I would suggest that some of these technology trades occurred without the proper oversight, without the full review that is normally done. For some reason those reviews were waived in the case of one of the most recent sales to China. Those reviews are important, because technology is actually the threat of the future to the public safety and security of Canada and our allies, and Bill C-47 does not address that.

As I have said, particularly on my third point on transparency, this treaty is inferior. Civil society groups out there have called this treaty a failure, particularly because of its lack of transparency, and as I said, our Trade Controls Bureau has been empowered for two generations to track the sale and control of goods that Canadians deem important.

On that final note, this hearkens back for me, as a member of Parliament for a suburban riding that has a rural element, to the lack of consultation on the last element, on which Canadians have genuine concerns about whether their lawful and regulated use of a firearm for hunting or sport shooting could be impacted. The parliamentary secretary uses the words “phony argument” when we suggest that. I would invite him to go hunting with someone outside of Fredericton and see if they are being phony about their concerns. What we need is consultation to see if my concerns are overinflated or if the parliamentary secretary is being dismissive. I am not suggesting that I know, but as a lawyer, I will tell members that overbreadth or lack of clarity in law is a failure in itself.

The last government made interventions with respect to the negotiation of this treaty on many fronts, and one was a simple and reasonable carve-out of regulated civilian firearms use. I do not know why that was not pursued by the UN when there is zero transparency. However, as I said, fortunately our existing regime has transparency, while this treaty has zero.

While things were watered down as this was negotiated by the United Nations, while three of the big countries that are actual players in global trade are not part of this regime, while those issues were going through the negotiations, a simple and effective carve-out of the legitimate, historical, and cultural use of firearms was not carved out, for whatever reason.

Some of the cases before the Supreme Court of Canada on inherent rights of our indigenous peoples relate to hunting and fishing. This is as cultural as the earliest peoples of this land. Certainly, most people in this House think of the hunter in the duck blind and that sort of consideration, but the inherent right for our first nations to hunt, in both modern and traditional ways, is a constitutional protection.

Would it not be reasonable to carve that out in a treaty that on many fronts is inferior to what Canada is already doing? I really hope the parliamentary secretary and other members of his caucus refrain from that divisive language suggesting that even having a reasonable concern is somehow phony. The last time I saw that degree of arrogance in the Liberal Party, it was from a member from Toronto named Allan Rock, who polarized Canadians by suggesting that people who were law-abiding hunters or sport shooters were somehow a public safety hazard for Canada.

I know some of my Liberal friends, including from rural parts like Yukon and Labrador, know how much it hurt Canadians for the government to suggest that bringing in a licensing and registry system for people who were already trained and responsible was going to have an impact on crime. It became a divisive, rural-urban issue. This Parliament, as much as it can, should try to have debates that do not quickly revert to that approach.

I have been hard on my friend, the parliamentary secretary. I know in Fredericton, especially with the base there—and I know he supports our men and women in uniform—he knows that culturally a lot of people find hunting and fishing to be a way of life, so if they have a concern, I think it is valid to consider that concern.

It is also a valid question to ask the United Nations why, when transparency provisions were wiped out in the negotiations over the ATT, a simple reference providing explicit exclusion for law-abiding and regulated use by hunters and sport shooters, as we do in Canada very effectively, was not provided for. That is a failure of this treaty. Certainly groups out there that still have this concern want to know that the government is at least hearing them and is not suggesting that it is a phony argument. I am hoping, as we debate this bill over the coming days, that we can talk about it in those terms, and that we can talk about it from a starting point of what Canada is doing now.

As a parliamentary purist, I have great respect for our parliamentary democracy, in both Houses and on both sides. This is where we debate the laws and regulations that govern Canadians. When we can work with our allies at NATO or the United Nations to help limit arms sales to North Korea or to places where there is conflict or so that we do not exacerbate someone's pursuit of technology that could be harmful, of course we would do that. We always have. However, we should also make sure, as parliamentarians, to remind Canadians that the starting point for Canada with respect to regulating, tracking, and limiting the export of military equipment and biological-chemical dangerous items is already superior to most of the world. If we do not start from that basis, I do not think we are being fair in this debate.

The final point I will make before I close is that it is not elevating debate in this House to suggest that if the Canadian Shooting Sports Association has a concern about overbreadth, their concern is somehow phony. I hope we have a debate that is better than that, and that we have the context of the Export and Import Permits Act regime to underline a debate on Bill C-47.

Customs Act September 18th, 2017

Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear from my friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands. I want to compliment her on her eloquent remarks today remembering our friend Arnold Chan. She is also very crafty to work Keystone XL into the clarification that she is providing to the House. Certainly the price of oil is very determinant on markets, but a lot of the invested costs of these resource development projects are billions of dollars, so they are planned to ride through the fluctuation. She certainly knows we disagree on that issue.

I am in fact a little disappointed. I know she listens to the debate and participates very well. I did mention section 94 and quoted it at the beginning of my speech. Both of us being Dalhousie law graduates, which we talk about a lot, we get into the fine details of things. I would like to at least have the government explain the immense breadth of that amendment. There might very well be good reason for it. Certainly including all acts of Parliament makes it very broad. The concern she is raising I raised at the beginning of my remarks, which is the concern about lack of transparency on this. It was tabled well over a year ago and there has been minimal debate. We now have NAFTA renegotiations under way. We do not see Canadian interests being advanced, and I would like the government to advance them.