Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, he will be doing that.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll take the first crack at this one, but I know that my colleagues will have comments as well. The important thing to note if you're looking at the language in subparagraph 21(4)(d) of the convention, which is the same language that is imported into the NDP amendment in partic

Foreign Affairs committee  We are considering options at this point.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll be responding to this using my old hat as the lawyer responsible for the ICC and related institutions.

Foreign Affairs committee  Minister Baird has made it very clear that accountability for the crimes committed in Syria against the civilian population need to be accounted for and that the perpetrators need to be brought to justice. Now, how that works in practice.... You said very correctly that Syria is

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair and honourable members, I'm pleased to be before you today on a somewhat different matter than what I've been speaking to you about lately, namely, to talk about chemical weapons in Syria. It may be useful to provide you with a bit of a history of the issue. As my col

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm advised that the reporting is updates on stockpile destruction, but not on advocacy activities.

Foreign Affairs committee  If I may just add this, I've also just been advised that one of the elements that goes into our annual voluntary—at this point—reporting is activities that we've carried out for clearance purposes, for example. So the types of projects that the minister indicated we might be carr

Foreign Affairs committee  No, you did not. That was my poor choice of words. It's a commitment under the convention.

Foreign Affairs committee  International treaties distinguish very carefully between binding obligations and commitments and undertakings. They use different language. A binding obligation will use the word “shall”, as in “states shall do x, y, and z”. Otherwise, it would be “states undertake to” or “state

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. At this point, we haven't ratified the treaty yet, so our reporting at this point is entirely voluntary in the first place. Let me just check with one of my colleagues behind me to determine what the contents were on those reports because, quite frankly, I don't recall.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. Parliamentary Secretary Obhrai has stated very correctly that we are already preparing an annual report, and certainly that is something that can be very readily made available to this committee or tabled in Parliament. With regard to the very specific reporting req

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't think, quite frankly, that there's any nefarious distinction to be made. If memory serves, the Anti-Personnel Mines Convention Implementation Act was drafted in three days. If I look at it now, I see some glitches in it which, had I spotted them then, wouldn't be in it no

Foreign Affairs committee  I think the important point to consider is just to reiterate what Colonel Penny said. With the wider prohibition on transport under Canadian criminal law, it applies to any person on Canadian territory. In other words, it might also apply to nationals of a foreign state for whom