Canada urged to sign arms treaty

The European Union and some of Canada’s closest allies privately called on the Conservative government in Sept. 2013 to sign an international treaty to combat the flow of illicit weapons.

But the high- level request, revealed in internal documents obtained by the Citizen, fell on deaf ears. More than two years later, Canada remains one of the few countries — and the only NATO member — not to have signed the Arms Trade Treaty ( ATT).

Canada was one of 154 countries to vote in favour of the treaty at the United Nations in April 2013. The agreement aims to regulate the export of arms and ammunition, to make sure they don’t fall into the hands of human rights abusers, criminals or terrorist groups.

Yet when it came time to sign in June 2013, Canada was nowhere to be seen. The government said it was concerned about the impact on domestic gun owners, though the treaty deals only with cross- border sale and transfer of arms.

With the UN General Assembly set to reconvene, three months later, the European Union took action. According to the documents, a group of European diplomats visited Foreign Affairs headquarters to press for action.

Led by Manfred Auster, at the time the top European Union diplomat in Ottawa, the group included Dutch Ambassador Cees Kole and representatives from Germany, the United Kingdom and France.

“The EU called on Canada to sign the treaty at the earliest opportunity, noting the devastating effects the uncontrolled trade in small arms has around the world as well as its emphasis on regulation, not prohibition of the arms trade treaty,” reads a summary of the Sept. 17, 2013, meeting.

All of Europe has signed or ratified the treaty, with the exception of Kosovo and Belarus. The United States signed last year.

While Foreign Affairs and the Conservative Party did not immediately respond to requests for comment, the government previously has cited concerns about the impact on legitimate gun owners. It has also boasted that Canada has some of the most stringent arms control regulations in the world.

But an internal assessment by Foreign Affairs officials, also obtained by the Citizen, shows a number of areas where Canada’s export regulations fall short of the treaty’s standards.

During Monday’s Munk Debate on foreign policy, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair criticized Conservative Leader Stephen Harper for failing to have Canada sign.

“Now we find ourselves in some particularly curious company here with countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, Belarus,” he said.

“And those are not the types of countries we normally identify with, but they’re countries like Canada that have refused to sign that treaty.”