Bill S-10 (Historical)

Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act

An Act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions

This enactment implements Canada’s commitments under the Convention on Cluster Munitions. In particular, it establishes prohibitions and offences for certain activities involving cluster munitions, explosive submunitions and explosive bomblets.

Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

moved that Bill S-10, An Act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions be now read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise tonight to begin debate on the second reading of Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act.

Canada has long recognized that explosive remnants of war, such as those caused by cluster munitions, are a serious humanitarian concern. They maim and kill innocent civilians around the world. They have a detrimental economic impact, and they hinder access to essential infrastructure.

Deployed from the air or ground, some types of cluster munitions can release dozens, or even hundreds, of smaller submunitions, which can cover a large area quickly. These munitions can have indiscriminate effects, particularly, when they fail to detonate as intended, often causing widespread harm to innocent civilians, especially in heavily populated areas. They can harm and kill innocent civilians, even long after the conflict has ended. Unfortunately, many of these victims are children.

Canada has long played a leading international role in the protection of civilians from the use of conventional weapons that are prone to indiscriminate effects because we have seen the devastating impacts of that use.

Since 2006, our government has contributed to more than 250 projects in this global effort, making us one of the world's top contributors.

More recently, in February of this year, the Minister of State of Foreign Affairs, Americas and Consular Affairs, while in Colombia, announced an additional $2.93 million over four years, to assist landmine survivors, including children and youth, with their recovery and reintegration into society.

I can assure all hon. members that we remain deeply committed to this cause and continue to evaluate possible landmine action projects that will deliver tangible results.

I would now like to address Bill S-10, which I believe would fully implement our legislative requirements under the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Canada was a key participant throughout the negotiations of the convention. We are proud to have been among its first 94 signatories in December 2008.

From the beginning, Canada's goal was to strike a balance between a commitment to the elimination of cluster munitions and effective, legitimate and important security considerations. Bill S-10 would do just that.

During negotiations, we committed to the eventual elimination of these weapons, but we also had to recognize the reality that not all countries were participating in the negotiations or were ready to commit to a convention. A compromise was needed to allow countries that wanted to renounce cluster munitions and ratify the convention to be able to engage in military co-operation and operations with countries that intended to retain these weapons for the time being.

The compromise that was reached set out that these military activities would be permitted on the basis that the state parties would engage in diplomatic advocacy to urge non-state parties to reconsider. That compromise, found in article 21, was critical to allowing Canada and its allies to join the convention. Canada had a clear mandate in negotiations. We have always been open and transparent in exactly what we wanted to accomplish. It is important to note that this was not just the Canadian position but was shared by other countries. The provision of article 21 was necessary to bring others on board.

Bill S-10, when enacted, would prohibit the use, development, making, acquisition, possession, movement, import, and export of cluster munitions. It would also prohibit the stockpiling of cluster munitions in Canada, through the proposed offence of possession. This offence would cover any form of possession, including stockpiling, and would easily be enforced and, if necessary, prosecuted in Canada's criminal justice system.

Bill S-10 would also prohibit anyone from aiding or abetting another person in the commission of a prohibited activity. This would capture a number of potential cross-border scenarios where people or organizations subject to Canadian law engage in activities that are prohibited by the convention. It would also ensure that those who are subject to Canadian law could be prosecuted for the offences in Canada.

For example, the convention does not require state bodies to criminalize investment. However, liability for aiding and abetting, as set out in the bill, would include investment scenarios in which there is sufficient intention and connection between the investment and the prohibited activity to meet Canadian charter and criminal law requirements.

We recognize that one of the most discussed aspects of the convention relates to article 29, which specifically allows state parties to engage in military co-operation and operations with states that are not party without breaching their obligations. As the convention allows this, the proposed legislation also contains exceptions that would allow Canada to engage in combined military operations and co-operation with states that are not party to the convention. Bill S-10 would preserve Canada's ability to work alongside our allies, and it would provide Canadian Forces members and civilians with them assurances that they would not face criminal liability when doing their jobs.

For Canada, military co-operation and operations with other states that currently do not intend to ratify the convention, such as the United States, are of central importance to our security and defence policy. Again, it is vital that our men and women in uniform are not unjustly accused of criminal conduct and are in no way compromised in doing their jobs or what we ask of them in the interest of national security and defence.

Even in the context of military co-operation, the convention reiterates that state parties shall not engage in specified activities that are fully within their control. Under Bill S-10, Canadian Armed Forces members would be prohibited from using cluster munitions in their operations. They would not be able to request their use if the choice of munitions was under exclusive Canadian control, even in the context of joint military operations. In addition, and going beyond what is required by the convention, as a matter of policy, the Canadian Forces would prohibit personnel on exchange, secondment or attachment with allied forces from themselves using cluster munitions and from training and instructing in the direct use of cluster munitions. The Canadian Forces would also prohibit, as a matter of policy, the transportation of any cluster munitions aboard Canadian assets.

As the prohibiting cluster munitions act makes its way through the legislative process, our government has already taken concrete steps to fulfill its commitment under the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The Canadian Armed Forces has removed its remaining stockpiles of cluster munitions from active service and has already begun the process of destroying them. We are confident that the destruction will be completed within the timeframe required by the convention. It is important to note that Canada has never produced or used cluster munitions in its operations.

We are already active in promoting the universalization and implementation of the convention with international partners, and we will continue doing so. As I have previously stated, our government is among the top international donors for addressing the impact of the explosive remnants of war, including cluster munitions.

Knowing the humanitarian devastation caused by the explosive remnants of war, Canada is fully committed to the goals of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and to implementing our requirements under the convention. We are proud to have tabled this legislation, and we are particularly proud of the important role played in Canada to get us here today. It is my hope that all parties will recognize the essential balance between legitimate security and humanitarian concerns and will fully support Bill S-10.

I was just listening to the House leader talking about being very much concerned about our party, and comparing us to the Liberal Party on the other side. However, I want to say that he was in this House and the New Democrats were there as well.

Just because they have moved over here, it does not mean they have suddenly become more concerned about the running of this operation. Let me be very blunt and very clear. This government is committed to working for Canadians to ensure an economic environment, and that is the creation of jobs. Our budget implementation act is there to ensure that our country meets the obligations of ensuring that its citizens have jobs, the ability to educate their children and to have a life that is decent.

Under the New Democrats, if given to them, we would be in very big trouble, in a total economic disaster. It is for that reason they lost the election in British Columbia, because British Columbia was not willing to accept the NDP doctrine of stopping economic progress. They should learn from that instead of giving us lectures about how to run the country.

This government is extremely focused on where we are headed. I want to thank the hon. member, but we will not take his advice.

Bill S-10—Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I too have a good idea. I move:

That, in relation to Bill S-10, An Act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration of the second reading stage of the Bill; and

that, at the expiry of the five hours provided for the consideration of the second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

There will now be a 30-minute question period.

The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is number 45; here we go again. This is 45 times that the Conservative government has brought in closure. It is a government whose members said they were going to do things differently; and, not once, not twice, but 45 times, they have broken that promise they made, how many years ago?

It is important to understand the legislation we are going to be debating. It is on cluster munitions. This is a very serious treaty that we signed onto. The bill comes from the Senate where there is testimony from witnesses who condemn this bill. In fact, most people who went to speak to members on the other side said that this bill in its present form is retrograde. It would undermine the spirit of the treaty.

So let us get this straight. We have a government that brought in at midnight, a week or so ago, this bill to the House. The Conservatives had one speaker on it at midnight; that is how seriously they take it. They then brought in closure on it. After having heard what happened in the Senate, they feel that the bill is okay the way it is, because I suspect that they are going to ram it through. After we have watched this bill come from the other side, not from this place, and after we have seen it brought up for a couple of minutes after midnight, by the parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs, and after we have seen what the Conservatives are doing on issues like the arms trade treaty, we certainly need a lot more debate on this. We need to take it more seriously, and we need to see amendments.

Are the government members actually going to listen to what Canadians are saying on this bill? Are they going to listen to witnesses who condemn this bill in its present form? I know the minister knows this. I have talked to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I know the Minister of National Defence knows the criticisms of this bill. He knows that if it is passed in its present form, many people will say it is better not to bring in enacting legislation because it would undermine the spirit of it.

Therefore, why is the government rushing this through again? Why are the Conservatives bringing in closure on a bill that is so very important? This is about Canada's reputation on the international stage. Why closure, why this bill in its present form? And will they allow amendments this time, or are they just going to shut it down like they always do?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to my hon. friend, and I understand his point of view. However, the reality is that this effort to bring forward both the convention and now the accompanying legislation has been under way since 2008. The member has read the issue and has said it is a very serious one; it is one that has far-reaching implications and in which Canada has exhibited leadership. We were there in the early days of the negotiation to ensure that we were complying with both the spirit and the letter of the law. This is now the time to step forward, bring the legislation to fruition and allow Canada to go forward and ratify.

This prohibiting cluster munitions act would fully implement the legislative commitments that are there under the convention, which the hon. member mentioned. It would strike the balance between the humanitarian obligations, which are very real; we know the grave implications that come about with the use of cluster munitions. As well, it would preserve our national security and defence interests. I add that, because of the realities, that we work with other NATO allies, most notably the United States of America, in missions that very much have a humanitarian component as was the case in Afghanistan, to comply with some of the amendments and the position taken by the member opposite would prohibit that international contribution.

Therefore, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs indicated quite clearly in his testimony in the other place, this is an honourable compromise. This is the way to move the legislation forward, to move forward with a ratification of the convention, and allow us to continue to act interoperably with our allies.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have found in recent weeks that the government is short on inspiration. No one really knows what direction it wants to take. The schedule changes randomly. As my colleague, the foreign affairs critic, has said, the government introduced a very significant but very flawed bill.

Why is this government introducing such a significant bill at the last minute? This bill has international implications for Canada.

Also, why is the government imposing a gag order and bypassing important steps, thereby preventing this significantly flawed bill from being properly studied?

What is going on? What are the government's priorities, especially in terms of Canada's reputation on the world stage?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the short answer to what it means for Canada is action, not words. It means we are actually implementing and moving forward on this important issue.

I note that the legislation would very much preserve Canada's ability to continue to work internationally, but, at the same time, it implements Canada's commitments to the convention, as is in line with our key allies. I note that Australia and the United Kingdom, and many of our NATO allies, many of the countries we have worked with abroad, are in fact taking the same steps.

My colleague from Ottawa Centre a moment ago mentioned that there are those who are critics of the legislation. That may be, but I also note that there are a number of NGOs calling on Canada to ratify the convention. They are calling on us to move forward and ensure that Bill S-10 is enacted as quickly as possible.

Let us not let perfection get in the way of progress on this. Let us allow Canada to move forward, to step out on the international stage, as we have throughout this process, as we have been leaders in this process, and move this legislation forward. That is what we seek to do. That is why we are taking this step. This legislation is important when it comes to Canada meeting its international commitments, protecting civilians, protecting those affected by cluster munitions, and allowing Canada to continue to play a significant role internationally.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have now reached the 45th time allocation motion. This makes no sense.

Does the government intend to move time allocation motions for all bills until the end of the session? Are the Conservatives planning on proroguing so they can pack up and go home because of all the scandals coming out these days? Are they not willing to answer any more questions from parliamentarians or the public?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is no, but what I can say is that on this particular piece of legislation, we have a history that goes back to 2008. We have international commitments that we seek to comply with. This legislation would allow us to do just that.

This bill is very much in keeping with the intent for Canada to continue to play a leading role internationally in addressing the humanitarian impact of land mines and explosive remnants of war. This bill is also in keeping with Canada's commitment since 2006 to continue with the disarmament of these types of munitions that have such a devastating impact. Canada has contributed more than $200 million through 250 projects internationally to this global effort, which makes Canada one of the top contributors to this issue. That is, again, in keeping with the spirit of the legislation and the ratification of this convention.

We are deeply committed to this cause, as witnessed by this legislation and international contributions. The total amount of support by Canada continues toward the area of mine action and the issues that vary from year to year. We want to be consistent in demonstrating that, both to our citizens and those internationally who watch these issues very closely. That is why we think it is time for progress, it is time to advance the legislation, and advance this cause generally.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the minister for answering many of the questions on this bill, as the NDP critic mentioned the other night at midnight when I spoke on this bill and gave the government's position.

What is important is that Canada has been a very strong contributor toward the damages of the remnants of war, mines and cluster munitions. The minister just mentioned the $200 million. I was in Cambodia earlier this year, where I saw a massive effort being made in war countries in removing mines and cluster munitions that have been left behind and have been injuring children. I have been to Mozambique and saw how much damage has been done to livestock, as well as to young children playing there, as well as in Angola. The Government of Canada is very proud to support all the things it has supported, over and above this bill. We should not look only at this bill but the larger picture of what Canada has been doing.

I would like the minister to elaborate on what Canada has done in meeting the goals in the bill but that are also part of Canada's core foreign policy.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for his understanding of the far-reaching implications of this, and the fact that this is but one piece of a larger puzzle when it comes to Canada's international efforts vis-à-vis demining efforts and the use of this legislation to help implement the convention banning cluster munitions.

In his extensive travels, I know the member has on many occasions encountered representatives of nations around the world who are very grateful for Canada's efforts. Whether it be in some of the conflict zones in which Canada has been involved over the years, in Bosnia, Kosovo, and more recently, Afghanistan and Libya, we have seen the devastating effects and countries that are mined to the max, where the remnants of war have such grave implications particularly for schoolchildren.

It is something that we need to reflect on. The fact is there are many countries where the mere effort of going to school or playing in a soccer field or going out with friends to take part in the simplest of activities can result in death or grave injury because of munitions left in the ground.

Our country has in fact played a leading role over the years, internationally, in addressing this humanitarian impact of land mines. We continue to work with organizations, with other countries, to meet that standard and to play that type of leadership role on the international stage.

I mentioned some of the earlier commitments that we have made monetarily. Canada, for example, provided $16.8 million just two years ago to support victim rehabilitation, and clearance and capacity building in nine countries: Colombia, Afghanistan, Cambodia, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Libya, Jordan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Palau.

Dating further back, in 2007-08, our contribution was $51.4 million. That year we ranked third overall in our contribution.

These are just a few examples of how we remain deeply committed to this cause. We continue to elevate possible mine action projects that will deliver tangible results. Here at home, this is an opportunity for us to send a very clear signal of that commitment, by passing this legislation, by moving forward with the ratification of the convention. I would encourage all members to support that effort.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments that the minister is attempting to put on the record, but it is not the issue of the substance of the bill.

What we should really be talking about is the attitude of this majority government and how that attitude has actually shifted. The direction we are going in is very negative. Canadians are becoming more and more aware how this Prime Minister, more than any other prime minister in the history of our country, tries to limit and prevent members of Parliament from being able to debate important issues that come before the House of Commons.

That is the issue. We have a government that has now introduced time allocation 45 times. It is unprecedented. It is limiting the abilities of individual members of Parliament to share their thoughts and their ideas, and hold the government accountable for the type of legislation that it is bringing forward.

It does not matter what the minister has to say about the legislation right now at this very moment. What we are concerned about is why the change in attitude. Why is the majority Conservative government not allowing members of this House to have due process on a wide variety of issues that are important to each and every Canadian?

My question is to the Government House Leader, not the minister. Why does the government continue to limit debate on a wide spectrum of legislation when Canadians have a right to have their members of Parliament standing in their place, being heard?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I sense some degree of frustration on the part of the member. He stated that this is not the issue. The issue is in fact moving this legislation forward.

We feel it is a priority for our government. We feel that we need continued efforts, consistent with Canada's principle position on the world stage to play an important role when it comes to the banning of munitions and the demining issue that Canada championed some years ago, one in which his party played an important role—

[An hon. member]

He left.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Oh, the member is no longer here.

In any event, the real issue is very much how we can progress on an issue as important as this and to move legislation. While it is not perfect, there are issues that could be taken with any bill on any issue. However, the reality is that we have an opportunity with this legislation that has received scrutiny in the other place, that has followed the process of legislation that comes from the Senate and that presents the opportunity to the House to move this bill forward.

We are proud of the negotiations in which Canada took part in the early days to bring about Canada's compliance and position. To remind the House, practically speaking this legislation would prohibit all possession of cluster munitions, including the stockpiling of any munitions in Canada, or cluster munitions belonging to states that are not parties to the convention.

This is a prohibition across the country that would bring Canada in line with its international partners. We do have cluster munitions, which we are now in the process of disposing. I will state for emphasis that we have not used them operationally. We have destroyed most of the stockpiles already. We are in the process of exploring the options to dispose of these final stockpiles. Practically speaking, we are well down the road when it comes to Canada's compliance.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs is rising on a point order.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to go on the record to say that the Liberal member who asked a question immediately walked out. That shows his commitment to this question.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The parliamentary secretary is well aware that it is improper to note the fact of someone not being in the House.

The hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou for a question or comments.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence, like most of his colleagues, is trying to manipulate reality to his liking. I serve on the Standing Committee on Finance, and I have seen just how often the government chooses not to play by the rules. That is why it is imposing this 45th time allocation motion under false pretenses that are completely unfounded. The real problem is that the government is trying to impose its will from a to z, without listening to proposals from the opposition parties.

I want to speak briefly to the bill. The problem is not with the agreement itself; we are completely in favour of the agreement. The problem is that the bill undermines the enforcement of that agreement. Once again, as it did with the provinces and the health care agreement, for example, the government is trying to impose its will, to erode and sabotage perfectly valid agreements.

In a similar fashion, the government has turned a blind eye in other cases. It absolutely refuses to hear proposals from the opposition parties. Am I right to think that the minister will say the bill is perfect and that no NDP proposals will be received, debated, studied or considered by the government?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would not for a moment suggest that the hon. member's views on this important issue are somehow invalid or would not contribute to its improvement.

However, again, this legislation is now at a place before the House where we can move forward on an international convention that dates back to 2008. This is an occasion in which action, not words, is needed.

The legislation is not perfect. I have said that. Most bills that come before the House are not in a perfect form, yet here we have broad support. There are NGOs that are very much in favour of the legislation, calling on the government and the Parliament of Canada to move forward and allow us to ratify it and live up to our obligations. We have taken substantial steps to do that.

Again, I repeat that Canada has an opportunity to demonstrate continued leadership in the world, to show a forward-leaning attitude when it comes to an issue as important as the ban on land mines. I would suggest that gives us the moral authority to then approach many of our allies, who have not taken the steps that Canada has and who have not moved forward in demonstrating the same type of forward-leaning attitude.

We can say definitively to them that we have passed legislation in our country, that we have taken concrete action in moving forward with our own obligations and that we encourage them, our friends and allies, to do the same.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member may not know this, but Earl Turcotte, former senior coordinator for Mine Action at DFAIT, was the head of the Canadian delegation to negotiate the convention. He also negotiated the convention on certain conventional weapons and the Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines. He knows his stuff. He said about this legislation, that “the proposed...legislation is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the convention [on cluster munitions] to date”. What does the minister have to say about that?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would repeat that this legislation meets our obligations. This legislation would allow us to now ratify, as opposed to being on the sidelines and talking about it, as the NDP like to do incessantly.

We want to demonstrate action, movement forward, and progress. We embarked on this process in 2008.

[An hon. member]

What took so long?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member asks what took so long. We are standing here ready to make it happen, and as usual the member and his party want to block progress. They want to stand in the way of progress. They throw up their hands and say “it is not perfect” or “somehow it could be better”. For want of a nail, a shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, a horse was lost. For want of a horse, a soldier was lost, a war, a continent. This is the classic NDP position. They want to hold up progress and seek the perfect, which may never come.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the classic Conservative stance. They bring forward a botched bill that has opposition, and they are trying to ram it through without the democratic debate that would strengthen it. That is exactly what Conservatives do.

This is the 45th time that the Conservatives have imposed closure. That is a record beyond belief. That is a record beyond even the corrupt Liberal regime in its dying days, with scandals left, right, and centre. The same thing is happening with the Conservatives. Even the Liberals did not impose closure as much as the Conservatives are doing now. They are showing total disrespect for Canadians, total disrespect for their own constituents.

The question is very simple. We have had 10 minutes of debate in the House on this legislation, and that was midnight on a Wednesday three weeks ago. We have had 10 minutes of debate. As the member for Ottawa Centre has said so eloquently, a whole bunch of problems were exposed with the bill after only 10 minutes of debate. That is really why the Conservatives have invoked closure and are trying to ram this through and shut down debate. This is typical Conservative attitude. They do not care about the problems with the bill. They do not care about the opposition. They do not care about Canadians. They are just going to ram it through. That is simply not good enough. Canadians deserve better.

Why can the Conservatives not do better and allow for debate on this legislation so we can improve what has been a pretty shoddy exercise in drafting?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we see from that member the usual grandstanding, waving of his arms, the dramatic presentation that he so often brings to the House, the stepping into the aisle as if he is somehow being provocative and cool.

Canadians want to see actual results. They want to see legislation. They want to see their laws. They want to see their government. They want to see programs and projects advance. They do not want to hear endless debate.

The member says we have only had 10 minutes; the reality is that we have had since 2008. I do not know where the member was in 2008, but I can tell the House, as a minister in the government, that we knew then as we know now, that what is required is action. We do not require endless debate, the flapping of the gums, as the member is doing right now, and shaking his bushy head and showing what a cool guy he is. Canadians want action. They want to see movement. They want to see implementation. Canadians do not want to hear this wrangling and members suggesting that the government is offside with the international community.

We are now stepping in line with our colleagues and allies and trying to bring other countries to the position where we can ratify the convention, where we can start removing land mines and munitions from the ground that risk the lives of children. That member's blowhard talk over there is not going to save children. Moving on this legislation will.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am frankly disappointed by the attitude of the opposition. The Minister of National Defence has put this very eloquently. This is not a perfect piece of legislation, but the opposition would wilfully throw out the good in pursuit of the perfect.

This legislation is the result of an international consensus. This is Canada's opportunity to ratify what is an international consensus, but the NDP stands opposed to that.

My constituents would like to see this ratified. They would like to see these kinds of protections in place for people around the world who do not have the kind of protections that we in Canada take for granted.

Could the minister speak to that?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there is an individual who seems to represent his constituents and the electoral constituency of Peterborough with clarity. He has a thoughtful approach that says, “Let's get things done. Let's show our ability to actually demonstrate action and leadership in the House of Commons”.

In the last days of the House, I would suggest it would be very fitting to say to the world, “Look at what we have done on such an important issue”. The Canadians Forces will similarly act. We are already taking steps, as I said earlier, to ensure that cluster munitions are in fact out of harm's way, out of the ability to be put to use. It is a Senate bill, of course, but it is here in our House of Commons. “Wake up and smell the thing”, as my friend would say.

The legislation would preserve Canada's ability to work alongside our allies. It is legislation that would prohibit all forms and possession of cluster munitions, including stockpiling, as I mentioned before.

As a result of this and other actions we would take, the Canadian Forces would make it a policy to prohibit its members from using cluster munitions, including our members serving on exchange with allied armed forces. However, we have taken practical steps to protect interoperability and not stand in the way of our ongoing efforts. As we have seen in Afghanistan to date, we have the ability to work shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies in the completion and the work that is being done on behalf of Canadians who help bring about peace and stability in many of these forlorn countries.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to ask the last question. I would like to ask the minister how this bill can be considered urgent, given that it was introduced six month ago, on December 6, 2012.

The government is just now waking up. It allowed 10 minutes for debate on a Wednesday evening a few weeks ago. After 10 minutes of debate today, it says it has to limit the time for debate. The Conservatives do not even know if the opposition opposes it. In fact, we have not even had time to announce our position. They are already thinking that everyone is going to impede the process.

Earlier the minister said that most bills are not perfect. If that is really what he thinks, why not allow an open, rigorous debate to really identify what does not work in this bill in order to try to improve it?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, he has just said himself that he is not sure why there is urgency around this bill.

I would ask the member to read the bill and see the impact that this bill would have. I would like him to see the ability, the enabling of our country to move forward on legislation that represents Canada's effort going back to 2008. They say the bill has only been here for six months. The effort has been ongoing for years. I would suggest that the need has been around for decades, if not centuries. This type of indiscriminate cluster munitions could have devastating impact. Why would we want to have this kind of procedural wrangling?

He says we do not know what the opposition's position is going to be. We have heard clearly from members of the opposition in the last 30 minutes about their position. They want to pursue the perfect. They want to bring about amendments. They want to have further debate.

Let us wrap it up. Let us get it done. Let us pass the bill.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #749

Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I declare the motion carried.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, International Trade; the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, Taxes.

The House resumed from May 29 consideration of the motion that Bill S-10, An Act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to a bill that was introduced in this House literally at midnight very recently. Bill S-10, as it indicates, comes from the Senate. Here we go again.

I mentioned in my comments responding to the government's closure motion, which is the 45th time the government has brought in time allocation, we should have debated this bill thoroughly and been given a chance for close examination of it for two reasons. It is extremely important because it is about an international treaty we signed on to in 2008. It is a bill that has been sitting around with the government for quite a while, but its origins were in the Senate. It is problematic that we have an unelected body yet again having the first go at legislation. It is wrong, and in this case, it has undermined the treaty that we signed. I will explain that in a minute.

We have to take issue in this House when bills come from the other place, because it is up to us to deal with bills as elected members to start with.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for consent to share my time with my colleague from Laurier—Sainte-Marie.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Does the hon. member for Ottawa Centre have the unanimous consent of the House to share his time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I thank the House for that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, if we look at how the bills have been coming from the Senate, there is a pattern here. We are not able to have a close examination of the bills, and they come from the other place with major flaws. That is the case in this bill.

The whole issue of cluster munitions is something that many people have been working on for a very long time. These are heinous, awful arms.To explain to those who are not aware, they are bombs that contain what they call bomblets. These bombs are dropped, often in a theatre of war, and as they are dropped, bomblets fall out from them, hundreds of bomblets that are the size of tennis balls.

They are heinous because 98% of the people who are affected by them are civilians. We are talking about children. I could show members pictures online of children who have lost arms and legs, people who have died. They are as bad as land mines, and some people would say even worse because of the way in which they are used and the way they affect, particularly, kids.

The global stockpile of cluster munitions totals approximately four billion. We have a large task to rid ourselves of them. That is what this treaty we signed on to was supposed to do. In 2006, 22 Canadian Forces members were killed and 112 wounded in Afghanistan as a result of land mines and cluster bombs. These are bombs that are used in theatre where our armed forces are active, as well as civilians.

If we take a look how these arms are developed, they are quite heinous because their intention is to, essentially, trick people into believing that they are not bombs, that they are actually something else, just like land mines are horrific. There is no question we have to get rid of them.

As to the history of cluster munitions, they were used by the Soviets in Afghanistan, by the British in the Falklands, by our coalition forces in the first Gulf War, by warring factions in Yugoslavia and in Kosovo. In fact, when we look back to previous conflicts, we have seen them used by coalition forces working together.

In 2010, it was decided that we would come together and have a treaty that would ban them. This included 18 NATO members. The U.S., sadly, was not one of them. The current American policy, according to reports, is that cluster munitions are available for use by every combat aircraft in the U.S. inventory. They are integral to every army or marine manoeuvre element and, in some cases, constitute up to 50% of tactical indirect fire support. As in the case of land mines, the Americans have some work to do to get rid of them.

We also have to go after other countries like Russia, and China, to push to have these banned. We can lead here; many people were quite enthusiastic when Canada signed on to this treaty. The problem was when the legislation came forward. That is where we are today.

What we have in front of us is a bill that would, and this is not just the opinion of the NDP members or me, undermine the credibility of the treaty we signed on to, to the point where people are saying it would be better not to have legislation at all. That is truly saddening, because this was an opportunity for all parties to get behind an international treaty, a treaty that would put us into the same kind of frame that we had when we were proud to sign on to the Ottawa protocol to ban land mines. We hoped that would have happened. When the government brought forward the legislation, Bill S-10, we looked at it and said there are problems here. People went to committee at the Senate and pointed out all of the problems with the legislation; in particular, the problem in clause 11.

It states, and I will put it into everyday language, that even though we have signed on to this treaty not to use cluster munitions, we could actually use them. It is a huge, massive loophole, and the language is the interoperability.

Instead of listening to the people who deal with international treaties and have them lead, which would be the Department of Foreign Affairs, the government took the advice clearly, there is no question about this, only from the Department of National Defence. Should the Department of National Defence be consulted? Absolutely. Should the Department of National Defence write the legislation or drive the legislation? Absolutely not. This is an international treaty that was negotiated with our allies and partners. This is an act of diplomacy. To have the Department of National Defence decide the terms, like we saw here, has undermined this legislation.

It is not even about being a standby with our friends from the United States, for example, and they were using them, which is bad enough, but what it means in this legislation is that we could be actually using them because of this loophole.

It means that this treaty we signed on to is being undermined by the government and the bill, and the Conservatives do not recognize it. We have had testimony from people who negotiated this. The chief negotiator, Earl Turcotte said, “the proposed Canadian legislation is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the convention, to date”.

Why does the government not listen to expert advice? Another quote, former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser said, “It is a pity the current Canadian government, in relation to cluster munitions, does not provide any real lead to the world. Its approach is timid, inadequate and regressive”. That is a former prime minister of one of our allies. The reason he is saying that is because he actually cares about ridding the world of these heinous arms. What does the government do? It says it will not even entertain amendments.

I would hope the Conservatives would listen to their own Minister of National Defence. I will finish with this. The Minister of National Defence earlier today said it is not perfect. He indicated in his own comments that this is something that needs to be changed. Given that the minister admitted that the Conservatives are forcing through a bill that is not up to standard, I would hope sincerely that they would be open this time, because this issue is so important to our allies, and that they would listen to those who want to see amendments. Every single person who went through committee who was not part of the Department of National Defence said the bill is flawed, it is wrong, we should not pass it and it would undermine our credibility.

If the Conservatives want to listen to others or just be stubborn and steadfast and only listen to themselves, they have a choice. We need to amend it and for that reason, we will not support the bill until we see amendments.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Ottawa Centre for his very strong speech. He has made clear the great weaknesses in this bill.

One truly deplorable aspect was not addressed in my colleague’s speech, and that is the fact that this bill comes from the Senate. I must also point out that we are debating something so fundamental under a time limitation.

Canada has already played a special role in undermining the negotiation of the convention, but Bill S-10 goes much farther. It offers an outright loophole, so that Canada can be complicit in the use and even the manufacture of cluster munitions.

Would my colleague like to talk about the fact that this bill has come, unfortunately, from the Senate? It could have come from the Department of Foreign Affairs, for example. In other words, the government has not played straight with the House with respect to this issue that is so sensitive.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a huge problem. Where was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in this? Seriously, he has a job. Around the cabinet table here is how it should work. The Minister of Foreign Affairs should be the one who owns this. What happened? He is silent on it. He has not spoken out on it and he is okay with this going through the way it is. That means he is not doing his job, frankly.

I would like to quote from the World Federalist Movement, which has been focused on this issue for years. It said:

If our government cannot implement the CCM in a manner that is consistent with the treaty’s fundamental objects and purposes, then it would be better if we just didn’t pass any implementing legislation at all. It would be better to stand outside of the treaty altogether, rather than undermine it with legislation that sets a notorious precedent and creates incentives for others to write their own exceptions and loopholes.

With this legislation, that is what we are dealing with. The minister has failed to do his job and do his due diligence.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite has failed to convince anyone outside of the two or three feet around him of the merits of his argument. The NDP has cited all kinds of procedural reasons for not passing disciplining legislation, why it needs more debate, why it is inadequate. The New Democrats do not like the fact that there is a second chamber to Parliament, even though it has been there since the inception of Confederation, even though it is part of our Constitution today that we have to make democracy work in our country.

However, let us get down to basics. Why does the New Democratic Party, the official opposition of our country, refuse to expeditiously pass legislation that represents an important step forward for arms control in the world, that is part of a great Canadian tradition on the disarmament and arms control front and that is long overdue, because Parliament was in a minority for too long?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is because the former prime minister of Australia thinks it is retrograde, because people who have been studying this for years think it is retrograde, because no one supports the government's position, no one except for the government itself. The government is so out of touch.

If the member was listening to my speech, my point was about where this legislation started. It started in the other place. Clause 11 of the bill is so retrograde that people, not just us, are saying do not even bother, stand outside of this, do not implement. That is how bad it is, and the Conservatives cannot even hear that voice. They are not even open to amendments. They think they are so right, and they are so steadfastly stubborn that they cannot hear logic anymore. That is what is wrong with the government. That is why we need to change not only this legislation, but frankly, we need to change the government.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

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.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member a very simple question.

Is she aware that as many as 300 or 400 members of the Canadian armed forces serve year-round with U.S. armed forces units, including combat units, and that the United States will not be party to this convention? Does she know that the principle of interoperability is absolutely essential to our alliance with the United States, in North America, and with NATO?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am utterly delighted with the question and would like to put a similar question to my colleague opposite.

Is my colleague aware that the issue of interoperability also arose with regard to anti-personnel mines? Canadian military members were working with the U.S. armed forces at that time as well. In spite of everything, we nevertheless found a way to work with anti-personnel mines that enabled us to comply with the convention while continuing to work with our American partners, in particular, who were not party to the convention.

The same systems could have been put in place for cluster munitions without any problem. These are excuses and pretexts rather than real reasons. If the Conservatives do not want the convention, they should show some backbone and tell us so rather than try to sabotage it.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the whole issue with the Americans that we just talked about, I do not think even the parliamentary secretary appreciates that not only is clause 11 about allowing us to be with other forces that are using these munitions, but the loophole is so big that it could mean our forces would be going out and using them.

I do not know if people appreciate how much this would undermine the treaty. It means that not only would we be on standby, but we would be involved in using these munitions. That is what we are talking about. Someone could order one of our soldiers to use them, and that soldier would feel obliged. That is my first point.

Second, in light of this retrograde legislation and in light of the fact that we are not signing on to the arms trade treaty, what does my colleague think this would do in terms of Canada's reputation as a country working for peace and working to ensure that we have solid disarmament proposals to show the world?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on the first part of the question, I would like to add that several of our allies working within NATO have managed to adopt workable legislation to implement the convention. Why would Canada be the only country incapable of doing that?

As for the second part of the question, I served at the Canadian Foreign Service Institute for 15 years, and I take a certain amount of pride in that fact. We were well regarded in the world; people respected us, and we were able to work positively toward peace and conflict prevention.

Now we find ourselves in a world where we only want to do good when conflict breaks out. We are willing to go and clean up minor situations from time to time, but we no longer make any effort to prevent conflict.

This is really a world in which Canada's image is truly tarnished. This has been evident in my interactions with others, both here and abroad. It is tragic, particularly since it will take years to rebuild that image.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate.

It is important for Canadians to try to understand where we are on this bill. The bill began in the Senate, where significant concerns were raised by Senator Hubley and Senator Dallaire.

It went to committee, where a number of witnesses appeared and discussed the bill. It would ordinarily be a matter of simple ratification by the House, because we as a House have expressed our views on cluster bombs for a long period of time.

I can recall asking a minister several years ago, former minister David Emerson, about what role Canada was going to be playing in the implementation of the law on cluster munitions. Canada was not that active in putting the bill forward, but finally we agreed that we would join in the ratification and would participate in the ratification.

Essentially this law is supposed to put into effect an international treaty that has been signed by Canada as well as a number of other countries.

My colleagues who spoke earlier discussed how very imperfectly the bill reflects the treaty that we have signed. Cluster bombs are being banned in this treaty. The use of them is being banned in this treaty, which is something that Canada has agreed to do on its own, unilaterally, over a long period of time. That is not in dispute. No one is saying that the government is continuing to promote the use of cluster bombs or is somehow going against the treaty that it has signed.

We will be supporting the legislation going forward to committee, but what we are saying, as clearly as we can, is that the way in which the government has chosen to implement the treaty is contentious.

When I say that, it has to be understood that any number of countries have already had their internal debates and their parliamentary approvals, and if all the other countries, in their own legislation, had somehow adopted exactly the same interpretation of the treaty as the government, then our case would obviously be substantially weakened.

However, one is almost baffled by the approach that the Conservatives have taken. The person who negotiated the treaty, Mr. Turcotte, said that he was profoundly disappointed in the interpretation put on the treaty by the government.

My colleague from the New Democratic Party has already spoken to this issue.

As my colleague previously said, the prime minister of Australia was disappointed by the Government of Canada's approach. In fact, I would even say he was angry. Malcolm Fraser is a former Conservative prime minister of Australia. He is not a radical or a left-winger, and he is not opposed to using military force to safeguard his country's sovereignty; quite the contrary. It would be remarkable if Canada's Conservative government were the only government to adopt such a position and to interpret the treaty in that way. We naturally have questions on that subject.

Why has the government chosen to adopt such a negative interpretation of the treaty in clause 11 of the bill before us? Can it be said, as my colleague from Ottawa Centre has done, that one of the consequences of the legislation proposed by the Conservatives is that Canadian officers could order the use of these bombs and that Canadian soldiers might have to use them?

In my opinion, that stands in stark contradiction with the fact that Canada is opposed to the use of these bombs.

Consequently, we have a serious problem. Although standing in favour of multilateral disarmament, the Conservatives have managed to cause a problem with regard to the use of these bombs, which are so dangerous and have such a cruel impact on the civilian population.

We have all realized in the last few years that wars are no longer armed combats between soldiers lining up in a line, one against the other, but that wars increasingly and overwhelmingly involve the civilian populations of countries around the world.

Whether it is land mines or whether it is cluster bombs, the human experience has been that these are weapons have a horrible effect and a horrible impact on the civilian population. They are hard to target and they are hard to control. It is hard to say exactly who is going to be hit, who is going to be hurt, and who is going to be killed. It is the indiscriminate nature of these bombs that has led the world to say that we are going to stop the manufacture of these bombs and stop their use.

For our part, we are completely in favour of the legislation from the perspective of wanting to implement the treaty, but we insist that changes need to be made in committee in order to respect not only the spirit but the letter of the treaty we are signing. The changes that are required are in clause 11.

My colleagues Senators Hubley and Dallaire, two people of great integrity and great ability who have been watching and debating this legislation in the other place, did their best to convince the Conservative majority in the Senate that changes need to be made, but unfortunately those changes were not made.

Let us look at the number of countries that have explicitly rejected the interpretation being put on this treaty by the Conservative government.

At least 35 states have articulated support for the clear interpretation that the interoperability clause is not an escape clause. That is the clause that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence was just talking about.

New Zealand's legislation does not create any exceptions to the convention's prohibitions.

Norway has noted that:

The exemption for military cooperation does not authorise the States Parties to engage in activities prohibited by the Convention.

Ten other NATO members have issued similar interpretations: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Portugal and Slovenia.

It is hard for the government to argue that to be able to participate in NATO operations or in joint operations with other countries, we are somehow going to be able to use the interoperability clause as a pure and simple escape clause, but that is actually what the government has done.

One has to have a close look at this concept of interoperability, which is a principle with respect to how Canadian troops are working and exercising their responsibilities and engaging in combat in other countries. It is important at the same time to ask what the point is of signing a convention and agreeing to a treaty when we are not going to implement that treaty if it affects any of the operations we are undertaking anywhere in the world.

It almost seems like an expression on the part of the government of a kind of organized hypocrisy when out of one side of its mouth it says that it will be eliminating the use of cluster bombs and then says that no, not necessarily, if it means that it has to agree to the rejection of their use while we are actually in combat.

This is a challenge that Canadians need to understand and the government needs to come clean on.

I appreciate the fact that the government has introduced the legislation, that the government is referring it to committee and that the government says that its intent is to implement a treaty, which we are signing as a sovereign country. However, the government cannot do that and at the same time say that, yes, it will implement the treaty, but it will ensure that when it is in actual conditions of combat, it will not have any effect.

This is really a contradictory position that the government has taken. Once again, it has taken the position of Canadian exceptionalism to a degree that makes us almost a laughingstock to the rest of the world. The government effectively is saying that yes, it wants to pretend to be the good guys who are going along with signing and ratifying this treaty, but no, it does not disagree really with those of our partners, the United States and elsewhere, which in fact will not sign this treaty because the United States says that it does not want to use these, but there may be circumstances in which it has no choice but to use them and it will not bind the hands of our troops. Let us remember that the United States also refused to sign the land mines treaty.

It seems to me the government has to come clean. Is it or is it not the intention of the Government of Canada to allow its troops to be actively engaged in using cluster bombs while in combat, yes or no? Is it in fact the case that the Government of Canada intends its commanding officers to authorize the use of these cluster bombs while they are actually in the field of combat, even though Canada has signed a treaty saying they will not be used?

It seems to me there has to be some consistency. The Conservatives have in fact done exactly what other countries have warned us against doing and they have done exactly what other countries have refused to do, which is to use this notion of interoperability as an actual escape from the responsibilities we have to implement the legislation.

We need to go back into committee. We need to call Mr. Turcotte. We need to call the people who have interpreted this legislation. We need to call the people who have been looking hard at it. We need to call people from other countries who have an understanding as to how they have interpreted this. We need to have a real discussion in committee as to why the government would have taken such an approach to this legislation.

Canada should not be escaping its responsibilities by choosing to implement a treaty in this way. It makes a mockery of our commitment. It makes a mockery of our understanding of what it means to actually put into effect and to put into operation a treaty obligation that we signed. It will provide for total confusion with respect to what Canada and Canadians troops have actually agreed to do.

That is why, while we support the bill going to committee, we have great difficulty with the way in which the government has chosen to interpret the treaty in clause 11 of the bill.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the member opposite, what we have heard here tonight on this issue is what a famous former U.S. secretary of state called “the stern daughter of the voice of God”, Dean Acheson's term for a certain kind of Canadian self-righteousness that simply refuses to take reality as it is, especially in the political, military or strategic field.

My question for the member for Toronto Centre is very simple. He regrets that there is not symmetry between this legislation and our legislation governing the land mines convention. He says that it is a slippery slope in all kinds of directions.

Will the member not acknowledge for the House that the essential difference here, underpinning clause 11, is the exception that this legislation provides for Canadian Forces that serve in operational units, combat units, which will never be using cluster munitions directly under this legislation, but that serve alongside their American colleagues in combat?

American units, as long as their country has not signed this convention, are still using that weapon. We disapprove and we will not do it in our armed forces.

However, will the member for Toronto Centre admit that there is a difference between land mines, which U.S. armed forces do not use, and cluster munitions, which are still used and were used as recently as in the last decade in Afghanistan, in a combat mission that included Canadian troops, some of them embedded in U.S. units?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hesitate to borrow a phrase, and the member may be somewhat dumbfounded when I say this, but I actually knew Dean Acheson and he was a friend of mine. The hon. member is no Dean Acheson, I can say that right now.

I do not mind being called whatever by the hon. member, but to his question I would simply put another question. How is it possible that 20 other NATO countries have managed to sign the convention, have signed the treaty and have not adopted the kind of escape clause to which Canada is now committing itself?

What the Government of Canada is now saying is that Canada has no independent foreign policy, we have no independent defence policy and we have no capacity to make our own moral judgments with respect to what weapons we will use and what weapons we will not use. It is the old Conservative position: when the imperial power says “Aye”, they say “Ready, aye, ready”.

From our perspective, we want Canada to be able to say “We believe in a treaty, we take a treaty seriously and we will observe the letter and the spirit of that treaty when we pass our legislation right here in Canada”.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague a question.

In Canada's view, the use of cluster bombs is an utterly inconceivable act. Why have we not heard the Government of Canada or the Minister of Foreign Affairs take a strong position on the use of cluster munitions in the current conflict in Syria?

Today the parliamentary secretary tells us that Canada has always been a strong proponent of that principle. This is the same old story. Why has the Conservative government not adopted that approach to the conflict in Syria? I would like my hon. colleague to comment on that.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's ability to speak directly about the humanitarian impact of the use of these bombs is entirely compromised by the position the Government of Canada has taken.

The Conservative Party's position is such that we find ourselves in a situation in which we claim to be opposed to the use of these bombs, which are being used in Syria, but we say that there will be exceptions and they will continue to be used.

The Canadian public would be surprised to know the current position of the Government of Canada. As the parliamentary secretary said, the principle of interoperability clearly means that Canada is no longer independent with regard to its military decisions or the conditions in which it does its job and fights. Furthermore, if a conflict arises, Canada must agree to fight alongside the Americans. Ultimately, we will have no choice as to how we do our job.

That constitutes an infringement of Canada's sovereignty, which I find utterly unacceptable.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the two last answers of the member for Toronto Centre reminded me much more of Henri Bourassa than of Dean Acheson. Raging against an imperial power, it really sounded like rhetoric from times past. However, let us come back to reality. Let us come back to the present.

The member mentions 20 states. It is true that most of the members of NATO that have taken a different approach to this convention. Will the member not admit, though, that these states were not involved in combat alongside American troops in Afghanistan as recently at five, six or seven years ago? By not acknowledging the reality that Canadian troops faced, of being integrated into command structures, not of an imperial power, but of an alliance of democracies, yes, including the United States, the member for Toronto Centre, who says he is a member of the Liberal Party, which sent us to Afghanistan to be involved in combat, is contradicting the legacy and principles of his party and certainly the honour the Canadian Armed Forces that did everything in their power to fulfill the mission that his party placed on their shoulders in 2005 when they were sent into combat in Kandahar.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let the record show that I probably was as strong an advocate with respect to Canadian engagement in Afghanistan as any member in the House, including members of the Conservative Party. I leave that as a clear statement.

I think what the hon. member is not coming clean on is we know that within the government and within the public service of Canada there was a substantial internal debate about how this legislation should be brought forward and what should be in that legislation. We know the people who were negotiating this treaty never had any concept that this level of exceptionalism would be introduced into the legislation and that this kind of escape clause would be introduced into the legislation.

What we continue to object to is that the government has taken an interpretation of this treaty and made a mockery of it in the way in which it has been interpreted and the way in which it has been put forward. That is something that everyone in the House needs to realize. This is not something that came forward without any discussion or debate within the Government of Canada. There was a substantial debate.

I am sorry that when we look at the legislation, the broadest possible exceptions have been built into the law that has been brought forward by the Conservative Party.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate with great attention. It reminded me of some conversations that I had in a previous career, where I was involved with some American vets who were trying to get support for a land mine ban. I was playing some shows in the United States, in my former life, and they told me “thank goodness for Canada” and “thank goodness for the independent voice right next to the United States”, which could actually send clear message to the world that there were people in North America who saw things differently.

I wonder if my hon. colleague from Toronto Centre might want to comment on the drift that we have seen consistently from the government vis-à-vis our place in the world.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government is taking the concept of interoperability and an interpretation of what that means and then basically saying that the implication of the principle of interoperability is that we essentially have to do whatever the United States or other countries with which we are serving want us to do.

With great respect, Canada fought long and hard for greater independence in the conduct of our troops in two world wars. In two world wars, we had substantial arguments that had to be made to ensure that Canadian troops, the Canadian approach and the Canadian way of engaging were in fact given a degree of recognition and independence. The Conservative Party is now saying that interoperability means that we simply have to do whatever our allies want and tell us to do, whether it is the Americans, the Brits or someone else, and I am saying that if we sign a treaty like this, that is in fact not true.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I hope we do get a chance to hear from the member for Toronto Centre again tonight.

Continuing the last exchange, it is astonishing to hear members of the Liberal Party, who complained about national caveats during our forces' time in combat in Afghanistan and in Kandahar, who pushed for NATO command of that mission starting in 2003 and then Canadian command of the first NATO combat mission in southern Afghanistan in 2005-06. That same Liberal Party, now in opposition, has become the stern daughter of the voice of God on the whole question of whether interoperability can actually be made a practical reality.

The Liberals did not want to apply these principles of pulling Canadian troops out of U.S. units, of not having Canadian pilots who may be based with U.S. squadrons providing air support to U.S. units that might need it because of the danger of cluster munitions. They did not raise any of those concerns, even while this convention was under negotiation at that time. In the heat of combat, most of them wanted the best for our troops and wanted our troops to do well. They knew very well, very quickly, that they had sent the Canadian Forces into Afghanistan under-equipped, without the right uniforms, the right vehicles, the right mobility, tactical strategic lift, that this country with its expeditionary tradition should always have. They were embarrassed for it and they were called on it, and they will wear their record of a decade of darkness, the lowest ebb of support for the Canadian Forces, for the rest of their history.

However, on this issue of cluster munitions and exceptions, the hypocrisy we have seen tonight is astonishing. The members of that party that wanted us to lead the first NATO combat mission in one of the most difficult theatres imaginable now wants to fetter those same forces with an inability to work comprehensively with their U.S. colleagues. It wants to fetter the forces from being good allies, to be one of the few countries that do not have those caveats and that do not shy away from combat when it is necessary and authorized and the right thing to do. The comments from the member for Toronto Centre probably do more than anything I am about to say to advance our case for this legislation. It is the right legislation to govern our involvement in the Convention on Cluster Munitions at this stage in our history, while the United States is still on a different path.

Let me say a few things about this important legislation from the perspectives of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. Let us remind ourselves what those Canadian Forces are still doing at home and abroad that brings them into contact with Canadians on all three coasts and across this great country. They are in contact with allies, with many of the countries the member for Toronto Centre mentioned, many of which sent contingents to Afghanistan but did not have the size, scale or capability to do the heavy lifting that countries like Canada did.

Our troops have responded in the last year to natural disasters, such as floods in Quebec and the Prairies, forest fires in British Columbia, and a hurricane in Atlantic Canada. They support law enforcement agencies when called upon. They patrol our Arctic. They conduct search and rescue missions. We discuss those missions almost every week in this House of Commons. They do it on some of the most inhospitable terrain and climate on earth.

Abroad, our men and women in uniform have been heavily committed to the mission in Afghanistan, first protecting Kabul, the capital, while our allies were off on another mission in Iraq. Then they were in combat in Kandahar, bringing NATO forces into a pitch tempo of operations that they had never seen before in the history of the alliance. Now they are training the Afghan National Security Forces.

The forces have protected civilians in Libya. They are engaged in counter-narcotics missions in the Caribbean basin and the eastern Pacific. They are helping to foster maritime security in the Arabian Sea. Let us recall HMCS Toronto and its seizures of heroin, opium and hashish on historic scales, which the allied navies have never before achieved.

We are also participating in a number of international missions, from Cyprus to Golan to South Sudan. More and more the forces find themselves working in complex, sensitive, legally challenging theatres of operation. There is no rule of law in many of these states and societies when these missions are undertaken. That is why these Canadian Forces, and indeed the new authorities in many of these countries, are looking to international law, including conventions, agreements and other treaties to guide their actions.

One of them is the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which Canada signed in good faith four and a half years ago. The bill before us would allow Canada to ratify that treaty. However, even though the convention has not yet entered into force in Canada, and this is a key point, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces have already taken clear steps to abide by its spirit.

First and foremost, it is important to recognize that the forces have never used these weapons in any of their operations. If anything that we say tonight deserves repetition, it is surely that fact. The Canadian Forces, with their record of success in world wars, peacekeeping, Korea and Afghanistan, have never had recourse to cluster munitions. Even three years before Canada signed the convention, the forces had begun to phase cluster munitions out of their operational weapon stocks where they had remained unused. It was not long after that the forces began ridding themselves of these weapons entirely, a process which is nearly complete now that Public Works and Government Services Canada has posted the last contract for the destruction of our remaining stock of cluster munitions.

While this process of stock destruction was under way, the Chief of the Defence Staff underscored the forces' position on these weapons, by prohibiting their use in any of our military operations. The fact that all this took place before Canada even signed the convention shows our commitment, and the commitment of the Canadian Forces, to its aims.

It is because we recognize that the kind of international co-operation that leads to agreements like the convention results in a safer world and, by extension, greater security for Canada.

The Canadian Forces have always been strong supporters of the arms control and disarmament regime. It helps to keep the world an orderly and more peaceful place, where fewer military operations are required.

However, this kind of international co-operation naturally requires more than just signing treaties, and it goes further than co-operation initiatives in the area of arms control.

For a number of decades, Canada has been a strong defender of multilateral security efforts. The Canada First defence strategy highlights the importance of this type of co-operation in the present-day context.

Partnership and co-operation with all of our allies is also a priority for NATO, and with countries beyond NATO.

Clearly, international co-operation in the defence field will remain one of the cornerstones of Canada’s security for a long time to come.

Let me contrast this vision of security with our many partners. There is the United States here in North America, but there are dozens in NATO and dozens outside of NATO that have active security co-operation with Canada. The member for Toronto Centre said this government was responding to some kind of imperial pressure. I look around to Europe, south of the border, Asia, and I fail to see, and I think all of us on this side of the House fail to see, an imperial power in this day and age to which Canada would subordinate itself in any way, shape or form.

It is for that reason that we will continue to remind the House and Canadians that we are speaking about today's reality, not about the anxieties of the 1920s or the 1950s and not about something of historical interest. We are speaking about Canada's security reality today, our partnerships in the world, our co-operation in the world, and our arms control and disarmament obligations in the world.

As I have already mentioned, international co-operation in the field of security involves more than treaties. It encompasses areas such as collaborative research, development, training, information sharing and joint operations.

These endeavours help the Canadian Forces safeguard Canada’s security because, in today’s complex world, countries cannot face down most threats by themselves.

In today’s volatile environment, Canada has a close ally. For decades, the Canadian and American armed forces have worked side by side to safeguard the security of our two countries and foster global stability. This is why the Canada First defence strategy specifies that the Canadian Armed Forces have a duty to strengthen this long-standing co-operation by remaining a strong and reliable partner in the defence of North America.

I might as well ask if the member for Toronto Centre knows the history of his own party?

It was the Liberal Party of Canada that brought us into the North American aerospace defence agreement. We are the smaller partner, but it is for the larger objective of defending North America, and we did that of our own free will. This government supports that alliance as much as any Liberal government did. However, it is not a question of ceding sovereignty, but a question of defending peace and one's national interest more effectively with allies. We have always done it.

The strategy also calls on the forces to co-operate with our partners and allies, including the United States, in order to promote international security.

Our long-standing co-operation with our American friends has proven successful over the years. It has allowed us to have access to important information, dialogue with key decision-makers and enhance our own military capability, and at the same time it has enabled our defence industries to work together more effectively.

Of course, it is to export to the United States and beyond as well.

This is a relationship worth preserving. Doing so was a priority for Canada during the negotiation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. That is why Canada championed the clause within the convention dealing with the military co-operation of signatory states with countries that are not party to the agreement, countries like the United States.

This clause found in article 21 of the convention and reflected in Bill S-10 strikes a fair balance between humanitarian principles, on the one hand, to which we are absolutely committed, and Canada's security imperatives on the other. It protects Canada's ability to co-operate in a meaningful way with its partners that have not yet signed the agreement, and it complies entirely with Canada's humanitarian obligations under the convention. That is perhaps something that needs reinforcing. Despite all the rhetoric from across the way, we are complying entirely with the requirements of the convention.

The legislation before us today reflects Canada's interpretation of this clause, and as such would allow us to remain fully interoperable with the U.S. military. It would preserve the valuable liaison and exchange positions that the Canadian Armed Forces share with our most important ally. It essentially means that in combat the Canadian Forces would not be obliged to leave U.S. units just because there was a suspicion that cluster munitions might be used.

Of course, members of the Canadian Forces would not use them and would not be directly involved. Of course, our units would never use them. That would violate our obligations under the convention. However, should we leave our U.S. colleagues hanging in Afghanistan, or some other combat mission, just because of the possibility of a legal stricture not having been met?

The fact is, interoperability between our two nations remains essential to Canada's defence and security. It is more important now, in 2013, than ever before. Every dime counts. Every solider counts. Every capability needs to be leveraged, here, within NATO, and in every operation around the world.

Article 21 of the convention reflected in Bill S-10 would also give our men and women in uniform the legal protection they need to continue to co-operate with other non-signatory states, without fear of being disciplined or put on trial. This includes when they are participating in combined military operations, multinational exercises, training opportunities and military co-operation away from the battlefield. The fact is that this kind of co-operation is integral to the work of our military.

That being said, this will not take away from our commitment to fulfill all of our obligations under the convention. The Canadian Armed Forces will at all times, and during all operations, continue to remain bound to these obligations to prohibit the authorization of or participation in any indiscriminate attack, including one using cluster munitions, regardless of whether they are acting independently or with foreign partners.

To put it simply, no Canadian Armed Forces member would ever directly use a cluster munition or specifically ask that one be used in circumstances where the choice of munition used is within the exclusive control of the Canadian Armed Forces. In fact, as they move forward with implementation, the Chief of the Defence Staff would issue additional directives to ensure this is fully enforced in practice.

These military directives would specifically prohibit Canadian military members on exchange with allied armed forces from using cluster munitions or from giving or receiving training in their use. They will also prohibit the transportation of cluster munitions by the Canadian Armed Forces or by third parties under its control.

Our question to the opposition is this: How are these safeguards somehow insufficient? How does the opposition think that with its self-righteousness tonight it could wish away the reality of a different policy in the United States, a country that happens to be our most important ally? These restrictions, which would be implemented as soon as Canada ratifies the agreement, would actually exceed the convention's requirements.

To conclude, wherever they operate, the Canadian Armed Forces abide by their national legal and humanitarian obligations. Their obligations under the convention are part and parcel of that cross-cutting commitment. As I said at the outset, National Defence has already prohibited the use of cluster munitions in our own operations. We have removed them from active service. We have taken all the necessary steps to destroy our remaining stockpile.

Going forward, Canada remains steadfast in its commitment to the ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and to its ultimate universalization. What does that mean? It means that we want all countries to become states party to this convention, including the United States. We will engage in advocacy. We will engage in outreach. We will engage in diplomacy to that goal. We recognize that in doing so, we reinforce our broader efforts to foster domestic and international security. We also realize that this commitment to our collective security can only be undertaken in close co-operation with partners and allies, some of which have not yet signed the convention.

With that in mind, until such time as the goal of universalization is realized, the legislation before us today strikes the necessary balance to ensure that we remain true to our obligations under the convention, while enabling us to remain a strong and reliable partner in the quest for peace and security both at home and abroad. As such, I call upon my hon. colleagues to support this important legislation so that we can take the next steps in the critical phase of implementation.

Let me close with two personal points. We are living in a dangerous world. I personally have experience with cluster munitions from that most recent theatre of combat for the Canadian Forces, Afghanistan.

The exception being provided for in this legislation is not an abstraction. It is not something we should be arguing about legalistically on blackboards. It is something that is really needed.

When we were walking in the hills and valleys of Afghanistan, more than once during my time in that country, there were moments when one would take a step over some boulders, look across a divide in what seemed to be a remote place, but a place where sheep, people, shepherds and travellers would nevertheless pass, and there they would be, the cluster munitions that had been left, in some cases by the Soviet Union, in some cases by the United States.

I was never a direct witness to the atrocious human tragedy these explosive remnants of war left on Afghan families and on Afghan villages. Fortunately, those travelling with me always managed to see them and stepped away to miss the little tennis-ball-sized balls of destructive power.

However, they were used, not just by countries we would have once considered our enemies, such as the Soviet Union, not only by China, with its growing military power, but by the United States. We may regret that use. That use nevertheless happened. I guarantee that it happened in units where Canadians were either actively embedded, had been embedded before, or afterwards would be embedded.

It would be a shame, in fact outrageous, given the dependence we have had on the United States for partnership in the military field and that NATO has had on the United States in the military field in Afghanistan and elsewhere, for us to be refusing that kind of fellowship, that kind of professional development and that kind of involvement—because U.S. soldiers are also embedded in our units—simply because one particular weapon may have been used on a few occasions in Afghanistan.

Believe me, I do not have cases, and we have studied them a lot, in the United Nations mission elsewhere in Afghanistan, in which cluster munitions were used mistakenly against civilian targets. I hope that they were not. The munitions we found in the mountains had been left there by pilots discharging their loads as they headed back to the aircraft carrier to their base thinking that they had been destroyed, thinking that no one would come to harm.

There is a legacy there of explosive remnants of war that needs our attention. It has received attention. Canada has been one of the foremost countries funding demining programs, funding the destruction of unneeded ammunition in huge quantities in Afghanistan to try to make this wartorn country safer. However, we should not encumber ourselves with an absolutely ridiculous obligation to cut off our co-operation with the United States, our ability to embed with U.S. units, simply because the United States, on this issue, happens to be in a different place, and we would argue behind us in terms of adherence to the convention. It is according to its own decision-making, on the basis of its own sovereignty and given its own military role in the world.

We on this side hope for the passage of this legislation. We hope for understanding. We know that Canadians want that partnership with the United States to continue. We hope the opposition will understand, especially the Liberal Party, that by continuing the kind of rhetoric members have displayed tonight they are really going against a decision they took--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. That brings to an end the time allocated for the first presentation.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Vancouver East.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the parliamentary secretary. He used some pretty loaded language. He said that the opposition was hypocritical. Then he talked about self-righteousness. Listening to the debate, I could only surmise that the self-righteousness is actually coming from him.

I know that he believes that he knows a lot, but the fact is that we all look at legislation, and we have basic questions we want to address. To characterize this as self-righteous or hypocritical is very unparliamentary, because there are basic questions that need to be asked.

One of them is why it took so long for this legislation to come forward. The convention was signed in 2008. It took four years for it to come forward, and all of a sudden, it is being jammed through, rushed through, at the last minute, which, of course, is a pattern with the Conservative government. It is very disturbing.

I guess the most basic question is how the government can stand up with any credibility and pass this legislation and call it a ratification of the convention, when in actual fact, examination of this bill would suggest that it is undermining the convention. If we heed the words of the former negotiator, Mr. Turcotte, that is what he said, in effect.

Leave aside the self-righteousness. Why not just address some of the questions that are legitimately coming forward about this bill?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, leaving aside the term the member opposite has just used, let us open up the debate a little bit wider. How is it that the NDP, the party opposite, would even weigh in on this debate? It relates to a necessary balance that we, as a government, are seeking to strike, and believe we have struck in this legislation, between our disarmament obligations, which run very deep in this country, and our obligations as an ally, where interoperability is not an option. It is something that is codified in the very DNA of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is something without which missions such as Libya and Afghanistan would never have happened. The defence of North America, the defence of Europe and the naval operation in the Arabian Sea would not have happened, not just without interoperability but without the ability to exchange officers, sailors, air crew and soldiers.

How does the NDP even deign to rise and comment on this debate, when every time legislation comes forward, budgets come forward and debates come forward in the House on giving equipment, funding and training and even approving missions for the Canadian Armed Forces they are against it? The no-defence party is here--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The hon. member for Toronto—Danforth.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what we have been hearing is beneath debate in the House. I am really disappointed with the way this is being dealt with. That we are disabled from talking about a principle of humanity that underlies this treaty and how it relates to this exalted principle of interoperability the member seems to reify is absolutely nuts.

I am going to quote back to the member what he said when he was criticizing the Liberals. He said that "in the heat of combat, most of them wanted the best for our troops". He then went on to say that they sent troops into battle "under-equipped", and he used that to say that somehow or other they had lost their way and were being hypocritical. Frankly, the whole way that played out sounded to me just like the defence of the actual use of cluster munitions.

Could the parliamentary secretary confirm that he actually is not, in a veiled way, defending the use of cluster munitions through this exaltation of the principle of interoperability?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not in any way advocating the use of cluster munitions. If the member had been listening to my remarks, he would know that my only involvement with cluster munitions in Afghanistan was trying not to be a victim of them.

It is the government that is bringing in legislation to make Canada a state party to this convention, which we were not at the time of combat in Afghanistan, the convention having only been formulated four and a half years ago.

The real question is why the member for Toronto—Danforth and the member for Vancouver East really show absolutely no respect, not only for our military but for our main ally, which plays a role in the security of North America and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and indeed in anchoring peace and stability in the world.

I would like the member, if he gets up sometime tonight, to say that he believes in this, that he believes in the mission in Afghanistan and that he believes in our alliance with the United States. Quite frankly, we do not hear it from the NDP very often.

We know that many of them, through the history of the CCF and the NDP, were committed to taking Canada out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and to having no military relations to speak of with the United States. That is the kind of thing we are hearing tonight with the sanctimonious rhetoric and this wanton disregard for interoperability.

It was the member for Vancouver East who first called my speech, which was at least an attempt to be substantive on the issue, unparliamentary. Are the NDP members suggesting that we should not discuss military and security topics in this House? That is certainly what it sounded like to us.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member asked what might have been a rhetorical question when he said that he did not know how the NDP could weigh in on this debate. I just wanted to remind my hon. colleague that our party was the only party in this House that opposed Canada's mission in Afghanistan. That position was supported by over 50% of the Canadian population.

Over four million Canadians voted for us in the last election. That is why we are here. That is why we have every right to debate this issue in the House.

The member said that the U.S. is perhaps in a different place than Canada on this treaty. Let us just put it in perspective. There are four billion cluster bombs stockpiled around the world. The United States has a quarter of them. They are not just in a different place; they are in a different universe.

What the member is trying to say to us tonight is that we do not have any right to question their position. We just have an obligation to listen and adhere to their position. We are saying here, and we are actually saying it very clearly, that we support the treaty lock, stock and barrel. We do not support a way in which our position in the world is somehow compromised by this clause on interoperability.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Davenport says that we on this side do whatever the Americans tell us to do. I have news for him. He clearly has not been following the debate. The Americans are not signing this convention. We signed the convention. We are ratifying it. It is a sovereign decision by a Conservative government, and it is a good decision.

Second, the member says that the United States of America, and I think this one is really one for the record books, is in a different universe. What universe is it the member for Davenport is talking about? Is it the universe that does not include a country across the Niagara River, our closest ally with whom we do $2 billion in business a day, with whom the city he represents is integrated culturally, socially and economically in every possible way? Does he call that a different universe?

What greater measure, what greater indicator of a lack of respect for the United States, its role in the world, its role as an ally, in security and in military affairs could there be than to say that it is in a different universe?

I would like to close by simply reminding the NDP that with its position, opposing the combat mission in Afghanistan, it joined a grand total of zero governments of NATO countries. There were no NATO countries that failed to deploy to Afghanistan. It would have been the only one, and that is why it is not fit to govern. It will not govern. This government will do everything in its power to point out the absolute bankruptcy of the NDP on these issues.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we just listened to the parliamentary secretary tie himself into knots in his pretzel logic. He sounded more like a cheerleader for cluster bombs than an opponent of cluster bombs. He spent most of his speech justifying places where they maybe need to be used in the interests of some higher power. He sounded like he worked for the NRA, not the peace movement.

It is no surprise that the loophole clause is called chapter 11, because 22 is a multiple, and my colleague has a Catch-22 mentality about the banning of cluster mines that is worthy of Joseph Heller.

I was hoping there would be a serious debate on this issue tonight, because the country is watching. The country was optimistic that we might be taking some tentative measures to reclaim our position in the global community, much as we did when the whole nation got involved in the land mines treaty. School kids got involved. People were proud of our country and of the lead position that we took as part of the international community, whether it was led by Lady Diana or by others in our own country, such as Dr. Samantha Nutt and Lloyd Axworthy. They played powerful roles and made the country proud.

Instead, we took something that was virtuous and had great merit, and then sabotaged and undermined it. We are actually undermining and sabotaging the international community with this loophole clause.

Let me explain.

The parliamentary secretary is laughing. I do not think he realizes how bad he is making our country look with his shenanigans.

I do not know if he is responsible for the sabotage. I do not think he is that high up the totem pole in his rank. I am going to back up a second while he is still here, while we have his attention and while he is still lucid, because it is getting late and he may be reverting to the chitter-chatter that goes on to try to undermine any kind of meaningful debate in this place.

I will read clause 6. I am going to go through a few parts of it.

Clause 6 would meet the nod test with most Canadians and in fact would make most Canadians proud that we signed on to this treaty in 2008. Clause 6 states:

—it is prohibited for any person to

(a) use a cluster munition...

(b) develop, make, acquire or possess, a cluster munition...

(c) move a cluster munition...

(d) import or export a cluster munition...

(e) attempt to commit any act referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d);

(f) aid, abet or counsel another person to commit any act referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d);

(g) conspire with another person to commit any act referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d);...

All of that sounds great. It sounds very thorough and comprehensive that Canada will have no part of cluster munitions in any way, shape or form, including the manufacture, the shipping, the export, the sale, the handling or the use. We are out.

We are out until we go a few pages further, to a much larger clause that goes on for a full two pages. It is clause 11, which states:

Section 6 does not prohibit a person...from

(a) directing or authorizing an activity that may involve the use, acquisition, possession, import or export of a cluster [musician]...

(b) expressly requesting the use of a cluster [musician]...

(c) using, acquiring or possessing a cluster munition...

These are all the exceptions.

Clause 11 goes on to state:

Section 6 does not prohibit a person, in the course of military cooperation...from

(a) aiding, abetting or counselling another person to [use a munition]...

In other words, it gives a road map for all the ways that Canada can participate in the use of cluster musicians.

Did I say “musicians” again? That is what members are laughing about. I am a little upset, and they ought to cut me some slack because I have never been so disappointed, I do not think, in my 16 years here.

There are many things wrong with how this came before us, but I think it is absolutely tragic that we are missing this opportunity to accurately reflect the mood of the nation and engage in a robust denunciation of cluster musicians.

Now I am going to say it all the time.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

I am going to rise on a point of order.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

As a member of the musicians union, my colleague from Davenport is probably profoundly offended. They do tend to cluster. They travel in groups because there is safety in numbers.

Let me back up and start over again somewhat.

We should take note, as I always do, that this bill is called Bill “S”-10. Let me begin by saying that I profoundly resent the fact that these bills are originating in the Senate. Nobody gave a mandate to senators to generate and create legislation. It used to be a rare exception that a bill came to this chamber from the Senate. In actual fact, even though we signed this treaty in 2008, the Senate got it in April 2012. Notwithstanding the urgency that the Conservatives would have us believe that this needs to be dealt with today and tonight, and that they even invoked closure to bring that about, it took four years before they even tabled it in the Senate, never mind the House of Commons.

The Senate had it from April until December 6, when it was introduced into this chamber. That is eight or nine months that they lollygagged along with it and did whatever with it they do over there, and on December 6 it finally got introduced here. Then on May 29, 2013, at 1:00 a.m., the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs stood up and spoke to this bill for about eight or ten minutes before adjournment occurred.

Sometimes that is all we need from the parliamentary secretary to foreign affairs. Eight or ten minutes is plenty.

We had 10 minutes of debate on this bill, a bill that I believe the whole country could and should be interested in for any number of good reasons. No sooner do we deal with it for 15 minutes than today we again get closure.

We ask ourselves how often the government uses closure on bills. The answer is that at every single stage of every single bill, we get time allocation and closure, which shuts down the debate.

If I can preface my criticism of this bill, I have to begin by criticizing its origin, which was in the other place, the Senate, where they have no business, no mandate and nobody elected them. They have no legitimacy in terms of generating legislation. They have no right to have first dibs at it for approval in principle, et cetera. When we finally get it here, it is already in this form as we have it.

I listened to a number of comments on clause 11 throughout this debate. It not only would give the escape clause, the loophole by which Canada could in fact participate in the use of cluster bombs in partnership with other countries that are not signatory, the most obvious one being the United States, but it would actually sabotage and undermine the integrity of the entire international operation.

I do not think people realize the full depth and breadth of what we are dealing with here. My colleague from Toronto Centre quite rightly pointed out, who is crafting our foreign policy? Who is dictating this kind of thing? This is not the will of Canadians. I can assure members that if they put this to Canadians in any kind of a full debate or information package or opportunity to comment, they would be horrified.

Our proudest achievements recently and in the last decade were, first, not going into Iraq. I guarantee that if the government of the day had been in power then, we would have been in Iraq. There is no doubt about it. The second was the land mine treaty. People felt good again about being Canadian.

Now incrementally, bit by bit, we have had our international reputation undermined to the point where commentators from around the world are wondering what the heck is going on with this country.

We have people like former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser saying, “It's a pity the current Canadian government, in relation to cluster munitions, does not provide any real lead to the world. Its approach is timid, inadequate and regressive.” That is a pretty strong condemnation from a former prime minister of a Commonwealth country.

Earl Turcotte, former senior coordinator for mine action at DFAIT, the head of the Canadian delegation to negotiate the convention, said, “...the proposed Canadian legislation is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the convention, to date”.

We are not leading the pack anymore. We are not leading the parade. We are the guy behind the elephants with a push broom, following the parade.

Paul Hannon, the Director of Mines Action Canada, said, “Canada should have the best domestic legislation in the world. We need to make it clear that no Canadian will ever be involved with this weapon again, but from our reading, this legislation falls well short of those standards.”

Our role as the international good guys, as the Boy Scouts of the world on many issues, is to elevate the standard of behaviour and performance. Maybe that means standing up on our hind legs to our American neighbour sometimes and saying, “We're with you. We're brothers-in-arms in almost every respect, but if you're using cluster munitions in this particular conflict, we're out. We have legislation in our country that doesn't permit us to go anywhere near it”.

That may in fact give pause to those countries that have yet to ratify. They may realize that there is a cost, a price to pay, if they are not going to join the international community in its growing condemnation of these cluster munitions.

The horror of them is well known and has been well documented by many other speakers. I would be the first to admit I am not an expert in foreign affairs, but I do have a innate gut sense, I believe, of right and wrong, and in this case we are dead wrong. I am embarrassed by our position on this piece of legislation and I am not trying to overstate things.

I hear the chatter over there. I hope they are proud of themselves. I do not know how they ever came to this point of view. Who was pulling their strings? Who would even devise and design this clause 11 to so thoroughly contradict the letter and the spirit of the law?

Surely that is our obligation when we enter into an international convention or treaty. We commit ourselves. We stipulate ourselves to both the letter and the spirit of the law. We promise to uphold that, to propagate it, to promote it and advocate it. That is how these things spread, by the leadership of enlightened western developed nations like Canada in elevating the standard of behaviour even in the event of armed conflict.

The prohibitions include to “...receive, comfort or assist another person, knowing that the person has committed, or has aided or abetted in the commission of, any act”. Those were described earlier, and this is how contradictory it is: it is even an offence under this bill to lend succour or support to anyone who is participating in any of those mentioned offences, yet clause 11 clearly states that we can be standing side by side with the person who is offending these points in clause 6. They are not stipulated to the convention.

Therefore, we can help them. We can carry the material for them. We can deliver it to them so that they can bomb people with it. We can do virtually anything to aid and abet our NATO colleagues in the United States.

[Brian Storseth]

Give me a break.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

That is not true.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Well, that is my reading of it. I would be interested to hear how my parliamentary secretary colleague would say that I am wrong, because the understanding of any objective outsider reading this would be that there are exemptions and loopholes here that one could drive a truck through. It makes a mockery of the entire initiative in both the letter and the spirit of the law.

I am saying this trying not to be inflammatory, but the only reason that the Conservatives could possibly find to move time allocation and closure on this particular debate is that they would be embarrassed if school kids and activists around the country got wind of it and laid their eyes on this unworthy document and were aware that we were going to be facilitating those who use cluster munitions.

Never mind participating in the ban. We may in fact dispose of our stockpile in our country, but we have full permission to do anything necessary to enable countries that do have a history of using them regularly to carry on using them.

One of the most moving things I ever saw was when I had the opportunity to go to Geneva. There is a statue of a kitchen chair in Geneva twice as big as the Speaker's throne. I would say it is probably 30 feet high, with one leg blown off and simply splintered. It became the international symbol of land mines. It captured the imagination of the whole international community, I believe. It serves as a stark reminder that there are some things we just will not tolerate.

Again, as other speakers have mentioned, the face of warfare has changed so dramatically that it really becomes a game of who is willing to sacrifice the most civilians and not necessarily armed combatants. It is not necessarily soldiers versus soldiers any more, but how much brutality one is willing to cope with before one yields. That is the nature of war, and the victims of war are more often civilians and innocent bystanders.

It is cluster munitions perhaps more than anything else, now that land mines are being eradicated and remediation is under way to clear the hundreds of millions of mines that have been placed around world. Now the world has turned its sights on cluster munitions to rid us of this scourge, yet Canada is not doing its part. We are not pulling our weight. We are falling short and dropping the ball. We are failing innocent civilians around the world by not speaking out and not using everything possible to denounce, deter, restrict and move toward a global outlawing of these cluster musicians.

Therefore, clause 11 is why we will oppose the proposed legislation at this stage. We do not believe we could even support it in principle. I am sure politics will be played with this. The Conservatives will be putting out press releases saying that the NDP has voted against banning cluster munitions. I am sure they will play that game, but this is one of those debates that needs a more extensive treatment, because we can point back to the Conservatives as kowtowing to some greater master, somebody who is pulling their strings and telling them not to pass the legislation without leaving this mega-loophole in.

At committee, there will be an attempt to delete clause 11, or at least modify it so it does not undermine and completely destroy the intent of the international convention on cluster munitions. I am sure this may not even occur until after we come back in the fall. I doubt very much we will have the opportunity between now and adjournment to give this proposed legislation the complete treatment it deserves.

The Conservatives have been moving closure at every stage of every bill. They have also been manipulating committee. Our parliamentary democracy is in tatters. It is really only a facsimile of a democracy that we have left. All the checks and balances to ensure there is some ability to accommodate the legitimate concerns brought forward by members, other than the actual authors of the bill, have been eradicated.

We are getting pretty tired of this winner-takes-all attitude that the Conservatives have exhibited. I am surprised they play this kind of cheap, petty politics with such a significant humanitarian initiative. It disappoints me, and I say that in all sincerity. I do not even feel like yelling and screaming about it. It makes me sad more than angry.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, it is extraordinary to be accused of praising a very dangerous munition. As part of a series of speeches on this side, we spoke in support of a convention to ban that munition, which has never been used by the Canadian Forces. Very limited stockpiles within the Canadian Forces are already on the way to being destroyed.

Let me remind the member opposite that this is a measure brought in by this Conservative government. The member opposite spent most of his speech calling for a convention on the total prohibition and ban of cluster musicians. He does not realize that this will lose the NDP members a lot of votes, the few votes they have left in the city of Toronto. The member for Davenport and the member for Timmins—James Bay would be affected. It could be the collapse of the party. We are not here to champion that move tonight. We may champion it later.

The only person he could cite in favour of his position was a former Australian politician. Does the member know that Australia, too, has its version of clause 11? It, too, has an exception because it does combat operations with the United States. It wants to continue to be interoperable with the United States.

Does the member opposite understand that the United States still uses these weapons, much as we may regret that fact? It does not use land mines.

Finally, does the member acknowledge and support the fact that Canada is a member of NATO and Norad? Does he support those alliances?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly would not call for a total ban on musicians. I could perhaps be some musicians. Bagpipes come to mind. Some people say that the best use for bagpipes is to use them as kindling for a bonfire of accordions. That comes to mind as well. I do not mean to offend any cultural or ethnic group. There are a lot of Scots and Ukrainians.

Ninety-eight percent of the victims of cluster bombs are civilians, not military. I know Canada is going to destroy our limited stockpiles. I also know the United States has no intention of doing so.

The parliamentary secretary might think I spent a lot of my speech bashing musicians, but he spent a lot of his speech as a cheerleader, a champion and an advocate of the sometimes unfortunate necessary use of cluster bombs. It was a disgrace.

We listened on this side and we could not believe our ears. He was tying himself in a knot with some kind of pretzel reasoning, saying that the Conservatives wanted to ban cluster bombs, but sometimes when it was necessary to use them, they could not block their use by allies in NATO. We do not have to carry and deliver them as is contemplated in this clause 11. We do not have to facilitate them or help them promote the use of cluster bombs.

With a clear denunciation, maybe even our colleagues and our partners like the United States might take note that an enlightened country like Canada will not tolerate it.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to rise in defence of all musicians in the House.

Let us just bring it back to cluster munitions. We hear the government side blithely say that it supports the banning of cluster munitions. What I would like my hon. colleague from Winnipeg Centre to comment on is that if the government is so steadfastly in support of this treaty, which we are, why would the chief negotiator say in the media that he was removed from the job partly because of objections from senior U.S. officials to his aggressive stance in the talks?

That raises this question: who is driving the ship on foreign policy for Canada if the chief negotiator was removed because of complaints from the U.S. side? Could my colleague respond to this query?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right to raise the issue of sovereignty. It does raise the question as to who was pulling the strings if the senior negotiator on behalf of Canada resigned or was fired because he did not approve of this clause. It is a worrisome thing.

Mr. Earl Turcotte said, “The proposed Canadian legislation is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the convention, to date”. That is pretty strong language and is pretty clear that something went terribly wrong. We entered into this with great hope and optimism that it would be something of which we could be proud.

Canada's stance at these negotiations is usually on its knees. The great appear great when we are on our knees. There is a saying we have, “Let us rise and stand up on our hind legs and declare ourselves as a sovereign nation in these negotiations and put our foot down and say this is the way we are doing things in this country, take it or leave it. We will work with you, we will trade with you, we will even fight with you, but if you are going to use cluster munitions in this particular field of combat, we are not there”.

That would be a position I could be proud of, and it would meet the nod test of most Canadians.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned Mr. Earl Turcotte a couple of times tonight. I wonder if he is aware that Mr. Turcotte was a negotiator for Canada at the cluster munitions convention. In fact, he attended all three meetings of the convention negotiations and was very intimately involved in the negotiation of article 21, with which apparently he now disagrees.

Could the member tell us if he understands that Mr. Turcotte was involved with those negotiations, specifically with negotiation on article 21, and did not object to it at the time when he was involved in the negotiations, and that Canada is simply implementing now the convention that he in fact negotiated on behalf of Canada?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that we object to article 21 either. It is clause 11 that we find particular fault with. Article 21 states, “Each State Party shall encourage States not party to this Convention to ratify, accept, approve or accede to this Convention”. That is a good deal. “Each State Party shall notify the governments of all States not party to this Convention...of its obligations...shall promote the norms it establishes”, et cetera. That is a good deal.

Article 21 of the actual convention I think we are probably in agreement with. It is clause 11 of the legislation put forward in Bill S-10 that we find fault with, the domestic legislation that completely undermines the spirit of article 21 of the actual convention.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg Centre did not answer my question earlier, which was this. Does his party support our membership in the alliances that have brought us security since the Second World War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the North American Aerospace Defence Alliance based in Colorado Springs, part of it based in the member's hometown of Winnipeg?

He has already given us his answer. He spoke about cleaning up after the elephant. That is exactly the NDP's policy on defence and security. The New Democrats do not want an active role for Canada. They do not want us to have armed forces that are capable. They do not want us to be interoperable with our allies, because they just want security to happen. They want others to look after it. They want to wake up in the morning and find out that everything is all right. The world is not like that. The member should know better. He should know we have obligations in the world.

Will he not confirm once and for all in the House that he supports our basic alliances that have kept us safe?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we believe that the use of cluster bombs is morally and ethically reprehensible and we will not tolerate any weaseling away from that position. We will not be the boys who carry the cluster bombs for the Americans to drop. We will not do it. We should not be allowing people to manufacture them here or to send them across our borders to the United States.

It raises this question: who is shaping our foreign policy? That is the question Canadians want answered. On this whole idea that the Conservatives will try and paint themselves as the ones who are trying to rid the world of cluster bombs, let me say one thing: villainy wears many masks, but none so treacherous as the mask of virtue. That is what I accuse the Conservatives of.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be here tonight to talk about such an important piece of legislation as Bill S-10. It is truly a piece of legislation that I have been waiting for since pre-2008.

I am a little disturbed to hear the type of dialogue that has been going on in the House. This is not only a good piece of legislation, but is an important piece of legislation for us to ratify and to move forward on. We want to maintain Canada's standing in the world and our history of being a strong country. Whether it is land mines and the Ottawa treaty or cluster munitions, it is important to note that we have been part of this cluster munitions discussion since the beginning of the Oslo process.

As the member of Parliament for Westlock—St. Paul, it sometimes can be seen as a bit of yin and yang when it comes to the issue of supporting the eradication of cluster munitions to many people who are not educated on the issue. I represent two of the largest tactical military bases in our country, 4 Wing Cold Lake, the tactical fighter squadron, and Edmonton Garrison.

However, when we talk to the men and women of the Canadian Forces, they agree with this legislation because they believe that we need to give them the best arms possible that target the enemy and not civilians. As members on both sides of the aisle have said today throughout the rigorous debate that we have had, cluster munitions, unfortunately, target civilians.

The use of cluster munitions has had a profound impact on many countries because it is an intermittent use. We cannot ask the offending country or the offending state or the offending terrorist organization to give us a map of where it used them because they are dispersed throughout an area where, ultimately, young children and farmers end up becoming the victims months, if not years, afterwards.

As I said before, I have to thank my wife for bringing this very important issue to my attention back in 2008 when it was happening in Lebanon, as it has happened in Serbia, as it has happened Vietnam, as it has happened in Nicaragua. When we have had the opportunity to talk to victims of cluster munitions, young children who picked up that little pink ball thinking it was a toy and it blew up and took off an arm or a leg, it is something that we cannot help but feel passionate about. It is something that we cannot help but say, that it is wrong and we need to fight to ensure that it changes.

We go back and think about the time, 2008-2009, when Mr. Turcotte was negotiating on our behalf, as one of the delegation. We were looking, as Canadians, at the ups and downs. We did not know if there would even be enough countries to bother ratifying this, to come to the process at which we are today. It seemed like a bit of a dream to get to the point where we, as a country, were ratifying, where we had over 100 countries on side, and where we could honestly look to putting pressure on those countries, having the social licence to put pressure on those countries that had not ratified.

I look at this legislation. Is it perfect? Is it everything that we could have dreamed about in 2008? No.

However, as we went through the steps I will talk about today, it is a very good piece of legislation. It would have an impact that would make a significant difference, and would reduce the amount of cluster munitions used in the world today. I think that is a very important step. I think that anybody who opposes that has not done their due diligence in looking at this and saying, we cannot have it all, but we can sure start with this piece of legislation, with the Oslo treaty. Being able to move forward from here is a great starting point, not only for Canadians, but in particular for those third world countries that have been affected by the harmful use of cluster munitions.

As members before me have already stated, Canada participated actively in the negotiations on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and we were one of the first countries to sign on to it, in 2008.

As we prepare to return home to our constituencies this summer, it is extremely important that we move this legislation forward as quickly as possible. Bill S-10 is a necessary step that brings us closer to ratification.

Let me emphasize this fact. When I first started lobbying the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we needed to make sure that we ratified this, that Canada continue its international reputation as a leader in the area of land mines and cluster munitions. I was proud of the support that I received from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but at the end of the day our country has gone through numerous minority governments. We have now finally got into a strong, stable Conservative majority government that has allowed us to take on some of these important issues.

I am happy to sit longer into June so that we can make sure that this not only gets voted on in the House of Commons but gets royal assent. It is important that we maintain our reputation around the world. As Canadians, we are expected to be leaders. Let nobody in this House say otherwise. We have been leaders throughout this entire process. We were one of the first countries at the table. We were one of the first countries to push our NATO allies, as the parliamentary secretary of defence talked about earlier. We have been one of the leaders. It is because of the credibility and the bloodshed of our men and women of the Canadian Forces that we have that credibility with the Americans, with the British, with the Australians, with all of our allies to say we have been there and we want to move the ball forward when it comes to the elimination and ratification of cluster munitions.

Explosive remnants of war, including those caused by cluster munitions, are a grave humanitarian concern. Cluster munitions are deployed from the air or ground with some types able to release dozens or even hundreds of smaller submunitions quickly, covering a large area.

Cluster munitions pose a significant threat to civilians, not only during attacks but particularly afterwards when they fail to detonate as intended. Unexploded bomblets can kill and maim civilians long after conflicts have ended, especially in densely populated areas. Tragically, many cluster munitions casualties are innocent and unknowing children. Unexploded bomblets can also hinder access to land and essential infrastructure, curbing the development potential of entire communities.

As I have been advocating for this legislation for many years, I have had the opportunity to talk to children and farmers who have been in their groves or in their fields and picked up what they thought was a toy only to find that it was a harmful explosive device that, unknown to them, would end up causing them severe damage.

We should be proud of the work that we have done in Canada. We should be proud of the fact that we are consistently in the top ten, if not the top five, when it comes to donating money to countries regarding land mines or cluster munitions. We should be proud of these accomplishments that we have consistently made from 2005, 2006 and onwards.

I find it quite offensive to hear members of the opposition stand up and say that we should not ratify this because it is not perfect and is not exactly what somebody has told us we need to do. Quite frankly, as I listen to them, I realize that most of them have not taken the time that their former leader Alexa McDonough did to understand the importance of ratifying this treaty. I looked at the member from Winnipeg as he talked about this. He sat in the same caucus as Ms. McDonough. Did he not understand from her and her passion the importance that we as a country move forward quickly on this?

Our government's commitment to the protection of civilians against the indiscriminate effects of explosive remnants of war is well established, with Canada traditionally in the top ten donors and often in the top five.

Since 2006, we have contributed more than $200 million to over 250 projects with respect to this global effort. For example, our efforts have provided over $1.5 million for the Organization of American States to support mine clearing in Nicaragua, which, with the support of other donors, helped to clear 179,000 landmines planted during the internal conflict in Nicaragua in the 1980s. As a result, in 2010, Nicaragua declared itself mine-free. Its mine-free status made Central America the first post-conflict region of the world to become mine-free.

Building on this momentum, we are proud to be part of the international effort to rid the world of cluster munitions. Recognizing the harm that cluster munitions cause civilians, inspired by the Ottawa convention, the international community began in 2007 to negotiate a treaty that would ban cluster munitions. The resulting Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits the use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention and transfer of cluster munitions.

In the government's view, the treaty we signed and are now working to ratify strikes the right balance between humanitarian considerations and the continued ability of states parties to protect their national security and defence interests. Indeed, the convention reflects Canada's efforts during negotiations to ensure the right balance between the commitment to eliminate the use of cluster munitions based on humanitarian concerns and the need to protect our legitimate and important security considerations. Canada has never used cluster munitions. We would have agreed to a complete ban on them, but it was clear from the outset that this was simply not a realistic option.

Given the positions of other countries, it would not have been possible for Canada to ratify an immediate and complete ban since other countries we co-operate with militarily were not prepared to do the same. Would we have preferred that all countries sign on to the convention? Would we have preferred that all countries had the principled stance and the ability that Canada has had? Yes, of course, but unfortunately some of our closest allies did not sign on. In that context, the best way to eventually end the use of munitions is to allow countries like Canada to renounce their use and join the treaty while maintaining the ability to co-operate with allies that choose not to join.

Throughout the preparatory phases and during negotiations on the convention known as the Oslo process, a number of states insisted that the new treaty needed to contain provisions permitting the continued ability to engage effectively in military co-operation in operations with countries that did not sign the convention. We negotiated for the eventual elimination of these weapons, but also recognized that not all states would be in a position to immediately join that convention. In a context where multilateral, military co-operation operations are crucial to international security, again this was not exclusively a Canadian position but one shared by other countries, particularly our allies.

Article 21 of the convention is the resulting compromise, which recognizes that allowing states parties to conduct military co-operation in operations with states not party was the best way to ensure as many countries as possible join the convention. Without article 21, fewer states that possess cluster munitions would have agreed to join us and commit to eliminating their stockpiles and use of weapons.

There has been a lot of talk about the people who negotiated this treaty today, but I can say that, sitting in the room with those people in briefings and asking them questions, they felt as I did, that article 21 was essential to ensuring that this treaty was a success. It is easy to have hindsight, to look back and see that something is not perfect, but at that point in time this was the only path that was seen forward, not just for Canada but for the entire process. While appearing before the foreign affairs committee in the other place, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said:

...we have to deal with the reality of the world that we live in. With this, if we had zero tolerance, we would probably get zero results. I think what we have is the capacity that Canada will not use these weapons, will not acquire them and Canada will eliminate its stockpile. That is a good accomplishment; 110 other countries joining us in doing that is more accomplishment. Hopefully, each and every year we can get one or two or more countries, and we can see a time when it will not be necessary for any country to want to possess let alone use these kinds of weapons.

The compromise established by article 21 is found in clause 11 of the prohibiting cluster munitions act. Since the convention calls for the use of penal law, it is necessary to ensure that members of the Canadian Forces and associated civilians who participate in military co-operation operations as permitted by the convention will not be subject to criminal liability for otherwise lawful activities in the service of our country. This protection would be achieved through exemptions from prohibitions. Our government has been clear that we will not jeopardize the ability of our men and women in uniform to do their jobs or what we ask of them in the interests of our country.

Let me be clear. The exclusions in clause 11 do not permit or authorize any activity; they simply exclude these activities from new criminal offences that Bill S-10 would create. If these exclusions were not included in the act, there would be potential criminal liability for a wide range of frequent and lawful military co-operation activities with our closest allies, in particular, the United States. It does not intend to join the convention in the near future, and from my experience I do not expect it to. Obviously, it would not be fair to expose Canadian Armed Forces members to liability for doing their duty in the service of our country when participating in co-operation on operations with states that are not party to this convention.

To bring this to a real-world example of only a few years ago, if Canadian Forces personnel had been in a firefight in Afghanistan, they would have had to call air support from the United States of America, their military allies, who then could use cluster munitions. It is not fair to expose Canadian ground forces to being subject to penal law because their allies use this. It is very important that we not only look at it in context of treaties, but how it would affect men and women on the ground in the Canadian Forces who are risking their lives every day that they go beyond the wire.

It is important to note that the exclusions in clause 11 are carefully limited to activities that are committed by the convention itself and are necessary for effective military co-operation and operations. They only apply to persons who are engaged in activities related to military co-operation operations involving the Government of Canada. They also do not detract in any way from other applicable legal obligations on the part of members of the Canadian Armed Forces, including those established by existing international humanitarian law. The bill would create specific offences related to cluster munitions, and exceptions to those offences. However, nothing in the bill affects any other existing offence. If something is a crime today, it will still be a crime if and when Bill S-10 is enacted.

Members of the Canadian Forces will be fully subject to the prohibitions on the use of cluster munitions, in the same way as any other Canadian, unless they are engaged in a permitted form of military co-operation with a state that is not party to this convention. When members of the Canadian Forces are engaged in this type of co-operation, they are still prohibited from using cluster munitions if they are in exclusive control over the choice of the type of munitions they want to use. It is only in circumstances where that choice is partly or entirely under the control of the other country that the offences will not apply to Canadian Forces personnel.

I have been involved in this process, from a Canadian perspective and from a parliamentarian perspective, right from the beginning. As someone who has consistently lobbied and worked hard to make sure that not only the Canadian public understands the importance of this process, but the Government of Canada understands, I am very happy to see the steps that have been taken by the government to get this legislation quickly passed through the House of Commons. We will be able to stand up and say that once again Canada has taken the lead. Once again, Canada has asserted its moral authority to ensure we are a country that stands up, not only for countries, but for people who are less fortunate and need our support, our strength and our convictions. We can ensure that we, as a country, continue to be a leader when it comes to land mines and cluster munitions.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about our soldiers who go to war-torn countries to assist and protect these nations. He referred to certain articles and clauses.

I am particularly concerned about the children who die in these countries. Soldiers are adults who settle in a war-torn country. I am worried about the child who starts playing with what he thinks is a tennis ball, for example, only to have it blow up in his face. I would not want my children, here in Canada, to stumble upon a bomb like that.

Imagine that happening. Imagine if we found a bomb in our local park. We would cry from the rooftops and declare hell on earth. We would say that it was impossible, unacceptable.

Is that humanitarian aid? Is that the kind of assistance Canada wants to give? That really shocks and concerns me.

International humanitarian law prohibits parties in a conflict from inflicting needless wounds and suffering. It is important to distinguish between military objectives, civilian property and people's lives.

Using weapons that strike indiscriminately is a violation of international law. Cluster munitions impact hugely on civilian populations even post-conflict. Over half the victims of cluster munitions are children who stumble on unexploded sub-munitions.

Does my colleague agree that this weapon should be totally banned, and does he think that actions speak louder than words. You cannot look after other people if you do not know how.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member to please put down the talking points and listen and engage in the dialogue that I have presented in the House of Commons. I mentioned the children at least three times. I have actually talked to children who have been victims of these cluster munitions.

When we talk about this and think about it in the context of the children, and when we think about it in the context of people who are today being affected by cluster munitions, this is legislation that I would certainly advocate time allocation for, to get it through the House of Commons as quickly as possible.

I do not understand how the members opposite can sit there and talk about process issues while those children they pretend to stand up and defend, and will potentially vote against, will be affected by this. The quicker we get this legislation through, the better we will be.

Is the legislation perfect? I do not think that any piece of legislation is perfect. However, certainly this piece of legislation is a significant step forward, and without it our country will not be one of the ratifying members. It is important that our country becomes one of the first members to ratify this legislation.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague speaks with great compassion on this issue. We have more or less indicated that we would support the bill going to committee.

I have two questions. One is on the issue of being open to amendments to ensure that some of the issues we have, and I suspect some of the issues the official opposition has, have the chance to be thoroughly understood and debated.

The second question is on time allocation. The Conservatives have introduced time allocation over 40 times. For the hon. member to suggest that the bill merits more time allocation than any of the others, the Conservatives have had time allocation on many bills that we all supported, when there was absolutely no reason for time allocation. I certainly expected that the Conservatives would use time allocation on this one as well.

However, it is a very important issue, and I would like a commitment from the member. Is he open to amendments? Would the government be open to amendments? Will the Conservatives actually allow all of us in the House to thoroughly debate something that is this important?

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I may be mistaken, but I think time allocation has already been put in place on this legislation.

The member is a very respected member of the House of Commons. She has been a minister in a government, and she understands that I cannot dictate whether amendments would be seen or not. If the opposition hopes to bring forward amendments to this, I hope they make sure it is done in an open and transparent way so that we could all have an opportunity to talk about it. However, if the only amendment that would be brought forward is the amendment on interoperability, I think the point has been made very clearly, not only by the Government of Canada, but by many of our allies across the world, that this is an important component. Without the interoperability article 21, we would not have the Oslo treaty; we would not have 110 countries on side.

It is with the 110 countries on side that we get the moral authority to press others to make sure they become engaged in this, to make sure they sign on and do their part in ratifying and becoming part of this process.

It is very important that we move this legislation quickly through the House of Commons, that we move it through to royal assent, so we can continue to be one of the leaders when it comes to issues of land mines and cluster munitions.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague clarified a number of things for me, which I thought was very good and comprehensive.

When the NDP member for Winnipeg Centre was speaking a little earlier and I asked him a question about article 21, of course he failed to read the most important provision of article 21, which is clause 3. I assume he did that on purpose. It states:

Notwithstanding the provisions of Article 1 of this Convention and in accordance with international law, States Parties, their military personnel or nationals, may engage in military cooperation and operations with States not party to this Convention that might engage in activities prohibited to a State Party.

I have a question for my hon. colleague. It is a fact situation that I would like to suggest to ask how he thinks the legislation that might have been proposed by the NDP would treat Canadian Forces in this situation. For example, what would happen if a Canadian ground commander, in a place like Afghanistan where they are operating with other countries—

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. I am going to stop the hon. parliamentary secretary to allow the member for Westlock—St. Paul to respond. I know there are other members who are interested in asking questions.

The hon. member for Westlock—St. Paul.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I note that in the parliamentary secretary's question he talked about Mr. Turcotte as being one of the lead negotiators for Canada on this. I know Mr. Turcotte well; I consider him a friend. I know where his heart is on this. However, at the end of the day, I believe that everybody involved in this understands the importance of Canada ratifying this treaty so we can continue to have a leadership role in the world.

I represent, as I said earlier, two Canadian Forces bases. The men and women of the Canadian Forces are happy that Canada has not only never used cluster munitions but is destroying the remaining stockpile that we have. It is only from that point of moral authority that we can continue to pressure other countries to follow the great example that is Canada.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member a question. He said we have to pass this bill in a hurry. He said he is happy that time allocation was put on it, which means we cannot discuss it in-depth. The same thing will happen at committee when the government wants to move a bill that quickly. Is he discouraged with his own government that we have been waiting since 2008 and we needed the Senate to bring the bill to the House? If it was that important, why did the Conservatives have to wait for the Senate to bring it in? Now that the Senate has brought it in, the elected members of Parliament cannot take the time to discuss it and do the real job that needs to be done. Is he not ashamed of the way his own government is acting on this bill?

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what I am ashamed of is that the members on the other side continue to talk about process issues instead of the children who are affected by these cluster munitions. New Democrats would rather talk about process issues than making sure a treaty is ratified that is not only important to Canadians but specifically people in other countries who have been affected by cluster munitions.

I am disappointed that the opposition continues to want to talk about its lack of influence on the government. Quite frankly, I do not know care whether it was the other place that brought it forward or the House of Commons. I care that this is good legislation that needs to be passed so we can continue to be a leader in this area.

I know the member from the other side is a strong and respected member. However, I submit that he has been caught up in process rather than actual results for people around the world, particularly the children in Serbia and Lebanon who have been affected by these munitions.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to say that I have the honour of sharing my time with the formidable member for La Pointe-de-l'Île, who does an outstanding job as deputy foreign affairs critic. We in the NDP will never be grateful enough to her. We are fortunate to have her.

I am happy to speak about Bill S-10, An Act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions. There is no doubt that I would prefer to talk about climate change, investment in social housing or respect for the French language, since those subjects would appeal much more to the people in my riding, Québec.

However, we are here to talk once again about security. On the other hand, we will not be discussing the $3.1 billion lost in the fog, which the government is unable to justify. In the struggle against terrorism, how was it able to lose $3.1 billion? It is funny, by the way, because I do not know anyone who loses $3.1 billion for no reason.

With regard to Bill S-10, it is important to remember that cluster munitions are weapons that release hundreds of explosive devices over a wide area, within a very short time. They have a devastating effect on civilian populations that can last for years after conflict ends.

Handicap International reports on its website that since 1965, 16,816 victims of cluster munitions have been registered worldwide. Sixteen thousand eight hundred and sixteen. However, many accidents have not been reported, and the international observatory monitoring cluster munitions—Observatoire mondial des sous-munitions—estimates that the actual number of victims is somewhere between 58,000 and 85,000. What is more fascinating, or deplorable, I should say, is that 98% of the victims of cluster munitions are reportedly civilians. Ninety-eight per cent. In other words, these weapons essentially target civilians.

In February 2007, noting that for decades, civilians had suffered whenever cluster munitions were used, Norway launched the Oslo process. Representatives of a number of countries supporting the development of new rules for cluster munitions met at a conference in Oslo. That was where the Convention on Cluster Munitions was born. This international disarmament treaty totally prohibits the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of such weapons and provides for their removal and destruction. It is as simple as that.

In 2008, Canada joined 108 countries in signing the treaty designed to prohibit cluster munitions. The agreement came into force in 2010 and has been ratified by 83 countries. Unfortunately, the United States, China and Russia did not take part in the process and continue to stockpile cluster munitions.

Since 2008, extensive discussions between the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of National Defence have led to the promotion by Canada of a position that is broadly perceived as mirroring that of the United States. Yet the United States possesses one-quarter of worldwide stocks of cluster munitions, which means about 4 billion bombs. Thus, the Canadian government has been delaying ratification of the treaty for more than four years now. It has thus waited all these years under a Conservative majority government. It is just as important to say that, too. It was not the NDP. Oh, no.

Today I rise in this House to oppose Bill S-10, because in reality, it is not an attempt to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but rather an attempt to build in exceptions. That is where the difference lies. We should stress that difference and understand it well, despite the last comments I heard from my colleagues opposite.

During the Senate hearings, numerous witnesses urged the federal government to amend the legislation. According to various academics and former disarmament officials, Bill S-10 would put Canada in violation of its obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It is important to state that, too.

Earl Turcotte, who led the Canadian delegation that negotiated the Convention on Cluster Munitions, resigned in protest against Canada’s attempt to impose a weak enabling act, because that is exactly what this is. As Mr. Turcotte put it, the legislation proposed by Canada is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions to date.

In fact, the Canadian law and penalties will be the weakest—one would think it was the law on mines that was being discussed—of all the countries that have signed the convention.

Nevertheless, if the government is short of good reasons for taking a hard line with respect to the use of cluster munitions, it should consider the fact that in 2006, 22 members of the Canadian Forces were killed and 112 others wounded in Afghanistan. Why? Because of anti-personnel mines, cluster munitions and other kinds of explosive weapons.

Bill S-10 has some significant omissions that could have fatal consequences for civilians. If the bill is passed in its current form, in fact, it would allow the Canadian Forces to help countries that have not signed the convention to use cluster munitions. That is the weakness of a bill like this. In some circumstances, the Canadian Forces could even use such weapons. Moreover, the bill does not state clearly that investments in this area are prohibited.

According to Senator Roméo Dallaire, Bill S-10 is flawed and puts members of Canada's armed forces face to face with a horrific moral and ethical dilemma. He said that the bill proposed by the government does not respect the spirit of the convention.

In fact, Bill S-10 will invalidate the convention rather than implement it. Once again, the government is moving backwards. Bill S-10 manoeuvres around the treaty's provisions and allows Canada to aid and abet the use of cluster munitions.

Thus, the Government of Canada has completely abandoned its international responsibilities and given in to pressure from the United States. Yet other countries such as Australia and New Zealand that are also allies of the United States stood up and ratified the convention without this kind of exception.

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcom Fraser said:

It is a pity the current Canadian government, in relation to cluster munitions, does not provide any real lead to the world. Its approach is timid, inadequate and regressive.

It reminds me of the government's stand on climate change.

This is not the only arms treaty where the government has revealed itself to be timid, inadequate and regressive. Throughout the negotiations on the international arms treaty, an agreement that would end the global trade in conventional weapons, the Conservative government has maintained its unco-operative position.

In the end, we in the NDP have no other choice but to oppose Bill S-10, because its intent is not to ratify the convention as it should. It is a clear attempt to create a loophole. The Conservatives try to wiggle out of their responsibilities again and again. This is nothing new. We are getting familiar with it, after all these years.

The Conservatives must stop trying to undermine the international agreements to control the arms trade. In addition to weakening peace efforts, an unregulated arms trade leads to increased violence in conflict zones and even more civilian victims. Hundreds of thousands of people are killed every year because of armed conflicts. The Conservatives simply drag their feet or put forward legislation that is misleading—nasty, in fact.

It is unacceptable, and I hope that the government will finally decide to work with the NDP, the conscience of Parliament, at the committee stage, in order to make the necessary amendments to Bill S-10, so that we can move ahead with this convention, without all the detours the Conservatives have planned.

I have one interesting fact here: more than half the victims of cluster munitions are children, who are particularly attracted to unexploded sub-munitions.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned Mr. Turcotte. I wonder if she could comment on an article in which he was quoted in the Embassy newspaper.

It stated:

...there was no getting around the fact that, at least for the foreseeable future, Canadian soldiers would be operating in life and death situations with countries that do use them, notably the U.S.

The article then quoted Mr. Turcotte:

“I have the greatest admiration for what they are doing”, Mr. Turcotte said of the Canadian Forces, “and the last thing any of us wanted to do, myself included, was put Canadian soldiers at risk.”

The article further went on to say:

“I did my best to make the case and to provide assurances that if we did participate in this,” he said, “that we would negotiate an agreement that would protect the capacity of Canada to continue to work with our allies, whether or not they became party to this convention.”

I wonder if the hon. member could comment on the quotes from Mr. Turcotte and relate them to article 21 of the convention.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it should be remembered that Mr. Turcotte resigned in protest against Canada's attempt to push through a weak implementation bill.

And that is what it is: a weak bill. That is the problem. Do not tell me all about the convention. The problem is that the Conservatives are using underhanded means to reach their goals. Everyone believes that cluster munitions ought to be eliminated, but we must ratify the convention properly.

We are being criticized by international experts because we do not respect international agreements the way we should. It is seriously damaging to our international reputation, and I am very proud of that reputation.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member put some of this debate into context.

I want to just underline, for those who are watching this at home and for some people who are in the House participating, that we support the convention on cluster munitions. We just do not support making an exception to it, which appears to be the case in this bill.

We have to put this in context. The government decided not to run for a Security Council seat. It dragged its feet on the small arms control agreement. It pulled out of the UN anti-drought convention. Now it is including an exception to the convention on cluster munitions.

It is little wonder that we on this side of the House have some concerns. It is a matter of trust. The government plays fast and loose with people's trust. Therefore, we have serious concerns about this. I think these are real concerns. They are concerns that have been expressed by third parties.

I would like my hon. colleague to comment on some of this.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the subject is so dark that I feel I need to add a little humour. It will help the people at home follow the discussion.

I feel as though I am in the film, Catch me if you can; the magician tells you to watch his right hand, but he is doing something with his left. That is exactly what this government is doing. It is trying to dazzle us by saying it is ratifying the convention, but in fact it is undermining it. It has created so many loopholes it looks like a sieve. That is what we object to.

We must go back to committee and do the work that is necessary so this legislation will be praised, congratulated and encouraged by the international experts. When people as honourable as Roméo Dallaire tell us we are taking the wrong path, the least we can do is listen.

Still, this is not a listening government. It does not listen to the people, the provinces, the municipalities or the experts. That is why we have the bill we have.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Québec.

I agree with her. I support the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but this bill is so weak that we risk being among the nations who give up when threatened. It is incredible, because we have this opportunity and we are in a position to become a leader in the international community. But with this bill, we have abandoned that goal.

I would like the hon. member to tell me why she thinks we have not shown leadership and not chosen to support the convention.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Québec has only 30 seconds.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief.

I agree with my colleague. It is odd because, with respect to this bill, all the opposition parties disagree with the Conservative government and think it is simply going the wrong way.

The Conservative government should listen in committee. It should listen to the experts who are saying that it did not consider certain things, and that we should ratify the convention properly.

When other countries such as Australia and New Zealand tell us things are not right, I think we should listen to that wake-up call.

Still, I know the government has other things to do, such as take care of its scandals.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this very important bill.

It is important to remember that it is in the House of Commons and in parliamentary committee that elected members of Parliament can help make contributions to the international community and to the world, and where they can make changes that impact millions of people.

I think it is truly unfortunate that this bill was introduced in the Senate, and that the government has remained inactive for four years, has not called a debate on this topic and has not asked Parliament to examine the issue. It waited for the Senate to decide to introduce a bill, which is inappropriate in this case. That will not change as long as there is no real debate in the House, where MPs are elected democratically. Unfortunately, after one hour of debate on May 29, at one in the morning, the government decided to move a time allocation motion. Only one person had debated this bill. That is completely unacceptable.

How can we ratify a convention if we amend it to add loopholes? When we sign a convention, we agree to abide by it. We agree to abide by the spirit and principles of the convention.

How can it claim to ratify a convention if its amendments completely obliterate the spirit of the convention? I want to point out that Canada's chief negotiator resigned because Canada's stance was too weak. That gives an idea of the government's method for negotiating treaties.

For example, Canada is in the process of sabotaging negotiations at the United Nations' Human Rights Council on sexual violence in conflict zones. The government is refusing to adopt a motion or trying to amend a motion regarding sexual violence against women and children in armed conflict. Why would a government oppose such negotiations? Believe it or not, it is because these negotiations and discussions include a section on abortion, reproductive choices and women who are victims of rape.

For purely ideological reasons, whether it be cluster munitions, sexual violence or arms trading, Canada is opposed to these principles. Another example is the arms trade. On several occasions, in the House, the Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that the convention was a back-door way of reinstating a firearms registry and of limiting the right to own a firearm. That is completely illogical. We are talking about the international arms trade. Ideology is the only reason the Conservative government is completely powerless on the world stage. This is completely unacceptable. Canada's reputation is taking a beating.

The former negotiator walked off the job because the legislation was too flimsy. This is weak legislation put forward by a weak government, which is often the case. The Conservatives do not walk the talk. The Government of Canada is weak. Unfortunately, it is also weak at the UN and on the world stage.

Canada is opposed to a motion against sexual violence and to the arms trade treaty. What other delights await us from a Conservative government that is trying to sneak in changes that would fundamentally alter the spirit of a convention that affects millions of people worldwide?

I have received several messages on my iPod from people around the world, including a young man by the name of Phongsavath, whose photo I have, and who survived a cluster bomb. He lost both his hands. What will the Conservative government say to this young man from Laos? Will the Conservative government say that it is sorry and that it wants to protect its soldiers?

I find it completely outrageous that the government is trying to shift the blame. In 2009, Germany, France, Japan and Mexico signed the treaty. In 2010, Great Britain followed suit, and in 2012, Australia came on board. Yes, these countries are all allies of the United States and they all have joint missions with the United States. Did their soldiers suffer because their countries signed the convention? No, they did not.

The government is trying to shift the blame onto the United States and soldiers. It is everybody else's fault, except the Conservative government’s. In fact, it is as if the Conservatives were in a playground refusing to do something that their friend is not doing. It is completely preposterous.

Canada should be a global leader, not just a follower—the black sheep, as we say. Why are we not able to display the same capacity for leadership as we did during the negotiation process for the treaty to ban landmines? What has happened since then? We were saddled with an ideologically driven majority Conservative government.

It is important to note that on June 3 of next year, the arms trade treaty will be ratified. Unfortunately, it would be foolish to hope for anything better from this government. It is hard to fathom why Canada continues to be a hindrance, refusing to save lives simply because the United States does not want to sign the convention.

One of my hon. colleagues said that we give a lot of money to countries whose populations are victims of cluster munitions. The government would like to allow cluster munitions to be used, and give those countries money. This is completely ridiculous. While we are here, let us do something to solve the problem; let us ratify the convention as it stands and try to persuade the United States.

What credibility would we have with the United States if we obliterated the spirit of the convention and asked them to sign it? What credibility would we have with the United States if we enacted Bill S-10? This is ridiculous. Canada’s credibility would be wiped out.

What can we hope for from a Conservative government that has no respect for the environment or workers’ rights or human rights? Canada is the only country in the world that has withdrawn from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Canada has zero credibility when it comes to negotiations. If we enact Bill S-10 as it stands, that will be undeniable.

I have received messages from a number of countries. I have been told that people in Iraq are still victims of cluster munitions. What credibility would we have on the world stage if we enacted Bill S-10? We would have zero credibility.

In addition, the Conservatives have supported none of our initiatives on respect for human rights or corporate social responsibility. That is a clear demonstration of their contempt, or their negligence.

This is an anemic, flawed, inadequate and mediocre bill that undermines the spirit of a convention that would save lives. The objective of the Convention on Cluster Munitions is to prohibit the use of those munitions. The convention provides that states that ratify it undertake never under any circumstances to use, develop, produce or acquire cluster munitions.

We already know that this is because the United States has not signed the treaty.

Essentially, all the blame is being cast on the United States. This shows how disconnected the government has become. These weapons kill women, children and civilians. In a majority of cases, they do not explode when they are used; they explode years later. This means that in conflict zones, for years afterward, women and children are dying.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it must be a dark place to wake up every day and think what a terrible country one lives in. However, the reality is that Canada has been a leader with the land mine treaty. Canada has been a leader with the Oslo process. Canada continues to be a leader in the fact that we have never used or produced cluster munitions.

Contrary to the member's position, we have actually signed this process. We were one of the first countries at the table to sign it.

When the member met with Mr. Turcotte and when she met with Mines Action Canada, did they tell her we would be better off and children in Lebanon and Serbia and other countries around the world would better off if Canada did not ratify this treaty? Would they be better off if Canada did not fulfill its international obligations, as the NDP has proposed?

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to say that this is like a contract. When you sign a contract, you read the clauses and then you sign it. You cannot sign the contract and be bound by it if right in the contract itself, you put a clause saying that you are not necessarily bound by the contract and you are not bound by it unless you decide you are.

It is the same thing in the case of a convention. A convention is made to be ratified and to be honoured. You cannot say that you are going to ratify the convention to look good, but unfortunately, you will only honour it when you decide to.

The NDP’s proposal is much stronger and much more consistent than the Conservatives’. We have to ratify the treaty as it stands now.

The Conservatives have to stop playing political games and trying to assert their extreme right-wing ideology on the international stage. Canadians will be a lot better off that way.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I just have a comment.

Canada's former chief negotiator on a treaty to rid the world of cluster munitions urged the government not to water down the bill. Earl Turcotte ended a nearly 30-year public service career by resigning in protest from the foreign affairs department over how the government planned to interpret a key provision of the convention. He said:

I believed at that time, and continue to believe that Canadian legislation would simply be inadequate, it would be too weak. It would not accurately reflect the commitments we made during negotiations of the convention.... In my view, Canada will be isolated among the 111 signatory countries to the convention for our very weak interpretation...I think Canada's interpretation would simply be wrong in law as well as in spirit.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is important that this be said. I have received messages from all around the world. I have even received a huge banner from the United States, created by hundreds of elementary school students. They are calling on Canada to honour its original commitments and ratify the treaty as it stands, not make amendments that would destroy the spirit of the convention.

In 2008, when Canada started to be a leader in the negotiations and in taking action, people developed expectations, and they still expect Canada to play a role.

It is extremely disappointing for the entire international community to see how the Conservatives have done a complete about-face and decided not to honour the promises they made and not to ratify the convention as it stands.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her remarks.

As the hon. member said, Canada signed the convention in December 2008. The implementation bill was introduced in the House of Commons on December 15, 2012, four years later. This is our first chance to debate the bill, and we have a very limited amount of time because of the time allocation motion.

I would like to know what the hon. member thinks about that.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is simply a demonstration of the government's hypocrisy.

For hours, government MPs have made speeches about the importance of such a bill, but we see that there are two sides to every story and this is the other side.

Why did the debate on this bill not take place earlier, and why, especially, were members of Parliament not allowed to debate this issue?

The Conservatives' hypocrisy is quite evident. They boast about bills they did not even draft and whose impact they have not studied, and they do not let the members of Parliament do their job.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, when one talks about ideology, I just heard the longest 15-minute rant on ideology that we have heard in the House tonight. The member does not understand that word. She needs to go and look it up.

It is my pleasure to rise this evening to speak to the prohibiting cluster munitions act, which fully implements Canada's legislative commitments under the convention on cluster munitions.

Bill S-10, which was adopted by the other place on December 4, 2012, moves us closer to becoming a state party to the convention on cluster munitions. Our ratification of this important humanitarian treaty will be a strong signal of Canada's unwavering commitment to reducing the impact of armed conflict on innocent civilians.

As others have rightly pointed out, cluster munitions are a grave humanitarian concern to the entire international community. Cluster munitions are a form of airdropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that can hold and release or eject dozens, or even hundreds, of smaller submunitions, or bomblets, to quickly cover a large target area.

Cluster munitions can pose threats to civilians not only during attacks but afterwards, particularly when they fail to detonate as intended. Unexploded bomblets can kill and maim civilians decades after conflicts have ended, and tragically, many cluster munition casualties around the world are children, who can mistake certain types of brightly coloured bomblets as toys. Access to land and essential infrastructure contaminated by unexploded bomblets is blocked to important uses, such as growing crops, raising cattle and fetching water. This stalls the development potential of whole communities trying to rebuild their lives after conflict.

Canada's commitment to the protection of civilians against the indiscriminate effects of explosive remnants of war, including those caused by cluster munitions, is well known and well established. We are proud to be part of the international effort to rid the world of cluster munitions, a weapon that Canada has never produced or used in its military operations.

Motivated by the harm caused to civilians by cluster munitions, the international community launched an initiative in February 2007, known as the Oslo process, to negotiate a treaty that would ban cluster munitions. Negotiations took place over several meetings throughout 2007 and 2008 and concluded with the adoption of the convention on cluster munitions in Dublin in May 2008 and its opening for signatures in December of 2008.

Canada participated actively throughout the negotiations and we were among the first countries to sign on. Today, there are 83 states parties to the convention.

It is important to provide some context on how negotiations unfolded. Despite what the opposition would try to have us believe, it was recognized early during the Oslo process that not all states would be in a position to immediately sign on and join the convention. Early on, it was recognized that multilateral military operations, which are crucial to international security, required co-operation between states, including co-operation between states party to a possible convention and states that were not. This was not just Canada's position, but that of many of our allies. We had a clear mandate in negotiations. We have always been open and transparent in exactly what we want to accomplish.

From the beginning of the Oslo process, countries, including Canada, began to speak about military interoperability and the need to ensure that states parties could continue to collaborate militarily with states not party to the treaty. Canada, and the other states, made strong statements to that effect as early as at the Vienna conference in December 2007, as well as at the Wellington conference in February 2008 and during the Dublin conference in May 2008.

It is our view, and the view of many other states that had concerns with regard to interoperability, that article 21 of the convention meets the requirements in this regard. For Canada, authorizing our military personnel to carry out operations with the armed forces of a state not party to the convention allows us, among other things, to maintain our unique, co-operative relationship with the United States, which offers unparalleled benefits in terms of security, defence and industry. Article 21 allows Canada to comply with legitimate security requirements, while actively supporting the convention, fulfilling its legal obligations and working toward the universalization of the convention. This universalization goal is one to which Canada remains firmly committed.

In essence, the convention on cluster munitions prohibits the use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention and transfer of cluster munitions. It also prohibits assistance and encouragement of anyone to commit a prohibited act.

Bill S-10 would prohibit the use, development, making, acquisition, possession, foreign movement and import and export of cluster munitions. In addition, stockpiling of cluster munitions on Canadian soil would not be allowed by this bill, as it would prohibit all forms of possession. Bill S-10 would also prohibit any person from aiding and abetting anyone in the commission of a prohibited activity, which would include direct and intentional investment in the production of cluster munitions.

Needless to say, Canada is fully meeting its obligations both in letter and in spirit.

It is important to note that Bill S-10 would implement the parts of the convention which actually require legislation in Canada. The convention itself applies a number of obligations to Canada as a state party. One of these requires each state party to impose on persons within its jurisdiction the same prohibitions which apply to the states parties themselves.

To do this, the proposed act sets out a series of prohibitions and offences, as well as the technical definitions needed to support their investigation and prosecutions. The act also sets out exceptions which reflect the convention's partial exclusions from some of its prohibitions for legitimate and permitted purposes, such as military co-operation between states parties and states that are not party, defensive research and training and transfers for the purpose of the destruction of stockpiles.

As I have already mentioned, clause 11 outlines the exceptions that provide our military personnel with the necessary legal protection to operate with the armed forces of states that are not party to the convention. These exceptions are crucial to allowing Canada to continue to participate in military co-operation and multinational operations with states that are not party to the convention and to keep pulling our weight internationally.

Our government will not apologize for protecting our men and women in uniform and ensuring that they do not face criminal repercussions for doing what we ask of them on a daily basis.

Despite this, it is important to emphasize that Canadian Armed Forces members remain prohibited from using cluster munitions in Canadian Armed Forces operations and from expressly requesting their use when the choice of munitions to be used is under their exclusive control.

In addition, the Canadian Armed Forces, as a matter of policy, will prohibit their members from using cluster munitions and from training and instructing in the use of cluster munitions when on exchange with another state's armed forces. The transportation of cluster munitions aboard carriers belonging to or under the control of the Canadian Armed Forces will also not be permitted by policy.

In response to some questions raised by the other place, I would now like to briefly explain why some of the specific terms in Bill S-10 may differ from the convention. This is simply the result of a required translation of multilateral treaty language into Canada legal terminology. This is necessary in order to meet domestic charter and other legislative standards for clarity and certainty in the eyes of the Canadian courts. For this reason, it was inadvisable to adopt a number of the amendments proposed by senators during deliberations on Bill S-10.

First, a certain number of those proposed amendments would have added the word “transfer” to the definition and prohibition provisions. The meaning of “transfer” as it is used in the convention requires prohibiting the physical movement of cluster munitions from one state to another when it also involves a change of ownership and control.

Using such a definition raised some domestic interpretive concerns, because the word “transfer” already occurs in many Canadian statutes with a different meaning.

The word “move” is therefore used instead. Moving prohibited cluster munitions from one foreign state to another is an offence if the intention is to change ownership and control, which is consistent with criminal law and easier to prosecute. Movement in and out of Canada itself is covered by the related offences of importing and exporting.

Another proposed amendment called for making it an offence for a person to knowingly invest in a company that produced cluster munitions. This is already covered by the bill, since direct and intentional investment in a commercial organization that produces cluster munitions is addressed by its prohibition on aiding and abetting. Those terms are clear in Canadian criminal law, and they cover all forms of investment that entail a sufficient proximity to the actual making of the munitions and the necessary criminal intent. Under the current wording in the bill, aiding and abetting or counselling from Canada will be a criminal offence, even if the activity aided or abetted takes place in a country where it is legal.

Similarly, the bill already deals thoroughly with stockpiling of cluster munitions, and therefore the proposed amendments regarding stockpiling are not necessary. Bill S-10 does not refer to “stockpiling” as such, because it is not a term used in Canadian criminal law. That notion is instead included in the bill under the term “possession”. Cluster munitions may pass through Canada within the scope of military co-operation, but they cannot be stored here except for permitted reasons, such as their destruction.

As for the amendment proposal that would require Canada to inform the government of a non-state party with which Canada is engaged in military co-operation regarding its obligations under the convention, it is important to remember that the current form of the bill is one of criminal law. It would not be advisable to create non-criminal obligations in this kind of text.

The obligation to notify non-party states of Canada's convention obligations and to discourage their use of cluster munitions applies to the Government of Canada when initiating military co-operation and operations with these states. It does not create any ongoing obligations for individual military personnel. The Government of Canada is expected to carry out its positive obligations as a result of the treaty itself, and it intends to fully do so.

Regarding the proposed amendment that would create reporting requirements, the convention itself already requires annual reporting by States Parties. In fact, even though Canada is not yet a state party, I am pleased to tell members that we have already begun carrying out this task voluntarily. To date, we have submitted two article 7 transparency reports to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, which are publicly available. Additional reporting to Parliament could hamper our diplomatic efforts to promote universalization around the world. In this instance, it would not be prudent to encourage countries to follow our lead and then shame them in our own Parliament.

Since much of the debate on Bill S-10 has been centred on the interoperability exemptions provided for in clause 11, it is important that I speak about this specific issue.

As already explained, the convention itself calls for the use of criminal law. As such, it is necessary to create exceptions to the prohibitions established in this legislation in order to ensure that members of the Canadian Armed Forces and the associated civilians who participate in military co-operation and operations permitted by the convention are not held criminally responsible for those acts when they are serving Canada.

The exceptions in clause 11 of the bill do not permit or authorize any specific activity; they simply exclude these activities from the new criminal offences created by the law. If these exemptions are not included in the act, it could lead to criminal liability for a wide range of frequent military co-operation activities with our closest allies that are not party to the convention and that do not plan on ratifying it in the near future.

It is important to point out that these exceptions are permitted by the convention itself and apply only to the specific prohibitions created in the proposed act. They do not detract in any way from other applicable legal obligations of members of the Canadian Armed Forces, including those established by existing international humanitarian law.

Even before the introduction of this bill, our government has taken concrete steps to fulfill its commitments under the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Canada has never produced or used cluster munitions in its operations. The Canadian Armed Forces have initiated the process of destroying all of their cluster munitions, and their last remaining inventory of cluster munitions has been removed from operational stocks and marked for destruction.

Canada is already active in promoting the universalization and implementation of the convention with international partners, and will continue doing so. Also, Canada has already been voluntarily submitting its annual transparency reports. All of these activities are being implemented outside of Bill S-10 and before Canada's ratification of the convention.

Canada is committed to the eradication of cluster munitions, and our government is proud to have tabled this legislation to enable us to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions. We are particularly proud of Canada's important role in striking the convention's essential balance between humanitarian and legitimate security concerns and in ultimately paving the way for ratification of the convention by a larger number of states than would have been the case otherwise.

I urge all parties to support this bill so that we can move it forward as expeditiously as possible.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this makes me sick.

I am very disturbed that a Conservative member would begin her speech by talking about the children who play with bombs, children who die because of these bombs. I think it is hypocritical and perverse. It makes no sense that this hon. member, who is part of the Conservative government that is attempting to destroy a convention, is talking about these children.

I do not know if the hon. member is aware that her government wants to destroy Canada's international leadership on this convention. I would like the hon. member to try to explain that to me, because I do not understand. I find it inconsistent that she can make such a speech and support a bill that will destroy that convention.

I would like her to explain that, because I just cannot see how it works.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise the member that our party has been a strong leader on this file. We have taken the steps to put in place the ratification of this convention. Canada was one of the first countries to sign on.

I would like to read exactly what it says in the framework for the member. It says it will establish

...a framework for co-operation and assistance to ensure adequate care and rehabilitation to survivors and their communities, clearance of contaminated areas, risk reduction education and destruction of stockpiles.

It also requires countries that are States Parties to this convention to establish a way forward for victim assistance. Article 5 talks specifically about the countries establishing a budget and developing a plan for assisting these very victims who have been harmed.

We want to see these cluster munitions eradicated. We want them disposed of. We want to see them destroyed. We want to take a very active hold on this file and get this done.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for bringing out some of what happens with these munitions, but I will provide more information.

One cluster munition contains enough submunitions to cover an area the size of two to four football fields. In Laos the United States dropped, on average, an entire planeload of munitions every eight minutes for nine years.

Cluster munitions have been used in at least 30 countries and areas. There are 34 countries known to have produced over 210 different types of air-dropped and surface-launched cluster munitions, and tens of thousands of civilians worldwide have been killed or injured by cluster munitions.

My question is this: why is the government weakening the bill and weakening the spirit of the convention?

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would say to my colleague that Canada has been a leader in getting this convention in place. We were one of the first ones to sign on to it.

The things she has said are absolutely horrific. We agree. That is the very reason we want to get this convention signed. That is the very reason why we want to get this piece of legislation through, because Canada wants to ratify this convention.

We want to be the strong leaders in the globe and to say that the world needs to be rid of these kinds of munitions. They need to be eradicated. Canada is a strong leader. We will continue with that leadership.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's thoughtful speech. It was actually a reflection on what exactly has happened. Obviously Canada was one of the first countries to sign on to the convention.

Canada has undertaken its responsibility the way that Canadians would expect: that it be responsible and be a proactive member in ensuring that these types of things are dealt with in the international community.

There are two things I would like to have the parliamentary secretary reflect on. First, I would like her to reflect on Canada's history when it comes to these particular munitions.

Second, I would also like the parliamentary secretary to reflect on what our allies are doing. Obviously we have heard members opposite wax eloquent on different aspects of the problems with these types of munitions. I am wondering how Canada's response resembles what has been done by other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Australia.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our allies are working in concert with us, because they too, the United Kingdom and Australia, have done the same. These are the allies we work with in many situations with our military, and they are on side with us. They want to see cluster munitions eradicated from the world.

I would like to read from the very beginning of what this convention says. It is what Canada is signing on to. It says we are:

...deeply concerned that civilian populations and individual civilians continue to bear the brunt of armed conflict

and that we are

...determined to put an end for all time to the suffering and casualties caused by cluster munitions...concerned that cluster munition remnants kill or maim civilians...deeply concerned also at the dangers presented by the large national stockpiles...believing it necessary to contribute effectively to an efficient, coordinated manner to resolving the challenge....

These are the kinds of things that we and our allies are signing on to. We want to see these cluster munition stockpiles disposed of. We want to be a leader, and Canada is doing that through this legislation.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my hon. friend from Newmarket—Aurora that this convention is extremely important. Canada did sign on early, and that is why I am baffled. Maybe she could explain to me why there are these carve-outs.

I am looking at page 7 of the bill, subclause 11(3). It is not related to the movement of cluster munitions for the purpose of destroying them; that is a different section. This section says that earlier prohibitions do not apply to a person in the course of military co-operation or combined military operations involving Canada and a state not a party to the convention—which would include, for instance, the United States—for “aiding, abetting or counselling another person to commit any act referred to in paragraph 6(a) to (d) if it would not be an offence for that other person to commit that act”.

In other words, it looks to me as though we have a carve-out here that lets Canada help the United States invest in cluster munitions, use cluster munitions and transfer them in shared co-operative action.

If we are to adhere to the convention, should we not remove subsection 11(3) so that it is clear that we are not speaking out of both sides of our mouth?

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in a perfect world I suppose that is what we would all want, but we have to live in reality, and the reality is that the United States is our closest ally. We work very closely with the Americans in many military operations, and we do not want to see our Canadian Armed Forces charged with a criminal offence because they are working with our partners and doing what we have asked them to do.

We have said very clearly that Canadian Armed Forces would not be commanding the use of cluster munitions. We have been very strict with that, but we also have to live in reality.

Is this a perfect world? Absolutely not, but this is a starting point. It is perhaps not perfect, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. As we have said throughout this, we will continue to urge other parties around the globe to participate in this convention and to rid the world of these terrible munitions.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, cluster bombs are morally and ethically reprehensible. They are inhumane. There can be no prevarication. There can be no qualifying of our condemnation. We should be absolute and thorough in our condemnation. We should not dedicate two whole pages of the enabling legislation to provide an exit strategy, an out, a loophole that we can drive a truck through to, where we can do anything in terms of handling, enabling, aiding and abetting. As my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands pointed out, subsection 3 is a road map for how to continue using cluster bombs.

The Parliamentary Secretary over there was the chief apologist, a champion of cluster bombs, it would seem. He was the number one apologist for justifying when and where they are applicable and necessary. That is not the tone we want to set in the Canadian House of Commons.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, we do not live in a perfect world. We have a responsibility, as the Canadian Parliament, to take a step forward to ensure that we do what we can in Canada to make sure the world is rid of this terrible ordnance. Therefore, we are taking a leadership role. We will continue to urge other parties to be signatories to this convention as we show leadership in our own House.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will share my speaking time with the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

In 1997, Canada distinguished itself on the world stage by hosting the meetings on the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction.

Those important meetings led to the signing of the Ottawa treaty, which made it possible to reduce the number of innocent civilian victims during and after military conflicts. The treaty concerned anti-personnel mines, but there is another threat to which Canada could respond with genuine leadership: cluster munitions.

It is a brilliant invention: deploy a bomb that deploys hundreds of bomblets. Why not just deploy a bigger, more accurate bomb? That is true military genius. The bomblets, which do not explode immediately, cover an area the size of four football fields and are transformed into anti-personnel mines. Some of our soldiers are injured by those mines.

On initial impact, 98% of the victims of cluster munitions are civilians. As the bomblets are very colourful and remain in place for years after the bombing, children are the most common victims following a military conflict.

If Canada has committed to opposing anti-personnel mines, why has it done nothing tangible to combat this inhuman invention? My position on this issue is clear. I am opposed to Bill S-10 and I am going to show how it does nothing to assist in controlling cluster munitions. When I see these bomblets, I think of our children and of my grandchildren, who could be seriously injured or killed by them.

Even more so since the aim of this bill appears to be to facilitate their use.

The 2008 Oslo treaty became the next logical step after the Ottawa treaty since its purpose was to prohibit cluster munitions. Several of the greatest weapons-producing countries, such as China, the United States and Russia, decided not to take part in the Oslo process. Unfortunately, it appears that Canada bowed to American lobbyists to ensure the plan would not be successful.

Unlike the United States, Canada took part in the Oslo process. Rather than refuse to participate, it managed to negotiate the inclusion of an article permitting ongoing military interoperability with states not party to the convention in the final text of the convention. This loophole in article 21 of the convention makes it possible for a signatory country to tolerate the status quo. It goes without saying that the scope of the Oslo process was dramatically reduced.

The idea of an act to implement the convention is an excellent one, but what we have here more closely resembles an insurance policy for the military-industrial complex. Considering that the position the government has adopted is largely modelled on that of the United States, it is fair to ask what has happened to Canada's sovereignty.

What will the Conservatives say? That this is good for the economy? What economy? What will they say to the 50,000 victims of cluster munitions in Laos, who are poor people and mostly civilians?

I also wonder what arguments the Conservatives will offer our soldiers returning from Afghanistan injured as a result of the use of this icon of human technical knowledge.

I thought the Conservatives were tough on crime, but I am disappointed they have chosen to be soft on humanitarian international law, which cluster munitions violate outright.

That law includes the principle of distinction, which requires weapons to be directed at combatants with a certain degree of accuracy. I should point out that 98% of victims in this instance are civilians.

The principle of humanity is also violated by cluster munitions because they cause enormous, long-lasting damage to the natural environment.

In addition, between 5% and 40% of sub-munitions do not explode on initial deployment and are guaranteed to cause losses following a conflict.

Lastly, there are the principles of prohibition of superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering. Following combat, a site infested with cluster munitions causes even more harm to innocent victims, very many of them children who may not even have been born at the time of the conflict.

However, what is the point of reminding people that these weapons are so inhumane, the Conservatives introduced a bill to prohibit them? To put it simply, perhaps the purpose of this bill is not really to prohibit them.

Instead of implementing the convention, Bill S-10 instead affirms that the Conservatives have chosen their camp, the camp of needless slaughter.

Tough on crime? Pro-life? Really?

This is laughable. These are nothing but slogans that fail to conceal the fact that the Conservatives are soft when it really counts. Instead I see a narrow-minded group of people bowing to U.S. demands so they do not have to face their own consciences.

I am not alone in thinking so. The former prime minister of Australia, Malcolm Fraser, said it was a pity the current Canadian government did not provide any real leadership to the world on cluster munitions. He added that its approach was timid, inadequate and regressive.

The Conservatives have long since chosen to act as lackeys to the great powers, and their fawning will eventually deflate their image as tough guys. This applies to climate change and the tar sands, the Canadian economy, which they are shamelessly undermining, and now Canada’s international reputation.

But they will not drag us down when they fall. Canada is big enough and strong enough to show them the door quickly.

People will say I am using a broad brush, but in my opinion, this bill says a great deal about how this government operates with respect to legislation. They do things in a hurry, they are lazy, and they only want to please their friends. Bill S-10 is no small matter, but we have very little time in which to discuss it.

Earl Turcotte, former coordinator of the mine action program at DFAIT, led the Canadian delegation that negotiated the convention. He resigned when the government tried to impose a weak enabling act, saying that the proposed law was the worst of all the laws passed by countries that had so far ratified or signed the Convention. The worst! Not the second-worst, the best of the not bad, or the fourteenth, but the worst.

With that, I believe I have nothing more to add, except that the disproportionate zeal this government puts into the funding or promotion of its party might better be put into a healthy approach to legislation. Laws require time and study, and their objectives should be to help people. It is not enough to spend a few hours discussing such an important bill. Above all, it should not be said that this is to protect children.

These are all targets that Bill S-10 fails to hit, because this is a law that is as disastrous as a cluster munition.

I hope the members opposite understand that there will be collateral damage.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked about clause 11 of Bill S-10, and I wonder if she could take us through it. I would like her to be very specific on the related provisions in the Australian legislation and the United Kingdom legislation, and tell us, in her opinion, in a very detailed way, how those provisions differ in terms of interoperability with the provisions of clause 11 in Bill S-10. I would like specific answers to those questions.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that was such a long question it can hardly be answered.

The New Democrats fully supported the development of a treaty to ban cluster munitions. However, this bill undermines the convention instead of ensuring its implementation. What does the government have to say to that?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again, 34 countries are known to have produced over 210 different types of air-dropped cluster munitions and surface-launched cluster munitions.

At least 13 countries have transferred over 50 types of cluster munitions to least 60 other countries. Billions of cluster bombs are currently stockpiled by some 78 countries worldwide, and around half of these countries have now agreed to destroy them.

On average, 25% of civilian casualties are children, and in some areas it is more than 50%. The children are attracted to them because they are small and are in curious shapes.

Cluster munitions are an indiscriminate weapon intended to main, cripple and kill. Why is the government weakening the law and the spirit of the convention?

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent question.

Why is the government weakening this law? The question should perhaps be put to the Conservatives. I cannot in fact answer the question, because I cannot get into the minds of the Conservatives. However, I can say that I find all this quite simply a pity. When I read the bill, I thought about my eight grandchildren. Some of us have children, and we would not want those bombs to be anywhere near us.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to congratulate my colleague on her speech. Of course, she spoke of the fact that 98% of civilian victims are casualties of these cluster bombs. She pointed out that these munitions lack any precision as to their targets. Because of that, casualties occur even after the conflict has ended.

I would like to ask my colleague for her comments on this state of affairs. She touched on it in her speech, but I would like her to give us more details about her opposition to the bill.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question.

Ninety-eight per cent of victims are civilians, including children. Personally, I thought that these cluster munitions were intended to kill the enemy—other soldiers—but not civilians. Are these bombs—for they are real bombs—intended to kill civilians? Are they intended to wound soldiers who will be disabled for life? Some Canadian soldiers coming home from Afghanistan are permanently disabled. This is a terrible thing for them, their families, and our society. These people are not able to do all they once could and then they must look for work.

I think that 98% of civilian victims is really a huge number. Why make the bombs? In fact, why make war?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, tonight we are examining a bill that comes to us from the Senate, Bill S-10, an Act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

For some weeks now, we have been here, gathered together late in the evening, to debate bills that the Conservative government wants to push through Parliament. Although we in the official opposition are proud to rise and represent the interests of our constituents, discuss matters of substance, propose better solutions and put forward concrete amendments, I would like to underline the fact that the procedure whereby we are here to talk about Bill S-10 this evening is unacceptable.

The Conservative government is forcing Parliament’s hand to have its bills passed as quickly as possible by using time allocation motions—the 45th one today—and many last-minute votes.

What happened to the time traditionally allocated for debate, in-depth, non-partisan studies by parliamentary committees and government consultations with national and international experts? All of these steps are essential to the democratic process of drafting legislation before bringing it for a vote in the House of Commons. I am raising these procedural points on behalf of my colleagues in the NDP. We will be trying to have Bill S-10 amended in committee.

We are opposed to Bill S-10 as it stands because, although its title appears to say that its purpose is to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions, in reality, it does not implement it, it destroys it. Bill S-10 serves to set Canada against the 110 other countries that have signed the convention and the 68 that have already ratified it. The bill will be used as a place for the Conservative government to hide. It is an attempt to make an exception to the convention. The NDP cannot stand behind an approach that is, in the words of former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser, timid, inadequate and regressive.

So that all my colleagues in this House are just as informed about cluster munitions as my constituents are, I would like to define some terms. The Convention on Cluster Munitions is an international disarmament and humanitarian treaty that bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions and provides for their clearance and destruction.

The 111 states that signed the Wellington declaration took part in a conference in Dublin, Ireland, thereby supporting the draft convention. These states included Canada. The convention was adopted on May 30, 2008 and Canada signed the convention on December 3, 2008. In signing the convention in 2008, Canada made a number of commitments.

Canada committed primarily not to use cluster munitions; not to develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone cluster munitions; and not to assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a state party under this convention.

It also committed to destroy the cluster munitions in its arsenal no later than eight years after the convention enters into force, and to clear and destroy, or ensure the clearance and destruction of, cluster munition remnants located in contaminated areas under its jurisdiction.

Furthermore, Canada must provide assistance to the victims of cluster munitions in areas under its jurisdiction, provide assistance to other states parties to ensure that they comply with the provisions of the convention, and take all legislative measures necessary to implement the convention.

Article 2 of the convention reads as follows:

“Cluster munition” means a conventional munitions that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms, and includes those explosive submunitions.

Cluster munitions were used on battlefields in World War I and more recent conflicts, including Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. These weapons disperse hundreds of explosives over a large area in a very short period of time. Nobody can escape them.

It is sad to say, but 98% of all injuries resulting from cluster munitions are inflicted upon civilians. According to the Cluster Munition Coalition, over 25% of victims of cluster munitions are children, who are especially drawn to unexploded sub-munitions. The bombs look like toys, and up to 30% of them do not explode upon contact with the ground. These bombs patiently lie in wait for their victims.

The Conservative government wants to vote for a bill that will annul Canada's commitment to the victims of cluster munitions.

This is not just about past victims, but current and future victims.

Bill S-10 will, in fact, invalidate the convention. It circumvents the interoperability provision, allowing Canada to aid, abet, counsel and conspire to use cluster munitions.

Why is the government, which negotiated and signed the 2008 convention, doing an about-face? Does the government not agree that these weapons must be completely banned and that Canada needs to walk the talk?

Speaking of taking action, I would like to congratulate the many Canadians who have signed petitions calling on the government to act responsibly and ban cluster munitions. I commend my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona, who took receipt of these petitions and tabled them in the House.

Just like the NDP, the people of our great country are calling for amendments to Bill S-10. They are asking that no Canadian be liable for their involvement in the use, production, purchase or sale of cluster munitions or financial investment in these activities. They are calling on the Government of Canada to make a positive and ongoing commitment to the convention it signed in 2008, as an addendum to Bill S-10. They are urging the Government of Canada to recognize the massive impact that cluster munitions have on civilian populations in wartime and for decades thereafter.

I would like to quote Mines Action Canada:

…no Canadian should ever be implicated in the use of cluster bombs for any purpose, in any location, or on any mission.

According to Paul Hannon, the director of Mines Action Canada, Canada should have the best implementation legislation in the world. We should be the frontrunners. That is absolutely not the case given the bill before us this evening.

I encourage everyone to sign the petition from Handicap International Canada against cluster bombs. To date, the petition has 708,318 signatories. I would also like to commend my colleague from Ottawa Centre on the excellent work that he has done in this area.

Globally, unexploded sub-munitions and land mines kill some 4,000 civilians each year. In 2006, 22 members of the Canadian Armed Forces were killed and 112 were injured in Afghanistan as a result of anti-personnel mines, cluster munitions and other explosive weapons. These weapons are dangerous because they are virtually uncontrollable, even long after an armed conflict has ended. These weapons are unacceptable.

Bill S–10 taints Canada's record in terms of leadership on issues of international importance. If it is passed in its current form, this legislation will be the weakest legislation in the world when compared to that of the 110 other countries that have signed the convention. Yet thanks to the amendments suggested by the NDP, Canada could redeem itself and win back its role as a protector and defender of human rights, including victims' rights.

Why is the government bent on undermining all these efforts? There was a brighter day. In 1997, thanks to Canada's leadership, the treaty prohibiting land mines, better known as the Ottawa treaty, became the most ratified disarmament treaty in history. In memory of this historic moment, I hope that all my colleagues, across all parties, will support the NDP's efforts and the amendments that it puts forward.

In closing, I would like to quote an article that Craig and Marc Kielburger wrote last year, on Remembrance Day. Craig and Marc Kielburger are two exceptional young Canadians who founded the not-for-profit organization called Free the Children. They continue to encourage over 100,000 young people every year to get involved in their community and promote justice, peace and social solidarity.

This week we pay homage to Canadians who served and died to uphold global peace and freedom. What better way to honour their sacrifices than to advance peace by eliminating a weapon that kills and maims hundreds of children every year.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask the member a question that I asked her colleague who spoke previously. Her colleague, unfortunately, was unable to answer the question, I suspect because she had not taken the time to look at the U.K. or the Australian legislation which she said compared better to Canada, in terms of the interoperability provisions of section 11.

Could this member take us through the U.K. legislation, the Australian legislation and section 11 of Bill S-10, and tell us how the Canadian legislation differs from the U.K. and Australian legislation in terms of allowing interoperability with states that do use cluster munitions?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

I have compared the Canadian legislation the Conservatives have put before us with other laws, because according to a number of experts, this legislation is very weak. That is where I want to focus my comments; that is what I want to put the emphasis on.

The government is refusing to ratify a convention that will save lives. Consequently, whether in relation to section 11 or any other, and by comparison with any other country, we are looking at a government that has knuckled under to lobbying by the United States. It tells itself that it did a good job in 2008, but it is going to forget that and water the legislation down to make it very weak.

I don’t need to compare us to every other countries. We had a good convention that the Conservatives now refuse to ratify, and that is where the problem lies.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is really disingenuous to have a government member ask another member to in basically 30 seconds compare a piece of legislation to two other countries. It is absurd. We are here today debating this legislation the government has put forward as compared to the treaty. That is what is important.

Anything we look at tells us that Bill S-10 is undermining the very treaty that was signed by Canada. I am very glad that my hon. colleague raised the fact that there are thousands of young Canadians who have signed this petition. It is really distressing that they had the best expectations that the government would bring forward a bill that would actually meet the spirit, principle, intent and substance of that treaty, yet this legislation has failed.

I am very glad that the member made the point she did tonight. I think it shows how far removed the government has become from not only the feelings of Canadians but even from meeting the spirit and the substance of a treaty Canada has signed.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comment.

It is indeed a great shame that the government does not listen to the people. Since I have been in this House, we have tabled a number of petitions. Of all those I tabled, none was favourably received by the government. This government is highly ideological.

This evening, for example, I heard speeches that were very ideological. The government is not at all prepared to hear talk of amendments, or discuss them with us. All the time allocation motions make that very clear. Today we saw the 45th such motion. That, in fact, is a record in the history of Parliament.

This government knows only one road, and follows a single path without ever leaving it. It listens neither to experts nor to Canadians, who want only to be heard. It is a pity. When I see the low voter turnout during elections, I find it scandalous, but with such a government, people do not even feel they are being listened to.

I mentioned this in my speech, because I find it is crucial to realize that so many Canadians have asked the government to ratify this convention, and the government is quite simply not listening.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to participate in the second reading debate of Bill S-10, the prohibiting cluster munitions act. I am pleased to hear from some who have already spoken about why the convention on cluster munitions is needed so urgently and why it is important that the House pass Bill S-10 quickly.

The need is obvious. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs has stated many times, and as was repeated just hours ago by the Minister of National Defence, our government is proud of the active role we played in the negotiation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. I might add that this included Mr. Turcotte, who was at all three meetings of the cluster munitions convention negotiations and who negotiated specifically article 21, which the opposition does not want to talk about, to provide for the interoperability of Canadian Armed Forces with its allies.

We were committed to this cause at that time, and we remain just as committed today. However, there remains one outstanding issue, that of interoperability. As much as we would like to live in an ideal world, we do not. As much as we would like to live in a world where every country has signed on to the convention, we do not.

In the real world, the Canadian Armed Forces co-operates closely with our American allies and undertakes many joint missions. We actively second military personnel to each other's armed forces. These secondments strengthen the co-operation between our armed forces and improve the security and safety of all Canadians. These secondments are an opportunity for Canadians to gain significant experience abroad and to return that much stronger. Such co-operation between the Canadian and American militaries is both necessary and desirable. That is the reality of the world we live in.

In order for the members of the Canadian Armed Forces to be able to work closely and effectively with their American counterparts, a clause in the Convention on Cluster Munitions was needed to allow Canada and the other countries to sign the treaty while allowing them at the same time to continue co-operating with the armed forces of those countries that have not signed the convention. It is for this reason that Canada, joined by other states, negotiated to include article 21 in the convention to permit military co-operation and operations with states that have not signed the treaty.

In our view, article 21 strikes a balance in addressing the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions while allowing states parties to protect their own legitimate national security and defence interests.

The reality is that article 21 is part of the convention, a convention that to date 112 countries have signed and 83 countries have ratified.

From the beginning of the negotiations, Canada supported the need to ensure that countries could continue to collaborate militarily with those that have not signed the treaty. The Canadian delegation and others made this point strongly in every negotiating session since 2007, and we are satisfied that article 21 adequately meets this need. Authorizing members of the Canadian Armed Forces to carry out operations with the armed forces of countries that have not signed the convention will allow Canada to maintain our special co-operative relationship with the United States. Clause 11 of the bill would allow Canada to support the convention and at the same time meet our security needs in co-operation with our American allies.

Canada, as we know, has more interoperations with the American military than any other country in the world. Canada has a clear mandate in negotiations, and we have always been open and transparent in exactly what we wanted to accomplish. Others are free to have their point of view, but the treaty and this legislation represents the view of the Government of Canada.

The Minister of National Defence touched on this briefly a little earlier, but I think it is important to again emphasize that under Bill S-10, the Canadian Armed Forces members would still be prohibited from using cluster munitions during Canadian Armed Forces operations.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces would also be prohibited from using cluster munitions and from training in the use of cluster munitions when they were on an exchange with another country's armed forces. The Canadian Armed Forces would also not be permitted to transport cluster munitions on Canadian vehicles belonging to the Canadian Armed Forces.

As I said at the outset, much of the debate on Bill S-10, and indeed on the convention itself, has concerned the issue of interoperability. Since under the convention this would be a criminal offence, it is necessary that Bill S-10 ensure that members of the Canadian Armed Forces who participate in operations with the U.S. armed forces not be held criminally responsible for anything that may violate the terms of the treaty.

Imagine if a Canadian commander were under intense fire from the enemy and called in close air support from our American ally, and that American ally chose to drop a cluster munition. Would our commander then be criminally responsible? I think under the legislation, the opposition is suggesting that he or she would be. Should the commander in that situation not call in that close air support and allow Canadian soldiers to die? That is what we are talking about here.

What they are proposing would put Canadian military personnel in a very difficult and potentially very dangerous situation. This is the reality of operating in the real world. We have to be sure to protect our men and women in uniform in these circumstances.

When the treaty was negotiated, it was accepted that not all countries would be able to sign the convention right away. The treaty's negotiators also recognized that multilateral operations would require states that have not yet signed onto the convention to work with those that already have. Here again, it was recognized that in the real world, things do not always work out the way we would like. Therefore, Canada and others insisted that ways be found to allow those countries that have signed on to the convention to work with those that have not.

That is article 21, subsection 3, of the convention. That is in the convention that all countries ratified. Our allies, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, have put provisions into their legislation that would allow article 21 to operate so that their militaries could interoperate with other countries that use cluster munitions. That was negotiated by all of our negotiators, including Mr. Turcotte.

While some of the specific details in Bill S-10 may be different from the terms of the convention, that is simply because of the need to turn some multilateral treaty language into Canadian legal terms. This has to be done to meet our charter and other Canadian legislative standards for clarity in Canadian courts.

As members of the House will know, when senators considered this bill, they proposed a number of amendments that were either already covered in the bill or would have undermined its position.

Let me now review some of the senators' suggestions and examine why the government was not able to accept them.

As an example, some senators suggested making it an offence for a person to knowingly invest in a company that makes cluster munitions. That is already covered by Bill S-10, since investing in a commercial organization that produces cluster munitions would fall under the prohibition against aiding and abetting. Under section 10, as it now stands, aiding and abetting or counselling from Canada would be a criminal offence, even if the activity took place in a country where it was legal.

Concerning the senators' suggested amendment to create reporting requirements, the convention already requires reports annually from countries. Even though Canada has not yet ratified the treaty, the government is already providing the required reports voluntarily. Similarly, senators proposed an amendment concerning the stockpiling of cluster munitions. Here too the bill already addresses the issue of stockpiling cluster munitions, so the proposed amendment was not necessary. Although Bill S-10 does not refer to stockpiling as such, because it is not a term used in Canadian criminal law, the idea in the bill is referred to as “possession”.

Some of the senators' amendments would have added the word “transfer” to the definition in the prohibition provisions. The meaning of the word “transfer” in the convention requires prohibiting the physical movement of cluster munitions from one state to another when it also involves a change of ownership and control. Using this definition would have raised some concerns, because the word “transfer” already appears in many Canadian laws. In Bill S-10, therefore, we used the word “move” instead of the word “transfer”. Moving prohibited cluster munitions from one country to another would be an offence if the intent was to change the control and ownership of the munitions, which would be consistent with criminal law in Canada, therefore making it easier to prosecute in a Canadian court.

Another amendment proposed by senators would have the Canadian Armed Forces tell a country that has not signed the treaty, and with which we are engaged in military co-operation, about our obligations under the convention. However, the House should remember that Bill S-10 is about criminal law, so it would not be a good idea to include such an obligation in this bill. Besides, this obligation falls on the Government of Canada and not on individual members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Can we imagine if it was the obligation of every member of the Canadian military in battlefield situations to point out to their counterparts, whether they be from the American military or the military of another allied nation, such as the ones we participated with in Afghanistan, that perhaps they should think about not using cluster munitions and destroy their stockpiles? In the heat of battle, the Canadian military personnel need to focus on the job at hand.

In another suggestion, senators proposed an amendment that would add the offence of extraterritoriality to the bill. This is not a requirement under the convention, and aside from that extraterritoriality is covered under Canadian law.

As many others have already pointed out, the Convention on Cluster Munitions would prohibit the use, production and transfer of cluster munitions. Even before we introduced this legislation, our government took important steps to fulfill our obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Canada has never produced or used cluster munitions. We have begun to destroy all the cluster munitions that we have, and we are already submitting annual reports as required by the convention, even though we have not yet ratified it.

Bill S-10 would implement the purpose of the convention by prohibiting the use, development, possession and import and export of cluster munitions. As well, it would ban the stockpiling or possession of cluster munitions in Canada, as we said earlier. We can already apply many parts of the treaty, but for other parts to come into force the House needs to pass Bill S-10 quickly.

The convention applies a number of obligations on the Government of Canada. However, we also need to apply these same obligations on individuals as well. To do that, Bill S-10 sets out a series of offences and defines them in order to allow their prosecution in the future. The bill also sets out when exceptions would apply, such as when cluster munitions are being used for research and training or where they are being transferred to be destroyed. Bill S-10 would also prevent Canadians from helping someone else from carrying out any activities prohibited by the treaty.

As we have heard from other speakers during this debate, cluster munitions are a dangerous type of weapon, which disproportionately affects civilians long after the fighting has ended. Children are particularly sad victims of these weapons, since children can often mistake them for brightly coloured toys. They pick them up to play with them, with tragic results. If that is not sad enough, cluster munitions make it impossible to use the land to raise cattle or grow crops, so farmers and ranchers cannot earn a living for a long time after the fighting ends.

Our government is committed to protecting civilians in war-torn parts of the world from the indiscriminate suffering that cluster munitions cause. We have done this through our support for the ban on land mines, and we will continue to do this by our support for a ban on cluster munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions. This legislation is an important step toward meeting this commitment.

Canada's ratification of the convention will give a strong signal of Canada's continued commitment to reducing the suffering caused by war. Innocent civilians, including children, need our help and they need it now.

I am proud to support Bill S-10, which would enable us to ratify the convention and begin once and for all to end the scourge of cluster munitions. I urge all members of the House to join me in supporting the bill.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering how we can take the parliamentary secretary seriously, that there is any sense of urgency on the government's part to implement this legislation or to get this legislation going.

It was in December 2008 that the government signed the treaty. In April 2012, it was given to the Senate. For some reason, the government decided the Senate should have it for a full seven months. It was December 2012 before it was finally introduced in the House. It was May 29, 2013, when it had the first snippet of debate at second reading, and I believe it was for about 10 minutes at one o'clock in the morning. We were here during one of those late night sessions, and the parliamentary secretary stood up for about 15 minutes and that was it. We have it now under closure because there is great urgency, for some reason, that we must ram this legislation through in its current form.

We have tried to point out the glaring hypocrisy associated with claiming that one is against cluster munitions and then introducing legislation that has a whole section describing the terms and conditions under which Canadians will and may continue to use cluster munitions.

If the government really believes that cluster munitions are morally and ethically reprehensible and they should be abolished and condemned in the strongest possible terms, why is it enabling, with its clause 11, the continued association of our country with this horrific and inhumane type of weapon?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there was more than one question there, and I will try to address them in order.

The member first mentioned the introduction of this bill in the Senate. I am glad he raised that because it has been raised tonight on a number of other occasions.

Using that opportunity to introduce bills simultaneously in the House of Commons and in the Senate allows bills to move more quickly through the House. If we had only introduced it in the House of Commons—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Quickly? April 2012?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess he does not want to hear my answer. It probably does not fit with the narrative he would like people to hear.

However, doing that meant we could move all of these bills through twice as fast rather than starting them in one House versus the other. That is the answer to that question.

In respect of his second question, earlier when I asked him a question about article 21 of the convention, he failed to mention paragraph 3 thereof, which reads:

Notwithstanding the provisions of Article 1 of this Convention and in accordance with international law, States Parties, their military personnel or nationals, may engage in military cooperation and operations with States not party to this Convention that might engage in activities prohibited to a State Party.

As I mentioned several times in my speech, the purpose of clause 11 is to comply with article 21 of the convention. It is to allow our military personnel to continue to be interoperable with our allies, such as the United States, but also many other countries that may use cluster munitions, as we did in Afghanistan. We cannot put our military personnel at risk of their lives or at risk of criminal prosecution if that other state might use a cluster munition when they are interoperable with them.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say for the record that the hon. parliamentary secretary is in no position to criticize the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre for asking multiple questions, nor interrupting with heckling when an opposite member attempts to answer. He did both earlier in questions to the official opposition.

Since I am not allowed to speak due to closure, I will never get an opportunity to give a full speech on this very important bill.

To answer his question, I have examined the legislation from Australia and the U.K., and I can give a comparison. It is very clear that Canada's language is the weakest of all of the interoperability sections. He can check Australia's section 72.41 and section 9 of the U.K. legislation. They are not as weak as Canada's legislation, which, particularly under paragraph 11(1)(c), allows the Canadian Forces to have enough exemptions to use, acquire and possess cluster weapons.

To answer a question he has not asked yet, that being which of our allies has the best interoperability clause, the one I would be happy to see in this legislation is New Zealand's. It simply states:

A member of the Armed Forces does not commit an offence against section 10(1) merely by engaging, in the course of his or her duties, in operations, exercises, or other military activities with the armed forces of a State that is not a party to the Convention and that has the capability to engage in conduct prohibited [otherwise by the legislation].

My question to the hon. parliamentary secretary is this: What is wrong with the New Zealand language? Why will he not accept it? It deals with the interoperability questions he has asked about in the theatre of war.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have also read the Australian and the U.K. legislation.

The Australian legislation is very similar to Canada's. It has almost the exact language and includes explicit exceptions in its legislation to allow for interoperability. The United Kingdom legislation also has an interoperability clause, as well as an annex establishing defences to the general prohibitions provided in the bill against the use of cluster munitions.

Both Australia and the United Kingdom are countries that operate with Canada and with the United States. Those approaches are very similar to Canada's. The Canadian legislation was drafted in direct reference to the Australian and U.K. legislation.

Our government is very comfortable that our military personnel will continue to be interoperable with both those countries, with the United States, and not put our military personnel at risk.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that our colleague alluded to an ideal world and how it remains an impossible dream. However, I would say that we can create that ideal world. We can also improve things, even if it is just those that destroy lives. I think that Canada has a role to play in improving this world.

This bill is not an attempt to ratify the convention. It is an attempt to undermine it. It also undermines Canada's leadership in the world and our commitment to banning this terrible weapon.

My question is the following: since more than half of victims of cluster munitions are children—who are particularly attracted to unexploded cluster munitions, as my colleague pointed out in his speech—does the government agree that we must fully ban this weapon and that we must stop talking and start taking meaningful action?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we absolutely agree. We would like to see the complete prohibition and elimination of cluster munitions everywhere in the world, by every country in the world.

The fact is, though, that not every country in the world has at this point signed the convention. One of those countries is the United States, which is a significant ally. Our military is significantly involved with the United States, both in training and in interoperability in important conflicts around the world, such as Afghanistan, for example.

That member's party, along with all the parties in this House, ratified Canada's involvement with the international security forces in Afghanistan. That required our military to be there in harm's way and operate in conjunction with the United States and other countries, such as Poland, for example, which also has cluster munitions. We could not put our military personnel at risk for criminal prosecution or at risk for their own lives by putting them in a situation where they could not participate along with our allies.

What we will do under the convention, as she knows, is to advocate to the United States and every other country in the world that they should join with us in destroying their stockpiles of cluster munitions.

That is not something to be done by our military personnel; that is to be done by our government. Our government will be doing that at the United Nations and other important international forums around the world, as the case and opportunity arises.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to rise tonight and speak on this very important topic of the prohibiting cluster munitions act. This bill, which has received a significant amount of debate this evening, represents just one aspect of our government's commitment to addressing the humanitarian consequences and unacceptable harm to civilians caused by remnants of war, including cluster munitions.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions is an international treaty that builds on and complements other international agreements that address weapons that cause excessive injury or have indiscriminate effects.

Canada has long played a leading international role in the protection of civilians from the use of conventional weapons that are prone to indiscriminate effects because we have seen the devastating impact of that use. We have continued this long-standing commitment by taking part in international efforts to rid the world of cluster munitions, a weapon that Canada has never produced or used in its military operations.

Bill S-10 would allow us to continue these long-standing efforts by enabling Canada's ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. A ratification would send a strong signal of our unwavering commitment to reducing the impact of armed conflict on innocent civilians, whether in places like Syria where civilians suffer daily from the horrendous civil war, or in places like Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, which are massively contaminated with cluster munitions many years after the wars have ended. There are 24 countries and three other territories believed to be contaminated by cluster munitions remnants.

Cluster munitions are a very serious humanitarian concern. They can pose threats to civilians not only during attacks but afterwards. They have killed and maimed thousands of people, sometimes decades after conflicts have ended and often as they are going about their daily activities. Tragically, many of those injured are children who can mistake certain types of brightly coloured bomblets as toys. Unexploded munitions also have a negative effect on farmers and ranchers who cannot access land for growing crops and raising cattle. This stalls the development potential of whole communities trying to rebuild their lives after conflict.

Motivated by the harm caused to civilians by cluster munitions, the international community launched the Oslo process in February 2007 to negotiate a treaty that would ban cluster munitions. Negotiations took place over several meetings throughout 2007-08 and concluded with the adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Dublin in May 2008 and its opening for signatures in December 2008.

Canada was an active participant throughout the Oslo process negotiations and was among the first countries to sign the convention. Today, 83 countries have ratified it and an additional 29 countries that have signed the convention. Most of our NATO allies have signed or ratified the convention.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions establishes a high humanitarian standard while preserving the capacity of countries that ratify the convention to continue to engage effectively in military co-operation with those countries outside the convention. The convention prohibits the use, acquisition, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions. Specifically, it bans cluster munitions, sets deadlines for the destruction of stockpiles and clearance of contaminated areas, and establishes a framework for international co-operation and assistance so that victims receive the assistance they need in order to be able to live full and active lives.

Our government is already active in promoting the universalization and implementation of the convention with international partners and will continue doing so. Since 2006, Canada has contributed more than $200 million through 250 projects to this global effort, making us one of the world's top contributors.

For example, in February 2013, the Minister of State of Foreign Affairs announced $2.93 million to assist land mine survivors in Columbia, including children and youth, with recovery and reintegration into society.

We have also provided $3.9 million to address explosive remnants of war in Laos, the most heavily cluster munitions-affected country in the world. In Lebanon, we have provided $3.6 million to assist in risk education and the clearance of cluster munitions.

As others have mentioned before me, Canada has never produced or used cluster munitions in its operations. Over the past three decades, Canada had two types of cluster munitions in its inventory. The Canadian Armed Forces have initiated the process of destroying all of the cluster munitions and the last remaining inventory of cluster munitions has been removed from operational stocks and marked for destruction.

It is important to note that Bill S-10 represents only the legislative requirements under the convention. We continue to do much apart from the legislation and, to date, we have participated as an observer at the three meetings of states parties. We have already been voluntarily submitting annual transparency reports on implementation of the cluster munitions convention. Again, all of these activities are being implemented outside of the bill and before Canada's ratification of the convention. These steps show this government's strong commitment to ridding the world of these terrible weapons.

It was recognized during the Oslo process not all states would be in a position to immediately sign and join the convention. It was also recognized that in a real world, multilateral military operations that are crucial to international security require co-operation among states, including co-operation among states that renounce cluster munitions and those that do not.

Given these realities, Canada and others insisted that the new convention contain provisions permitting the continued ability to engage effectively in military operations with countries that have not ratified the convention. This was not just the Canadian position. It was shared by other countries. Without article 21, it was clear that a number of countries would not have been able to join the convention. From the start of the negotiations, the issue of military interoperability was a clear reality, as well as the need to ensure that countries ratifying the treaty would continue to collaborate militarily with countries that did not.

Canada and other states made strong statements to that effect as early as the Vienna conference in December 2007, as well as the Wellington conference in February 2008 and during the Dublin diplomatic conference in May 2008. The interoperability provisions of the convention found in article 21 allow the treaty to strike a delicate balance between a commitment to addressing the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions while still permitting states parties to preserve their own legitimate national security and defence interests.

This is an important balance for Canada, one that was prioritized early and often during the negotiations of the convention by Canada and several other allies, and one that remains shared by a number of key allies party to the convention. It allows us to carry out our will to rid the world of cluster munitions while ensuring that the Canadian Forces remain able to participate in multinational operations with Canada's key allies that are not party to the convention. Such operations are crucial to our national security interests and allow us to keep pulling our weight internationally. For Canada, authorizing our military personnel to carry out operations with the armed forces of a state not party to the convention allows us, among other things, to maintain our unique, co-operative relationship with the United States, which offers unparalleled benefits in terms of security, defence and industry.

The ratification legislation before the House, Bill S-10, would allow Canada to fully implement the convention's obligation in Canada's law. Bill S-10 would implement the parts of the convention that actually require legislation in Canada. The convention itself applies a number of obligations to Canada as a state party and one of these requires each state party to impose on persons within its jurisdiction the same prohibitions that apply to the states parties themselves. To do this, the proposed act sets out a series of prohibitions and offences and the technical definitions required to support their investigation and prosecution.

More specifically, the bill prohibits the use, development, making, acquisition, possession, foreign movement, and import and export of cluster munitions. In addition, stockpiling of cluster munitions on Canadian soil is not allowed by the bill, as it prohibits all forms of possession. The bill also prohibits any person from aiding and abetting anyone in the commission of prohibited activities, which includes direct and intentional investment in the production of cluster munitions.

The bill also sets out exceptions that reflect the convention's partial exclusions on some of its prohibitions from legitimate and permitted purposes, such as military co-operation between state parties and states that are not party, defensive research and training, and transfers for the purpose of destruction of stockpiles.

Since much of the debate on Bill S-10 has been centred on the interoperability exemptions provided for in clause 11 of the bill, let me address this specific issue. As already mentioned, the convention itself calls for the use of criminal law. As such, it is necessary to create exceptions to prohibitions established in this legislation in order to ensure that our men and women in uniform and the associated civilians who participate in military co-operation and operations permitted by the convention are not held criminally responsible for those acts when they are serving Canada.

These exceptions also apply to personnel serving in exchange, therefore preserving Canada's unique military co-operation with the United States, which provides unparalleled security, defence and industrial benefits as stated.

The exceptions of clause 11 of the bill do not permit or authorize any specific activity. They simply exclude these activities from the new criminal offences created by the law. If these exceptions are not included in the act, it would lead to criminal liability for a wide range of frequent military co-operation activities with our closest allies that are not party to the convention and that do not plan on ratifying it in the near future.

It is important to point out that these exceptions are permitted by the convention itself and apply only to the specific omissions created in the bill. Furthermore, these agreed exceptions apply only to the provisions of the convention itself and not to any other international humanitarian law instruments or customary legal principles. They do not detract in any way from other applicable legal obligations of members of the armed forces. In effect, these provisions permit working with other states only so long as this does not violate any other applicable obligations, including the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks.

Let me emphasize that the Canadian Armed Forces members remain prohibited from themselves using cluster munitions in Canadian Armed Forces operations, and from expressly requesting their use when the choice of munitions to be used is under their exclusive control.

In addition, the Canadian Armed Forces, as a matter of policy, will prohibit their members from themselves using cluster munitions and from training and instructing in the use of cluster munitions when on exchange with other states' armed forces. The transportation of cluster munitions aboard carriers belonging to or under the control of Canadian Armed Forces will also not be permitted by policy.

Even though the Convention on Cluster Munitions is still young, there has already been progress. Countries that ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions are obligated to clear areas contaminated by cluster munitions as soon as possible, and no later than 10 years after entry into force of the convention for that state party.

In 2011, more than 52,000 unexploded submunitions were destroyed during clearance operations across ten states and two other areas. Formerly contaminated land is now being reclaimed and used. People in those cleared areas can work, walk safely to their home, to school and to work. Farmers can till their fields. Children can play outside like children all around the world should.

The needs of victims are starting to be addressed. Collectively, countries need to maintain efforts to prevent further casualties.

Canada is committed to the eradication of cluster munitions and must continue to do its part in this effort. Canada's ratification of the Convention on cluster munitions will be a key step in that direction.

It is time that Canada joins others in ratifying this important convention. This is why we have tabled this legislation that will enable Canada to become a state party. We are particularly proud of Canada's important role in striking the convention's essential balance between humanitarian and legitimate security concerns and ultimately paving the way for ratification of the convention by a larger number of countries than would have been the case otherwise.

I think we can all agree on the importance of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the need for the House to pass Bill S-10 quickly.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we continue to have good faith discussions with all parties in an effort to manage government business of the House, and based on those discussions, I would like to propose, for unanimous consent, the following motion: That notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practices of the House, on Wednesday, June 12, when the House resumes debate at the second reading stage of Bill C-56, an act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts, which is also known as the combating counterfeit products act: (a) no more than two members from the Conservative Party, fifteen members from the New Democratic Party and two members from the Liberal Party and any independent member may speak, after which every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment; (b) if a recorded division is demanded, the vote shall be deemed deferred to Thursday, June 13, following the time provided for oral questions; (c) if the proceedings at the second reading stage of Bill C-56 are not completed by the ordinary time of daily adjournment, the House shall continue to sit for the purpose of completing the proceedings; and (d) after 6:30 p.m., no quorum calls or dilatory motions shall be received by the Speaker.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Does the hon. government House leader have unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-10, An Act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening with a lot of interest tonight to this debate, and it seems to me and to many of my colleagues on this side that the Conservatives are speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They want to tell Canadians that they are deeply against cluster munitions, as we are, and I believe most Canadians would be. We support the ban on cluster munitions, and yet we are concerned about the loophole they have put in the bill that would allow the Canadian government and the military to facilitate in some instances perhaps even the transit through Canadian territory by Canadian military assets of these munitions, which we are all in agreement should be banned.

How are Canadians to view the government's real commitment to this? What we see time and time again with the government is a lack of willingness to stand up for Canada and Canadian values on the world stage and consistent buckling under to the pressure of its friends south of the border.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to first correct the transportation issue. That is allowed only with their planes. As an example, if they were to move cluster bombs from the United States to Alaska, they could pass our territory, but in their own planes.

However, let us talk about some of our allies. We mentioned the United States, and that is probably our biggest ally, but within NATO, for instance, there is Poland, or let us take a country like Turkey. Turkey has still not ratified this, but is living next door to a failed nation that uses nerve gas. God forbid if we were to be involved in something like that. As a NATO partner, if we were to partner with Turkey, our Canadian Armed Forces would be subject to criminal activity if they participated with a country like Turkey.

This was the narrow band and the dilemma that, as we ratified this agreement, we had to come to grips with. There are countries that have not ratified. There are countries that still use cluster weapons, for whatever reason. However, we need to ensure that our men and women are protected and that when they did participate in another arena, they would not be prosecuted simply because they participated with another country that had not ratified this agreement.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening intently to the member. I understand that it is late, but there are obviously some contradictions. Perhaps I will take over from the member for Davenport.

Just to get this right, the member for the Conservative government is saying that we are going to agree to the treaty on banning the use of cluster munitions, but we are not actually going to implement that treaty if it affects any of our military operations anywhere in the world, whether that be with countries that have signed on to this treaty or with countries that have not. That is what I am hearing.

However, I have also been checking on how many countries have had that same interpretation. Countries like Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Portugal, Sweden and others actually agree with this definition. Therefore, why bother? Why are we doing this if we are not going to respect the bill that is being debated?

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where I can go past my previous answer. I include another country, Israel.

There are countries that have not agreed to the ratification of this agreement, and that is a reality. Those countries are our allies. We were struck with a dilemma as we proceeded with this bill, that there would be a possibility there would be times that we would be engaged with another nation that had not ratified that agreement. I have mentioned the United States, which has been used a number of times, but Poland and Turkey are NATO members and Israel is an ally.

There are countries that have not ratified those agreements, so it is necessary. This was something that took some deliberation and kind of a tight balancing act. Along with countries like Australia and the U.K. and to some extent other countries, although maybe not to the extent that Canada has, we feel we have managed to address that very volatile situation.

The other thing we should also remember as members is that as we continue to show our presence and to set out our ideals to the world, it is within our intent, and I think the intent of all the countries that have signed the agreement, to encourage those other countries to also ratify this agreement. This should be something we should all work toward as well.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for the good work he does on the foreign affairs committee.

I would like him to imagine what the Canadian legislation might be like without clause 11, and ask him for a scenario that could exist where a Canadian commander was under close attack with Canadian troops and called in American support in a situation such as we had in Afghanistan and the American pilot dropped a cluster bomb.

If we did not have clause 11, would the Canadian officer be legally responsible? If he had suspected cluster munitions would be used, should he have not allowed those to be used and put his Canadian soldiers at risk? What would the legislation look like if the opposition members had their way? Could member answer those question?

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is correct that were that the case, the officer would be subject to the act as a result of his breaking the law, quite frankly. He absolutely would be held responsible.

It is a prudent thing to do and it is a reality of war. It is a reality of the current situation. We have engaged with the Americans.

There was a question a little earlier where we talked about New Zealand. Yes, New Zealand has perhaps a different twist on this, but the reality of the situation is that it is highly unlikely that New Zealand will participate with the United States or Turkey. We hope this is not the situation. However, these situations may arise and it is prudent for us as a nation to safeguard our men and women should we go into combat or should we go into a theatre with the United States or any country.

We continue to encourage those countries to follow this direction, and it is our hope that these terrible weapons will be eradicated from the world.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know whether the government is prepared to amend this bill in committee to make it the best in the world, or whether the government wants Canada to be seen on the world stage as timid, inadequate and regressive.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is why we are here tonight. That is why we debate these things honestly and openly.

We would consider, if there were an amendment that we could agree on, it as part of the process, and I would certainly invite that as well.

This is the second reading stage of the bill. It needs to go to committee, and usually committee is the place where that is addressed.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but begin by drawing attention to the fact that, yet again, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons rose in the House a few minutes ago and sought unanimous consent to rush through another government bill. Of course, he failed to get unanimous consent, so he served notice that the government intends to bring in time allocation. I would point out that it will be the 46th time that it has happened with the Conservative government, which is a record among all governments.

I want to bring this up because it is 11 o'clock at night, we are sitting until midnight and we are debating legislation that has been sitting around for years. This particular bill that we are debating tonight, Bill S-10, is one such example. It is really quite extraordinary that we have a government that is so contemptuous of democratic practice.

We are here as parliamentarians to uphold democratic practice for our constituents and for all Canadians. That is what we do in this place, we debate legislation. I consider it an affront to all members of Parliament, but particularly the opposition, because our job is to analyze legislation, scrutinize it and hold the government to account. That is the basis of our parliamentary democracy. To see the government time and time again without purpose and rational reason, but for political reasons, rush through legislation and cut off legitimate debate in the House is deeply disturbing.

I just wanted to begin my remarks with that, because it has become so routine that we now come back to the House during the day, interrupting committees and other business, to vote on these time allocations. Even we, ourselves, forget just how sickening it is in terms of what this process is about and how bad it has become. The government now does not even blink an eye. It has just become its modus operandi, its MO, in terms of how it does its business. That is a pretty sad day for Canadian democracy.

The bill before us tonight that is being debated, Bill S-10, deals with the ratification of the treaty on cluster munitions. It is surely a very important bill, as the convention is very important too. Many of my colleagues tonight have given wonderful descriptions and oversight of the importance of this issue and the fact that these cluster munitions are now stockpiled to the amount of something like four billion. That is incredible when we think of the harm that is being done to civilian populations. We do know that 98% of all recorded cluster munitions casualties have been civilians. They are innocent people.

We know that these cluster munitions, or bomblets as they are sometimes called because they are very small, can do tremendous harm, if not killing people, then maiming them for life. We have seen this in many countries. I think there are about 37 countries that have been engaged in actions where cluster munitions have been in effect.

Clearly, this is a humanitarian catastrophe. Canada has historically had a very good record. The Ottawa agreement on banning land mines began in Ottawa. The global momentum came from this country. We have a very honourable record on some of these issues. Canadians have been very proud over the decades to be advocates for nuclear disarmament and for disarmament generally. Certainly, when we look at these inhuman cluster munitions and the damage that they do, we can all recognize that a convention that would ban their operation is critically important to real human security.

We live in such a militarized world. We live in a world where the resolution of conflict often becomes a military resolution. We have seen a global situation where diplomacy often takes a back seat. One thing that really worries us is that we now see a Conservative government in this country that seems to have a mindset that sees military operation as a higher priority. We have seen diplomatic actions and the role that Canada has played historically as something that becomes more minimal in its approach. That is very disturbing.

That is why, when Canada signed this convention in 2008, it was seen as a progressive thing, as a good step, a good step forward.

We know that 111 countries have now signed the convention and 68 have ratified the convention. Once the convention has been signed, it is still up to individual countries to then bring in their own legislation to ratify, which is what we are debating tonight.

Clearly, we would all like to see those remaining countries sign the convention. However, what we are debating here tonight is what Canada's position is, what Canada has done, and what the government is proposing.

The first thing I would do is echo the comments of my colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, who asked the obvious question as to why this legislation has been sitting around for so incredibly long. It was signed in 2008. It did not get tabled in the House of Commons until December 2012. Then it went to the Senate and hung around there some more, yet here we are, jamming it through at the last minute, at 11 o'clock at night with, really, no regular debate.

I think, number one, it becomes very suspect as to what the government's agenda is and the fact that it is not willing to allow this legislation to stand the rigorous test that all legislation must live up to. That is our role, but it is also the government's role.

Therefore, number one, I want to put in the debate that we are very concerned about the timing of this bill and how the government deliberately seemed to allow this bill to lapse for so long and now is now rushing it through when, presumably, not many people are paying attention so late at night. We know that many Canadians are concerned about this issue.

One of my colleagues tonight spoke eloquently about the thousands of young people who have signed petitions in support of the convention and expressed their concern about these cluster munitions. We know that people are very concerned about this issue. They want to see our government do the best it can do—not the minimal, not the lowest common denominator, but the best effort that we can do.

When we examine this legislation and look at what other countries are doing and look at what experts are saying, we come to the conclusion that this bill, Bill S-10, is flawed. It would not live up to the convention. In fact, it would undermine the convention.

We hear what others who have been very involved in this issue have said. For example, the former DFAIT negotiator, Mr. Earl Turcotte, stated, “the proposed Canadian legislation is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the convention, to date.” That is a very a strong statement. That is coming from the former negotiator for Canada on the convention. Surely the government would listen to this kind of expert advice, but apparently it is being ignored.

Then the former Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, stated, “It is a pity the current Canadian government, in relation to cluster munitions, does not provide any real lead to the world. Its approach is timid, inadequate and regressive.” Again, these are very strong and quite astounding words to hear from an ally, a former prime minister of Australia, about this Canadian legislation.

Many of my colleagues tonight have painstakingly gone through the legislation and shown point by point, but particularly in section 11, how this legislation would not meet the standard that needs to be met in order to live up to the substance and the principle of the convention before us.

I would quote one other expert source, and that is Mines Action Canada. It did a comparison between Australian and the U.K. and then looked at current best practices of various aspects of the bill, including New Zealand and Belgium.

It too comes to some analysis that I think should set off the alarm bells for us in terms of what Bill S-10 is all about. It states, “Canada's legislation allows Canadians to be more proactive in their involvement with the use of cluster munitions, which we feel runs counter to the prohibition on assistance. Section 11 seems to go further than any other legislation worldwide in permitting Canadians themselves to use cluster munitions in very specific cases. This is an unacceptable deviation from the spirit and letter of the convention and from Canada's commitment to lessening the humanitarian impact of conflict.”

It further states, “Section 11, paragraph 2, regarding Canadian transport of cluster munitions, has no equivalent in the draft Australian legislation or in the U.K. legislation, again showing how far Canada's legislation has strayed from the spirit of the convention on cluster munitions”.

These are not ambiguous words that the representatives of Mines Action Canada are using. It is not fuzzy. They are stating quite clearly that from their expert analysis the bill is leaving Canada in a very ambiguous position. It would leave our Canadian Forces in a very ambiguous and uncertain position. I do not think that is acceptable.

I am glad that my colleague asked a question just now as to whether the government is willing to look at amendments when this bill goes to committee. It presumably will, because it is under time allocation. The member responded that if we could all agree, there could be an amendment.

However, again we get back to this process issue of a travesty when legislation goes before a committee. The government is hell-bent on getting something through and is not willing to consider amendments that are eminently reasonable and rational and actually seek to improve the legislation. There are hundreds of examples of this happening, although with the bill before us we feel particularly bad because it is based on an international convention, and there is a great history of how these conventions can help with global security.

Surely it is incumbent upon Canadians, through our government, to ensure the legislation we have is the very best it can be, not the worst. It is very disconcerting that according to a number of these experts, Canada is doing the least it can do. Worse than that, it would produce conflict between the convention and the bill, this so-called “ratification”. It is not really a ratification at all, but something that is contrary to the bill.

We will debate Bill S-10 as long as we possibly can. The bill will go to committee, and we will do everything we can at the committee. With due diligence and in good faith, we will try to improve it, and it will come back under time allocation, I have no doubt.

We have to alert Canadians as to the appalling agenda that the Conservative government has, not only in terms of what it does but also in terms of how it does it. It flies in the face of democratic practice.

I hope we will get another opportunity to debate this bill.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

It being 11:14 p.m. pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion, the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to an order made on Wednesday, May 22, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, June 12, at the expiry of the time provided for oral questions.