Mr. Speaker, before beginning to discuss the bill in question, I too must protest as vehemently as possible against the process being followed here.
Bill S-10, which we are discussing this evening, was introduced in the House on December 6, 2012. It took the Conservatives six months to call the bill for debate. When they finally did so, debate lasted 10 minutes, at one in the morning on Wednesday, May 29. Now, after 10 minutes of debate, whereas it took the government six months to bestir itself a little and table the bill, we are being told that time allocation is going to be imposed, because discussion has gone on too long. Moreover, the recommendations for amendments made in the other house do not appear at all in the bill before us.
Cluster munitions have almost no military usefulness and mainly affect civilians. Ninety-eight per cent of those injured by cluster munitions are civilians.
In many cases, these weapons have a relative effectiveness. About 30% of the small sub-munitions packed into the weapon fail to explode. They become sub-munitions, often the size of tennis balls, and often very colourful. They remain in the environment and are spread over a very wide area. Children see them. They are attractive. They play with them and, of course, the sub-munitions blow up in their faces and cause damage we can imagine. The sub-munitions in these weapons become, as it were, tiny but very numerous anti-personnel mines.
Because we are talking about anti-personnel mines, let us make a small comparison with what Canada did with respect to anti-personnel mines. Canada was a leader in that area. It won the esteem not only of many countries, but also of many people all over the world, through the work it did on anti-personnel mines.
One day, I met a Portuguese-speaking senior African dignitary. He told me that he had given his daughter the name Ottavia in honour of the Ottawa convention. Ottawa was, at that time, a word that was full of hope. Now, however, we are talking about cluster munitions. Initially, Canada was true leadership from Canada, but nowadays, there is nothing of the sort. In fact, we are regressing and destroying everything. In the negotiation process, Canada quickly became a spoilsport, as it were. Most of the countries involved were opposed to the interoperability provision that Canada had already managed to have included in the convention, but Canada pushed for it and got it. Quite frankly, there is nothing to be proud about in all of this.
We have before us Bill S-10. If we had no reason to be proud during the negotiation process, we will certainly have good cause to be ashamed if this bill is passed. Despite its title, it is not a bill to implement the convention. It is a bill to lay waste to the convention. Bill S-10, in fact, will invalidate the convention.
The bill provides the means to circumvent the interoperability provision by allowing Canada to aid, abet, counsel or conspire to use cluster munitions, under a convention that seeks to abolish the very use of these munitions.
A little earlier, we heard comments to the effect that the NDP would be opposed to these changes because of petty partisan politics or some such reasoning.
Just in case anybody actually believed that, allow me to quote a number of people in order to demonstrate just how broad the consensus is against this bill and to show that this consensus is made up of people from all walks of life.
I would like to quote the leader of the Canadian delegation that negotiated the convention, as well as the chair of the Department of Security and International Affairs at the Canadian Forces College. In my opinion, these two people should know what they are talking about. I would also like to quote a foreign dignitary, the former Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, and also the hon. Warren Allmand, former solicitor general of Canada.
Let us start with Earl Turcotte, the head of the Canadian delegation that negotiated this agreement. When Mr. Turcotte saw the direction in which the negotiations were heading and what was the result was going to be, he resigned. I admire his courage. It shows just how outraged he was to see what the government had in store for us.
He said, “The proposed legislation is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the convention to date.”
Regarding the current government's stance on cluster munitions, the former Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, remarked that it is “timid, inadequate and regressive”. Fortunately, there will be a change in government in 2015.
I would like to quote Walter Dorn, the chair of the Department of Security and International Affairs at Canadian Forces College. It is a long quote, but I believe it is worth hearing:
As someone who works daily with those who have deployed in combined operations and who might do so myself as a civilian under the Code of Service Discipline, I have to say that the current draft legislation could put us in a compromising position.
Those deployed on behalf of Canada do not want to be forced to violate the treaty or be associated with violations. The terms of the bill would oblige Canadians to accept orders which they might consider illegal. It would then put them in a legal limbo between national and international law. Soldiers are trained to obey “lawful orders”. This would create confusion because the laws are contradictory. A complete prohibition, as obliged by the convention, would be much clearer.
He added:
...clause 11 of the current draft legislation seems to be in legal contravention of the treaty. It gives rise to serious moral dilemmas and weakens the norm against the use of these terrible weapons. It should be removed or amended.
Finally, the Hon. Warren Allmand said:
As presently drafted, Bill S-10 contains provisions that are contrary to the treaty's objects and purposes. It makes no sense for Canada to join a treaty regime whose purpose is an absolute prohibition on the use and transfer of cluster munitions on the one hand and, on the other hand, to promulgate national legislation that creates exceptions allowing Canadian personnel to carry out precisely the types of activities that are proscribed or forbidden by the convention.
Obviously, everyone agrees. All anyone needs to do is read the bill.
As I said at the beginning, this bill is designed not to implement, but rather to destroy the treaty. Agreeing to this bill and passing it as is places the Canadian military in an extremely difficult position, in addition to setting a bad example for other countries. Canada will still be the “bad guy” on the international stage.
After the debacle concerning the effort to combat desertification, Kyoto, the arms trade treaty with no clear outcome, and the new directives on international co-operation, Canada still looks like it does not want to play ball.
This bill has huge flaws. It must be reviewed and we will certainly not support it.
