I mentioned that I was happy to see that the government was open to amending the bill. If you go back to the last session of Parliament—this did come from the Senate—it was no surprise to anyone that when it came from the Senate there was the attitude that there were to be no changes at all. That was clear. There were discussions with the minister. The point of view of the government was that we had all the hearings at the Senate and there was no need to change things.
I take the time because we'll probably be finishing things off soon to credit people for getting involved. There were a lot of people who put in a lot of time. These were people who were victims of cluster munitions. The minister himself bore witness to that. Something happened that caused the government to take a look at this. I want to underline what I said before. I welcome that and appreciate it. It doesn't always happen. It happens rarely, if ever. That should be noted.
The importance here is that enough people in this country, and internationally, understood the importance of this treaty. They got involved and decided that they should be active in trying to make this better. That's what we're all trying to do here. The fact that the government has brought forward this amendment is progress. It is suggesting that in the end what we'll have under clause 11 is that it does not prohibit a person who is subject to the code of service discipline under any of paragraph 60, etc., of the National Defence Act from acquiring or possessing a cluster. It takes away the element of use. It's akin to having something in front of you and being told you're not going to use it. I would have liked to have seen stronger language. In the last amendment we tabled, we wanted to be very clear, deliberative, and transparent about that.
If the government was willing to see this happen, I would hope that what we'll get to later is a reporting mechanism. That way, we'll be able to take a look at this in the future to say that maybe there is a possibility of looking at other subsections within section 11. The government obviously saw that there was an opportunity here to change. They did that. There were a lot of people who spent a lot of time trying to convince them to at least be open and we saw that happen. Great. Let's not lose sight of the fact that this is an incredibly important issue. It's about our reputation when it comes to arms control. It will affect other treaties in the future. One day we'll sign the arms trade treaty, I'm certain, and we'll be sitting around here trying to do a good job in implementing it. We'll understand that this is about people trying to make good law. Also, in thanking the government for attempting to change this for the better, I want to underscore the thanks I have for all the people who were involved in fixing the bill. They fixed it because they wanted to see not a political partisan win, but rather, good legislation to honour the treaty. I thank them for their efforts to do that. We'll support the motion. It's in process. Clearly, we can do better. I'll challenge the government to do that in the future.
I'll stop there.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.