The government is proposing language in an arms treaty bill that would maintain cabinet’s power to authorize arms shipments to countries involved in civilian conflict, as Canada has done over the past two years in the case of Saudi Arabia, iPolitics has learned.

Liberal MPs tabled the amendment at the last minute in the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, sources say.

The committee is studying legislation that would allow Canada to sign on to a 2013 UN Arms Trade Treaty by incorporating standards in Canadian law that would prevent military arms exports to countries where the weapons could be used against civilians or in contravention of human rights.

But NDP MP Helene Laverdiere told iPolitics the government has not been supportive of changes to the treaty enabling legislation, Bill C-47, that experts have testified are required to bring Canada’s arms export controls and prohibitions in line with terms of the Arms Trade Treaty.

Following the abrupt cancellation of a meeting for amendment voting two weeks ago and an interruption of regular proceedings by the visit of Kosovar President Hashim Thaci on Tuesday, scheduled committee travel to Asia means the legislation will not enter its final stages in committee and the Commons until early December.

The timetable suggests the bill to bring Canada into the Arms Trade Treaty — one of several Liberal gun-control promises from the 2015 election introduced in the Commons last April — has little chance of getting through Parliament and becoming law before February, 2018, after a winter parliamentary recess.

At issue between the Liberals and the NDP is the gap in the wording of Canada’s current export control regime, dating back to guidelines passed by a federal cabinet in the 1980s and more stringent wording found in the arms trade treaty.

Canada’s system requires the Canadian government to “closely control” the export of military goods and technology to countries that pose a threat to Canada, are involved in hostilities or are under UN sanctions — and to governments that have a persistent record of human rights violations against their citizens — “unless it can be demonstrated that there is no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population.”

The Arms Trade Treaty would prohibit the Canadian government from authorizing any transfer of conventional arms “if it has knowledge at the time of authorization that the arms or items would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks against civilian objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes as defined by international agreements to which it is a party.”

Canadian military arms exports to Saudi Arabia jumped by 47 per cent to $142 million in 2016 as the Saudi monarchy was intervening with its military in a civil war in neighboring Yemen and using force to suppress its own citizens in an eastern province.

NDP MP Helene Laverdiere said there is a consensus the government should “retain the final decision” but that it should be compelled also to comply with the treaty.

“In the Arms Trade Treaty there are also specific instances where there is an obligation for the minister to say ‘no,’ and that’s still not in the amendments that the Liberals have before us. So to me, it still fails the requirements of the ATT,” Laverdiere said.

The Conservative party has been focusing on its fear — echoing concerns raised at the committee by witnesses representing gun owners and the firearms industry — that mandatory record-keeping on small arms imports into Canada would create a new federal registry for all firearms at point of sale.

A preamble to the Arms Trade Treaty recognizes the legal use of firearms by civilians for hunting, recreation and culture reasons, but Conservative MP Erin O’Toole, his party’s vice-chair on the committee, says the preamble wording is not enough.

“The preamble talks about historical and cultural hunting and firearm use. We think that should be in the body of the treaty, not in the preamble, because the preamble doesn’t have the same force of law, as a specific inclusion,” O’Toole said.

“We have an amendment going forward, there’s some suggestion that the government may now be open to that.”

Following approval of a travel plan by the House of Commons last June, seven members of the committee are scheduled to travel to Beijing, Jingzhuang, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Indonesia and Hanoi.

The trip is the beginning of a committee study titled ‘Canada’s Engagement in Asia’, developed as part of the Trudeau government’s plan to widen trade and other relations in the region.