recent floor-crosser<\/a> Lori Idlout.<\/p>\nMost Liberals, Conservatives and Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois MPs voted against it, while 23 MPs abstained.<\/p>\n
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand criticized the bill shortly before the vote, saying it would \u201cdecimate Canada\u2019s defence industry, would weaken Canada\u2019s role in NATO and would jeopardize the capabilities of our Canadian Armed Forces.\u201d<\/p>\n
This view was shared by the Conservatives.<\/p>\n
Tory MP James Bezan noted the defence giants Honeywell, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin are major employers of Canadians.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCreating these jobs and keeping these companies here supports Canada\u2019s sovereign capabilities to build weapons for ourselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
MP Karim Bardeesy, the parliamentary secretary to the industry minister, further noted that Canada\u2019s export controls are already \u201cstrict and robust.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Akaash Maharaj, a fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, says the government seems to be relying on the U.S. to enforce its own export controls. But this is problematic, he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cDonald Trump has already withdrawn the United States\u2019 signature from the Arms Trade Treaty, and [U.S. Secretary of War] Pete Hegseth has made it clear that the U.S. will not respect the laws of war in its conduct of military affairs,\u201d Maharaj told Canadian Affairs in an email after the vote. The international Arms Trade Treaty sets global standards for the transfer of conventional weapons.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada and the United States are clearly not adhering to the same values in the use and distribution of weapons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. loophole<\/p>\n
Kelsey Gallagher, a senior researcher at the non-profit Project Ploughshares, says Canada\u2019s arms shipments to the U.S. face far less oversight than those sent elsewhere, allowing Canadian weapons to end up in the hands of human-rights violators.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US is not a State Party to the [Arms Trade Treaty] and therefore has significantly weaker safeguards when transferring military systems abroad,\u201d Gallagher said in an email to Canadian Affairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanadian munitions have been exported to other states through the US that Canadian policy would have barred if they were exported directly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yara Shoufani, president of the advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, says the bill\u2019s defeat will not end their push for stronger oversight of arms exports.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis issue will remain a central issue for human rights organizations, constituents, and voters \u2026 [who must] continue to be vigilant in opposing all arms exports that risk ending up in the hands of war criminals and g\u00e9nocidaires,\u201d she told Canadian Affairs in an email.<\/p>\n
In a press conference<\/a> ahead of the vote, Kwan framed the debate as a test of Canada\u2019s values.<\/p>\n\u201cThe words that the prime minister spoke at Davos do not match his actions,\u201d she said, referencing Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s much touted speech at the World Economic Forum in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said that we can\u2019t turn a blind eye to reality. Well, we are \u2026 We\u2019re making exceptions whenever the government feels like it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prime minister said, \u2018We can\u2019t go along to get along\u2019 \u2014 well, we are going along to get along.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated Posts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Read: 3 min A bill to tighten oversight of Canada\u2019s arms exports was shot down in Parliament this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44,87366,87365,2532],"class_list":["post-531875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news","tag-politics-policy","tag-pressreader","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}