Foreign Affairs committee  Hello, my name is Richard Arbeiter and I'm the director general for international security policy at Global Affairs Canada.

Foreign Affairs committee  The three countries that didn't approve it when it was considered by the general assembly were North Korea, Syria, and Iran.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. Treaties take a long time to come to be. Initial discussions around this issue were around the years 2000, 2001, and 2002, and then there was a further 10 years of work with others, then the intensive negotiations in 2012-13, and then three years since then as the treaty cam

Foreign Affairs committee  I should have stopped at “yes”.

Foreign Affairs committee  I won't comment on U.S. interpretation, but certainly our interpretation is that there is no impact on domestic gun ownership issues here in Canada.

Foreign Affairs committee  The U.S....?

Foreign Affairs committee  We did not sign—

Foreign Affairs committee  This is a kind of multilateral question. When the Arms Trade Treaty was brought before the UN General Assembly, we, alongside the other 150-odd—

Foreign Affairs committee  Okay. We approved of it at the time. There is then a process whereby states have to choose to sign the treaty, and then once they've signed the treaty, deposit their instruments of ratification, which is a fancy way of saying that we are demonstrating that we meet all of the o

Foreign Affairs committee  I would simply clarify that the U.S. did indeed sign the ATT. They did not ratify the ATT, but they did sign, as did all other members of NATO and the G7. That would include Japan. Just to be absolutely clear, they did sign on to the ATT.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm going to make a few comments in English, if you don't mind. We co-operate with the United States in all of the four export control regimes. We share objectives about preventing the acquisition of these arms by terrorists, organized crime, or those who are engaged in armed co

Foreign Affairs committee  Once Canada has taken on an obligation, that obligation stands for future governments, whoever forms them.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll start with a general reflection on treaties and then turn it over to my colleague. I'll tell you the example of the comprehensive test ban treaty, which has not come into force and which a number of countries have not ratified, but since it was negotiated there is only one c

Foreign Affairs committee  Very quickly, I would just like to come back to the previous point and say that we are taking the same approach as the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. That means that using regulation versus legislation is not particular to Canada. It is an approach that our allies