I appreciate the evidence provided by our witnesses. I beg to differ slightly. The issue, I think, is that the bill needs to prohibit soldiers—we heard that from General Natynczyk—by the rules that bind the state parties.
We have to be clear and concise about what the rules of engagement are, or in this case non-engagement. If we don't have that explicitly in the legislation that enacts the treaty, I think it's problematic. We're about to adopt a motion from the government on the use. I find that interesting. We're going to amend part of clause 11 on the use, not all of it, but when it comes to article 21, maybe the experts are going to be not in favour of what we're about to adopt when we take out (c) of 11. I don't know. The fact is that the bill needs to prohibit soldiers from doing exactly what the convention prohibits state parties from doing. That's essentially what our amendment would do.
I listened deeply to our experts on the challenge they have, and I appreciate that. We've talked about this since we've been going through the debate on this particular bill. But I would also want to add one other aspect. When we are doing these arrangements with our allies, it's no surprise that we have caveats, as the general said. Caveats include what treaties we've signed onto and legislation we have implemented.
This is possible to do, Chair. Other countries have done it. I would suggest this is separate from or adjacent to—as my dad might have said—the debate we're having here, because we're asking certain people to look at it in a certain way.
At the end of the day, as parliamentarians, we are the ones who decide what happens. I would argue that, if this is a concern we have in terms of being explicit in understanding and trying to cover off all aspects of what we're hearing from our experts, it is up to us to guide and to lead what kind of arrangements we have with our allies in interoperability.
Caveats happen all the time. Being explicit about it is absolutely critical. And yes, applying it to our domestic law is important. But when you have the provisions in legislation that clearly identify what was in the treaty, and you also have directives—as we already heard is going to happen—about non-use, those same directives can happen in applying a treaty to our interoperability.
I want to put that on the table, and I respectfully submit that we all have different hats to wear. We've asked our witnesses to provide their expertise. But at the end of the day, we're the ones who decide how this treaty is going to be implemented. I think it's important to understand that we can also be explicit when we're working with our allies in the field—interoperability training, or even when it's in hot conflict. I want to put that on the record, because I know where this amendment's going, and not just say that, no, we can't do it, because clearly we can and clearly this treaty was negotiated with that in mind. This amendment would simply bring that into force through legislation.
Thank you, Chair.