Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my remarks based on my personal experience working in zones of conflict, where the important question was often where the arms hitting that conflict were coming from, arms that made the job of human rights observers more difficult and more dangerous, and arms that made the job of humanitarian aid workers greater as each day passed and more dangerous as each day passed.
For me, effective control of arms exports is not just a theoretical question.
There was the arming of the pro-Indonesian militias in East Timor, in 1999, when I was there as co-chair of the human rights observer mission for the UN referendum, and we saw the murder of more than 1,500 people after the vote for independence. Where did those arms come from? It is a question that has never really been answered.
There was Ambon, where I worked in 2000 and 2001 for the international migration commission, trying to do peace-building work between Christians and Muslims, where outside interests were clearly fuelling the conflict with both arms of a sophisticated nature and explosives.
There was the Taliban in Afghanistan, where I worked in 2000, who have continued, over a decade, to be armed by murky sources.
Finally, there were the rebels in Muslim Mindanao, where I worked in 2010 as an election observer and where people were killed at the poll I was observing.
We have seen, in Muslim Mindanao, rebel groups using kidnapping and beheading as a tactic, not just to win their conflict, but much more specifically, to raise money to purchase arms illegally on the world market.
Therefore, it is harder for me to dismiss the concern about what happens to arms exports when they leave Canada, when we know people who have actually died as a result of the uncontrolled arms trade.
I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not making a pacifist argument here about the need to do away with all arms. Arms are needed for defence, and there is nothing wrong with arms exports that are done in an open, transparent, and responsible manner. That is exactly what the proposal we have before us would help us do.
The motion to create an arms export review committee would enhance Canada's international reputation, but it would also enhance our own ability to make sure that our impact in the world is a positive one and that it is not inadvertently, or through lack of care, contributing to the conflicts around the world, which end up producing not just death and destruction locally but waves of refugees around the world.
Why have such a committee? I have heard arguments today from the Conservatives about how we need a subcommittee rather than a committee, so they are going to vote against this. It seems, with all respect, a very specious argument. A subcommittee is staffed in the same way a committee is staffed, and the only thing that is really different is that normally we have fewer members on a subcommittee. It is not really an argument about the substance of what we are talking about today.
I have heard many arguments from the other side about the foreign affairs committee. First of all, men who do not sit on the committee have explained to the one woman who sits on the committee that it is already doing this work, when it is clearly not, or that the committee could somehow do this work.
I would submit, with respect, that the foreign affairs committee has a fairly large task already. The foreign affairs committee is responsible for Canada's foreign relations with the entire world, so it does not have the time available on its agenda to do more than a one-off study, at most.
What this does, saying that the foreign affairs committee could do this work, is miss the positive example of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom, where a very focused committee of the U.K. Commons is able to provide much more detailed scrutiny of arms exports and to do so over the long term and not just as a snapshot picture. It is a committee that has developed expertise and is therefore very valuable to the members of Parliament in the British House of Commons in allowing them to take responsibility for the arms that leave their shores.
As I say, the U.K. demonstrates the value of that focused committee with ongoing oversight over arms exports, as opposed to simply saying that the foreign affairs committee could look at this.
Yet another argument that was put forward by the Liberals earlier today was that they do not have to have a special committee to look at arms exports, because they will be introducing legislation to ratify the Arms Trade Treaty, and we can talk about this then. I would submit that it is exactly the opposite.
If we are going to join the Arms Trade Treaty soon, as the Liberals keep telling us, and I believe that is a good thing, then what better place to make sure we are observing our obligations under that treaty than having an arms export review committee. It proves to me exactly the opposite of the arguments that I have been hearing in the House.
There has always been a need for such a committee but that need has increased recently. Canada's arms exports have doubled over the past 10 years. That means we have an increased responsibility to make sure that what is happening with those arms exports is legal and that the end-users are responsible end-users. We have seen a shift in our arms exports. Where most of our exports used to go to NATO countries and other allies, we have now become the second-largest arms dealer in the Middle East of all places.
I have a particular concern about our arms dealings with Saudi Arabia and I express those concerns on two grounds. Of course the obvious is the Saudis' own appalling human rights record and the very strong evidence now before us that Saudi arms have been and will likely continue to be used against its own civilians. Remember, this is a country where there are severe restrictions on the rights of women and where a gay man like me is subject to the death penalty.
In addition to the Saudis' own appalling human rights record, the Saudis have a record of exporting not just their extremist version of Islam but also arms that have been initially sold to them. These arms are mysteriously showing up in other conflicts and in particular there is disturbing evidence about the flow of arms through Saudi Arabia into the conflict in Yemen. Why have we become, as Canadians, one of the largest suppliers of arms to a country with this kind of appalling record?
I have particular concerns about the Saudi LAV vehicle deal. The Conservatives signed the deal and the Liberals signed the export permits, and yes, during the election the NDP said it thought we should keep the contract. The new evidence on the flow of weapons from Saudi Arabia to Yemen came out after the election campaign and the NDP has called for the suspension of this deal.
We also have additional evidence, which I find disturbing, that has not been really extensively covered here in the House. We have not really heard from the government on it. However, it is evidence that it is not just a private contract between a company and Saudi Arabia but the Canadian Armed Forces is actually engaged in assisting with trials of these vehicles and in training on the use of the vehicles. The other side likes to tell us it is just a business deal and we have to keep the contract, but it appears that it may be much more than that.
What about the workers? I hear “what about the workers” extensively from both the Conservatives and Liberals. I will try to stave off my sense of irony on hearing about the workers from parties that voted against anti-scab legislation.
If we are talking about the LAV vehicles, for instance, why not use those same facilities and those same companies to rebuild our own military vehicles? The example I use is that someone said to me that it was great the Canadian military brought heritage trucks to their parade, and I was able to reply that those are the only trucks we have and they are not museum specimens. The average age of vehicles in the Canadian military is over 40 years old, so if we are worried about workers in those factories and what we could do with those skills, I would submit we could put them to work building trucks for the Canadian military instead of building trucks for a human rights abuser and a country that may use them against its own citizens or pass them on to other conflicts.
I want to thank the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie for her great work on the foreign affairs committee in general and in particular on today's motion. I see something interesting in the motion. There is a great deal of research about peace and conflict resolution that shows that when women get involved in peace and conflict resolution, we achieve more success and quite often through very practical measures that reduce the negative impacts of conflict.
I see today's very motion as that, an example of a woman New Democrat from Laurier—Sainte-Marie who has stood up and said, here is something we can do to make the world a better place. Is that not what it should mean to say that Canada is back, that we are going to put ourselves to work, sign the Arms Trade Treaty, and monitor our exports to make sure they do not contribute to human rights abuses and that they do not contribute to further conflict around the world?
