Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, members, for inviting us. It's both a pleasure and a privilege for us to speak to you.
I represent Mines Action Canada, a coalition of 40 Canadian NGOs that work on victim-activated weapons. Probably the best known of those would be land mines. We worked very much with parliamentarians and our government on the Ottawa treaty, implementing that treaty, but we also work on other weapons that cause problems to civilian populations. Munitions cluster bombs are one of those.
This week across Canada it's the eighth annual Canadian Landmine Awareness Week. Events commemorate the success and acknowledge the success of the Ottawa treaty, but also recommit Canadians to finishing the job we have begun on land mines.
Today, March 1, as part of that week, is a day of action on cluster bombs--cluster munitions--both here in Ottawa and in other cities across the country. I and my colleagues, Simon Conway and Steve Goose, have just returned from Oslo, where 46 countries, including our own, signed on to a declaration agreeing to come up with a new treaty within two years to prohibit cluster bombs that cause unacceptable harm to civilian populations.
We're happy to report back to you on that and answer any questions you may have, in particular because you passed a very important motion here, and we greatly appreciate that. It was very helpful to our efforts, and I think it's very helpful for Canada. I note that Canada has basically already committed to two of the five things in that motion.
We are, of course, here to see if we can push that forward and get all five of those things implemented, but we will be very happy to answer any questions after our introductory remarks, either to provide you with facts that you may need or to provide our perspective on the road forward and what's needed in terms of the treaty development and in terms of Canada's activities.
You've already introduced our colleagues. I'll introduce each of them in a little more detail as we start and then let them speak for a few minutes to you.
First is Simon Conway. He's from Landmine Action, a British organization that does mine clearance research and advocacy. It's probably the pre-eminent organization in the country. Simon himself is an ex-British soldier and a former de-miner, so he brings quite a broad perspective to this issue. He has been to most of the countries affected by clusters, most recently Lebanon, and his organization last week released a very important study on Kosovo.
I'm going to turn it over to Simon to give you a few words.