Human rights groups say Canada’s multi-billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia undermines the government’s reasoning for not signing an international arms treaty, reports the Globe and Mail.

Canada is the only member of the NATO alliance and the G7 to not have signed a global treaty to regulate the weapons trade.

Canada appears to not have followed its own rules

The government rationale is that it has its own rules which oblige it to examine a country’s human rights record before weapons can be sold to it. But the Globe reported on Wednesday that Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs did not conduct a human-rights assessment of Saudi Arabia before issuing export permits for a shipment of fighting, light-armoured vehicles worth $15 billion.

Human rights groups say Saudi Arabia is one of the worst human-rights violators in the world. It sanctions beheading and stoning as punishment for murder, rape and adultery. Homosexual acts or drug use may be punished by death or flogging. The country has also been condemned for its treatment of women.