Senator McPhedran: Senator Gold, in addition to that inquiry, if you would, please ask for a reason. If we are not sending anyone to represent the Government of Canada to listen, to gather information and to come back, please ask why. Thank you.

Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Honourable senators, this is a question to the government leader, Senator Gold.

Senator Gold, my question follows on my previous question when I asked if Canada was going to join with other NATO members Norway and Germany in sending an observer delegation to Vienna next week for conferences hosted by the government of Austria. We got a tentative seemingly positive answer, but nothing firm, so I am asking again today.

This question comes in the context of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats and the nine nuclear-armed states spending $82 billion on nuclear weapons in 2021, an increase of more than $6 billion. The Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons will take place on June 20, and it will include a session reserved for parliamentarians. The conference will bring together states representatives, international organizations, scientists and civil society to look at the research on humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons. The next day, Austria is hosting the first meeting of the states parties that ratified the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons activated last year.

Senator Gold, why is Canada refusing to participate, failing to send parliamentary observers to these two historic and crucial conferences in the way that Norway and Germany are — also NATO members?