Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon. My name is Cesar Jaramillo. I am the executive director of Project Ploughshares. Thank you very much to all members of the committee for the kind invitation to address you. I've given a title to my brief remarks, which is “Bill C-47: if left un

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much for that very good question. I wasn't here for the first hour, so I'm not sure what concerns were raised by the earlier witnesses. I do know from our conversations with other colleagues and like-minded organizations in Canada who have testified before this com

Foreign Affairs committee  Thanks for the question. Yes. I am aware that some sectors have concerns about the impact the Arms Trade Treaty may have in terms of the rights of legal, lawful gun owners in Canada. The first point I will make is that this is not a conversation that is exclusive to Canada. In t

Foreign Affairs committee  No. My position is that it would not be necessary to include such language. The best basis for this claim is the treaty itself, because there is nothing in the treaty that explicitly or implicitly indicates a threat to Canadians' lawful gun ownership.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Madame Laverdière. I would agree with that assessment. It would be beneficial for the minister himself or herself to have those hard limits on the discretion for arms export authorization. I want to clarify this point because I have the sense that perhaps we're foc

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank, you again, Madame Laverdière. That's a great question. First of all, I've heard this notion about retaining flexibility as being a key rationale for doing it through regulations because we need to be flexible in situations as circumstances change, etc. It's a seductive ar

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity to present before this distinguished committee. Distinguished members of the committee, contrary to government claims, Canada does not have one of the strongest export control systems in the world. This is not a matter of opini

Foreign Affairs committee  The minister used to have almost full authority to authorize any and all exports to any destination regardless of the human rights record of the recipient. Recently, as part of Bill C-47, which is the legislation that was getting Canada ready to accede to the Arms Trade Treaty,

Foreign Affairs committee  That is correct. That is our understanding.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Dr. Fry. That's an excellent question. We often hear from NATO members, not just in this instance but in general, about the need to maintain military interoperability. That is often giving us a blanket reason for these dubious transactions, but as Ms. Mason said, that

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. If I may address it briefly, we were taken aback by the lifting of the moratorium to Saudi Arabia, even if it was along the pattern of “no matter what” in terms of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Like you said, it was a decision taken in the middle of a p

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, it is, with the caveat that exports need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The technology alone paints part of the picture, but you need to look at the nature of the recipient and any related precedents that would paint the full picture around risk.

Foreign Affairs committee  We don't know the details of the risk assessment, but I would emphasize that we do know without a doubt that they have been diverted. I want to emphasize the point that this is not a matter of opinion, speculation or interpretation, or that we're trying to stretch the perceived e

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, Mr. Fonseca. Thank you. That's a good point. As I said in my opening remarks, we have been here before, where the government, faced with increased media scrutiny, announces a suspension. I will remind the members of this committee that this was not an instance of the govern

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't have my dates in front of me.