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

[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.