OTTAWA—The Liberal government says an investigation by federal officials found “no conclusive evidence” Canadian-made light armoured vehicles sold to Saudi Arabia were used in human rights violations.

The review clears the Saudi regime after media reports in 2016 showed Saudi forces using similar armoured vehicles in quelling dissent, raising questions about the possible misuse of the Canadian exports against the Shia Muslim minority in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

But Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told a Commons committee Thursday the “independent objective opinion” of her departmental officials did not determine that was the case. When the NDP asked for the report to be publicly released, the minister deferred to her department.

Nevertheless, Freeland said it led her to conclude the country’s export permit system should be toughened. Governments should be required to deny permits where there is a “substantial risk” that an export on Canada’s control list “could be used to commit human rights violations,” Freeland said.

Freeland said the Liberal government will accept amendments to enshrine such an obligation in law, via a bill now before Parliament to allow Canada to accede to the international Arms Trade Treaty. At the same time, she said, pre-existing contracts would be honoured, meaning the Saudi contract would not be subject to review under new criteria.

Right now, the criteria by which exports are judged must be “considered” by a minister who can choose to override concerns and approve an export permit, said a government official who spoke on background. The criteria are outlined in policy, not in regulations or in law. Freeland also proposed an additional requirement: consideration of the impact that an export might have on “gender-based violence.”

Freeland said placing the obligation directly into the legislation will bind this government “and future governments” and would require a “high level of confidence” that exports won’t be used to violate human rights.

Thursday’s announcement marks the second time the Liberal government has reviewed and OK’d the Saudi LAV3 export contract originally negotiated under the former Conservative government of Stephen Harper.

Freeland’s predecessor, Stéphane Dion, approved export permits after government officials advised him they were satisfied the Saudis would not use them against their own people but would use them to defend Canada’s common security interests, citing the ongoing fight against Daesh militants.

It comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces new criticism over revelations of a separate $300-million contract to sell 16 Bell helicopters to the Philippines regime of President Rodrigo Duterte that Trudeau criticized for human rights abuses in its war on drugs.

The government first defended the helicopter sale saying they were destined for search-and-rescue missions and disaster relief. But after a senior Philippines military official told Reuters they would also be used for internal security operations in that country’s drug war, the Liberals ordered a review.

Asked about the chopper sale, Freeland said only that she was never asked to sign off on an export permit for the deal.

NDP foreign affairs critic Hélène Laverdière said Freeland’s proposal could actually weaken the government’s current power to reject export permits where there is a “reasonable risk” that the goods might be used against a civilian population. Requiring a “substantial risk” of human rights abuses “puts the bar even higher,” she said. “She will need even more proof of that.”

Cesar Jaramillo, spokesman for Project Ploughshares, slammed the government’s review of the Saudi arms deal, saying its insistence on “conclusive evidence” of human rights abuses “is a perversion of both domestic and international arms control standards.”

Jaramillo said “reasonable risk” is a credible way to measure the likelihood that Canadian arms exports might be involved in human rights violations, “and this standard has long been met,” he wrote to the Star.

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Alex Neve, of Amnesty International Canada, said tougher legislation containing a “clear legal obligation” to turn down arms deals that contravene human rights and other criteria “is a significant advance.”

But he said the notion of honouring contracts “is no defence to or justification for action that may lead to serious human rights violations.”

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