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<html> <head> <meta name="Generator" content="Corel WordPerfect 8"> <title>MR. AXWORTHY - ADDRESS BEFORE THE HOUSE OF COMMONSON THE OCCASION OF THE TABLING OFTHE ANNUAL REPORT ON MILITARY EXPORTS - OTTAWA, ONTARIO</title> </head> <body text="#000000" link="#0000ff" vlink="#551a8b" alink="#ff0000" bgcolor="#c0c0c0"> 96/31 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY NOTES FOR AN ADDRESS BY THE HONOURABLE LLOYD AXWORTHY, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, BEFORE THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE OCCASION OF THE TABLING OF THE ANNUAL REPORT ON MILITARY EXPORTS OTTAWA, Ontario June 18, 1996 Mr. Speaker: In 1992, I was a member of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and Trade that issued a report on ways to improve Canada's controls on the export of military goods and on ways to diversify our defence industries and promote greater conversion towards civilian production. It was a good report, and my colleagues on that committee worked hard to come up with realistic recommendations that would help move government policy forward in imaginative ways. As Minister of Foreign Affairs today, I can say that a number of those recommendations are now being implemented. Not all of them, in part because international circumstances have changed; in part, because there are limits in this area to what any one country can do on its own. But I cite the work of the Standing Committee to underline a crucial point: this House has a real and irreplaceable role to play in the formulation of our foreign policy. Parliament is able to consult with Canadians and draw together diverse views in a way that no other national institution can. It has an honourable tradition of raising public involvement and consciousness on leading issues, and has demonstrated an acute sense of how to promote -- even provoke -- new ideas without abandoning the pragmatic core that has long distinguished our foreign policy. I want to turn to Parliament once again, to present to Parliament on the occasion of the tabling of the annual report on military exports some of the recent accomplishments and current initiatives in our security policy that call out for wider consideration of where we go next. First, I want to describe the international context in which we operate, and give some sense of what we are doing in the security field. Canada is active in the world. We have set objectives for ourselves that we are meeting through specific initiatives. Canada has long put international security at the centre of our foreign policy. In the years immediately following the Second World War, Canada's General MacNaughton led the movement to place atomic power under multilateral control, to ensure that atoms would be used for peace rather than war. In the 1960's, Tommy Burns was an inspiring force behind the drive to establish the international machinery for arms control and disarmament negotiations. In the late 1970's and early 1980's, Pierre Trudeau led the call for nuclear sanity, including his proposal for a "strategy of suffocation" to halt the risks of nuclear proliferation. In recent years, however, the focus has been changing, and changing in ways that enables Canada to play to our unique national traditions, strengths and aspirations. With the end of the Cold War, the prospects for inter-state conflict are diminishing rapidly. Instead, we are more concerned about conflict within states, which wreak havoc on domestic populations and, occasionally, threaten to spill over into neighbouring countries. If internal conflict does erupt -- as we have seen in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, and elsewhere -- it can prove even more vicious and murderous than war between states, and can have enormous destabilizing effects on global security. When internal conflict finally does end, we still face enormous challenges of building the peace. A ceasefire between states is much easier to monitor and enforce than a cessation of hostilities within states. There is no clear border to separate belligerents, no clear differences between populations that make it easier to keep them apart until passions cool. We must also deal with new emerging security threats such as crimes and narco-trafficking, with environmental degradation and displaced populations, with hate mongering and mass involuntary migration. The recent round of UN conferences on Habitat, Social Development, Women Rights, etc., demonstrate that security of the individual is now a key element of our international undertakings. New instruments are being developed, requiring new forms of international cooperation. Last year, for example, Canada chaired a meeting of G-7 Ministers to improve our efforts to combat terrorism. Our police forces are working more and more closely with their counterparts throughout the world to address the serious problem of ruthless criminal organizations that have the money and the power to challenge the very structures of legitimate authority. A body of international law is developing on environmental questions, and our aid programs are becoming much more sensitive to their impact on local environments. Similarly, we know that democracy, responsible governance and respect for human rights are fundamental building blocks of durable stability and security. But our support for these principles should not take the form of hectoring from the sidelines. Therefore, we are in the business of working with countries -- with their governments, their non-governmental organisations, their citizens -- to build civil institutions that promote human rights and democracy. The Dayton Accords reflect this approach. Canada played an active role in supporting the human rights elements of these accords and is strongly committed to continue providing resources to this end. The only durable peace in the region must incorporate the highest standard of respect for human rights. Prevention of conflict is always the preferred option, but sometimes there is no stopping the slide into war. What do we do then? Peacekeeping has been a major achievement of the last 40 years, but in more and more cases the traditional forms of peacekeeping don't apply. International military units have been used in recent years to help deliver humanitarian aid in the middle of war. They are being used to enforce the peace, as NATO is doing in Bosnia. Or to provide a shield behind which the international community can help rebuild shattered societies, as in Cambodia and Haiti. Canada is responding then to new forms of conflict in new and, we hope, more effective ways. For example, we believe that early and rapid deployment of well-trained UN forces can help smother emerging conflict before it flames out of control. We have established a training centre for peacekeepers at Cornwallis in Nova Scotia. Our soldiers are training their counterparts in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and elsewhere in the techniques of peacekeeping and we have seen in the last few years that these new peacekeepers are increasingly making a difference. We also prepared a major study, involving experts from Canada and around the world, on how to improve the UN's capacity to get peacekeepers into the field much more rapidly in response to crisis. We have a series of practical, affordable recommendations which we are promoting with other countries at the UN. A third focus is peacebuilding. We have learned that it is not enough to simply stop the war. We must also build the peace. Canada is doing just that in Haiti. There, we are working with the Government to build political and civil institutions that can address the needs of the Haitian people. Police from the RCMP and the Surété de Québec are training up a new Haitian police force that, for the first time in Haiti's history, may serve the people rather than oppress them. We know that hate messages can poison a population, and make peace impossible. Therefore, Canada recently launched an initiative in Europe to promote free, democratic media as a counter to the kinds of distortions that helped trigger the war in the former Yugoslavia; there are now discussions about whether we can provide training and equipment to help Bosnia establish a television broadcasting system. We are beginning to look at the broad issue of how the new information technologies and our high level of skills in broadcasting can become an effective tool of our foreign policy. Also in Bosnia, the critically important elections scheduled for later this year are being organized by a team led by John Reid, another initiative of the last few months. New areas are opening up where Canada can make a real difference because of what we are. New Areas where Canadians inside Government and out are making a real difference because of who we are. Greater concentration on the sources of insecurity within countries and between countries is overdue. Greater skill and new techniques are needed to bring conflict to an end. New approaches to building the peace are testing our imagination and resolve. Canadians are at the head of the class in putting these issues onto the agenda, and seeing them through to real changes in international policies and practices. These three strands of conflict prevention, rapid response and reconstruction/peace-building are distinct, but they do support and reinforce each other. A key challenge is to draw them together into an effective, coherent, overall approach to conflict. Not just in theory, but in practice. Our resources are finite, and choices have to be made about what we can do best, and what we should leave to others to do. This will require a high level of integration and coordination between departments in the international portfolios. This is an area where the views of Parliament would be most welcome. Even as we make these changes, we are still faced with world arms production still standing at almost $200 billion per year. Granted, there has been progress in recent years in reducing nuclear weapons through the START process. The steep cuts in the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia have been dramatic. But we now face the prospect of growing nuclear (and in most cases chemical and biological) capacity in other states, particularly the so-called rogue nations which recognize no international norms and rules. This represents a serious threat to our stability. For this reason, the extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was crucial. The indefinite extension of the NPT was seen as virtually unachievable a few years ago, yet with determined effort and East-West as well as North-South cooperation, we made it happen. At the extension conference last year, Canada played a central role in drafting a "Declaration of Principles and Objectives" and a "Declaration on Enhanced Reviews" that broke the logjam and made success possible. The latter is of great significance because it pledges all signatories to review every five years the issues covered by the NPT. Those meetings will provide the best opportunity to advance the nuclear weapons agenda. Preparations for each meeting will take several years, and that is the time to get our ideas into play. It is not too early to begin considering Canada's objectives for the meeting in the year 2000. We need new approaches to those regions where proliferation risks are the highest. Remember the great anxiety about the future of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine. After some initial hesitation, the Ukraine Government realized that nuclear weapons were an obstacle rather than an entry card into the wider community of nations. Today, Ukraine is free of nuclear weapons. Not coincidentally, it is also the beneficiary of considerable financial, technical and political support from the West. This year, under Canadian Chairmanship, the G-7 concluded an agreement with Ukraine to shut down the Chernobyl Reactor and improve nuclear safety and access to energy for the entire country. Are there analogous steps that can be taken in other dangerous regions that are sensitive to local preoccupations and yet still support the broader non-proliferation system? We have to consolidate the gains of recent years in reducing nuclear weapons. One major problem is what to do with the nuclear-weapons grade plutonium that is accumulating from the destruction of existing weapons in the United States and Russia? At the Nuclear Summit in Moscow this spring, Prime Minister Chrétien announced that Canada is prepared to consider converting some of this material for nuclear power generation in Canada. Our offer is contingent, of course, on whether the program can meet strict security and environmental standards. But if we can go ahead, the program would substantially reduce the stockpile of weapons-grade material that could find its way to countries bent on an illicit nuclear weapons program. Equally important for attaining security against non-proliferation is the need to sign a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by this fall. This is necessary to make non-proliferation work, and is seen as a matter of good faith by developing countries. The Canadian role has been important, both in pushing for the treaty at the Geneva Negotiations, and in providing the scientific work needed to make verification possible. Weapons of mass destruction raise the most serious questions about the future of our planet. But we must never forget that conventional weapons are the ones that did and still do the killing in the conflicts that have raged over the last fifty years. To limit them is even more complex than in the nuclear, chemical and biological fields. In this area, the end of the Cold War may only have made matters worse. There is an excess of supply: weapons, made redundant by the end of East-West competition may find their way cheaply into the Third World. There is heightened demand for high-tech weapons: countries that once looked to one or the other Superpower for protection now feel obliged to provide the means to defend themselves. There has been some modest progress, but the emphasis is on "modest". The UN Register of Conventional Weapons is a useful tool. However, there are loopholes and real problems of voluntary compliance. We are working to improve it, but progress will be slow. More optimistically, there are promising signs of the emergence of new world cooperation and coordination regarding the control of conventional arms and related dual-use exports. For decades, a NATO-led organization called COCOM established tough barriers to cover the flow of arms and advanced technologies from the West to the East. But the Cold War is over, and the Russian Federation and former Warsaw Pact members in Eastern Europe are now just as concerned about the destabilizing weapons programs of rogue states as we are. Last December, Canada, its former COCOM partners, as well as its former Warsaw Pact adversaries joined forces to announce a new regime -- The Wassenaar Arrangement -- to promote greater transparency and responsibility in global arms and dual-use trade. This new vehicle provides an avenue to choke off supplies to states that might ignite the next Persian Gulf-like War. Other new members are coming from developing and emerging countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, a sure sign that old barriers are being broken down as nations join together with a common purpose. Canada has played a leading role in bringing about this agreement. Canada is also leading international efforts that could result in a global ban on anti-personnel mines. Justified as legitimate weapons of war, we have seen in recent years how these terrible devices have become instruments of terror against civilians. On January 17, we announced a moratorium on the production, export and operational use (except for training purposes) on anti-personnel mines. That provided a dramatic push to international efforts. Starting from a mere handful of hopeful countries only last year, we have succeeded in building a large network of countries thinking along the same lines as Canada. Along with Canada, 35 countries, including the U.S.A., Germany and South Africa have now declared their commitment to work for a total ban. Last month, during his visit to Ottawa, Foreign Minister Kinkel of Germany agreed to work closely with Canada on winning international support for a ban as did Mexican Foreign Minister Gurria. We have the commitment of the Central American Presidents who visited Ottawa last month to help us get the support of OAS member-states for a resolution banning mines in the Western Hemisphere. In NATO, in ASEAN and in consultation with our G-7 Partners and Russia, we are working hard to broaden support. This coming fall, we will break new ground by hosting an international strategy session in Canada to reinforce work on securing a ban. And we are now mobilizing support for a UN resolution at the General Assembly. We are pleased with the support of Governments, but we especially welcome the whole-hearted support from the NGO community around the world, many of which have first-hand experience in treating the appalling legacy of anti-personnel mines. We accept that countries have the right to self-defence, to maintain militaries, and to arm those militaries in a manner consistent with their legitimate defence needs. Aside from the so-called "rogue" states that have removed themselves from all reasonable international standards of behaviour, there are still others whose weapons procurement appears to go well beyond the limits of actual need. The question is what is "legitimate" and what levels of power, sophistication and expense are warranted to meet those legitimate requirements. This is particularly worrying in developing countries that divert scarce resources from economic development towards military build-up. Do aid flows free up money so that governments can spend their domestically-generated funds on weapons? Or, if aid funds are held back, would those governments spend their money on weapons anyway, depriving their citizens of even the limited relief that outside assistance can provide? The relation between aid policy and military in recipient countries is now a matter of priority. Canada has taken a leading role internationally in garnering support for further study and concrete action. Canada raises this issue consistently in international forums such as the world bank and the IMF and has formed a group of like-minded countries who meet regularly to define innovative ways to target development cooperation efforts in this regard. And, at the G-7 summit in Halifax last year, G-7 Ministers adopted Canada's proposal to urge multilateral development banks to take account of military spending when extending assistance. Recently, we have proposed that the OECD conduct a series of case studies on this subject. These studies will be used as a centrepiece for an International OECD Symposium that canada will host this winter. Based on our March consultations with experts and non-governmental organizations, we have prepared a strategy paper that I am pleased to table today in Parliament, and would welcome the views of interested Members. To reinforce our commitment on conventional arms control, we need to look continuously at our record. Export controls are the most important tool in limiting military exports, and most responsible countries have them in one form or another. Canada's controls are among the toughest in the world, but I intend to tighten them further to ensure, as far as possible, that our exports do not end up in the wrong hands or end up being used for unacceptable purposes. I have instructed my officials to: carry out more rigorous analyses of the regional, international and internal security situations in destination countries to forestall the possible destabilising effects of proposed sales; apply a stricter interpretation of human rights criteria, including increasing our requirements for end-user certificates and other end-use assurances, to further minimise the risk that Canadian military equipment might be used against civilians; and exercise the strictest controls over the export of firearms and other potentially lethal equipment to satisfy me that gun control laws and practices in recipient countries are adequate to ensure that Canadian firearms do not find their way into the illicit arms trade nor fuel local violence. Today, I have tabled the sixth Annual Report on Canada's Military Exports. I am pleased to report that military exports decreased 12% in 1995, and remained low as far as lower income developing countries are concerned. I want to make Canada an even more responsible player in the global military goods market, and continue to play a leadership role in the multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement. And, again, I would invite Parliament to take an active interest in defining this role. I have talked today about the ways our foreign policy is being refashioned around new security policy principles and objectives. I am confident we are on the right track, but I want to make sure we continue to move ahead, to look to the future by building on the solid foundations of our past. I mentioned earlier the work of Generals MacNaughton and Burns, of former Prime Minister Trudeau to bring some sanity to the world, to reverse the rush towards greater and more destructive weapons. At the time, many mocked their efforts as idealistic dreams or worse. Today, their ideas are a commonplace, the starting point for current discussions. We should never underestimate the power of ideas, nor lack the courage to think boldly. I would welcome discussions with the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and other interested Members on specific ways that Parliament can become more directly engaged in security policy formulation, perhaps through the Standing Committee or even a Special Committee of Parliament. The work of Parliament, the contributions from concerned Canadians are part of a continuing effort -- in Canada and around the world -- to develop the ideas that can change people's minds, change their behaviour, change the world for the betterment of each and every one of us. Thank you Mr. Speaker. </body> </html>

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