I agree with what you've said.
Obviously a number of countries want the interoperability and haven't used and won't use these type of munitions. I've expressed that the five people, out of the 80,000 or 90,000-odd members of the Canadian Forces, who might be in some exchange program in which they might be associated, wouldn't drop the bombs themselves.
But given the reason of the criminal power of law.... Let me think of an example in Afghanistan. If Canadian Forces were under attack—maybe they were outside a school where girls were being educated and they came under attack and ordered air support—could they guarantee that the air support that was coming would not have or not use these weapons? If they were ordering that support in and had to seek that clarification, it would be an untenable position to say, “Don't come and give air support unless you can guarantee me that you don't possess these things”. That's why there's an exception.
If someone were refueling a U.S. airplane, for example, or a non-state party's airplane—we did refueling, for example, in Libya—would the person refueling be liable if there were cluster munitions involved? Or would air traffic control be liable, in the case of overflight? Would we have to make sure that there was no overflight over Canada of any U.S. or non-state parties to the convention, or that they wouldn't have these munitions? Transport is part of a logistical chain. Or take intelligence sharing. We do a lot of intelligence sharing, obviously, with the United States and the United Kingdom, as has come out in recent weeks.