"Canadians have a lot of questions about Canada’s arms exports to countries with questionable human-rights records, and they deserve transparency and accountability from this government," member of Parliament and NDP foreign-affairs critic Helene Laverdiere stated in the release on Tuesday.
The NDP motion would have established a multiparty committee to investigate all current and future arms exports from Canada.
The party’s release explained that Canadian weapons exports have nearly doubled over the past decade, making Canada the second-largest arms dealer to Middle Eastern countries, including those with poor human-rights records such as Libya and Saudi Arabia.
In 2014, the previous Canadian government of Stephen Harper brokered a $15 billion deal to sell light-armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia.
Although most sales are said to be for defense purposes, the deal came under criticism after video emerged in 2015 showing Saudi authorities using the vehicles against religious dissidents.
Both Liberal and Conservative members of parliament voted against the motion, although Conservatives had earlier supported the proposal, according to Canadian media reports.
