As per the agenda, I would like to move amendment CPC-4.2.
I'd also ask for a little grace from the committee, as well as from the chair, in that CPC-4.2 is a cleanup provision and relates to several other amendments. In order to discuss that, I have to discuss some later amendments, if that is okay with the committee.
Concerns were raised by members of the government and officials that perhaps the scope of the original language of the bill would be too broad and could have some unintended consequences.
The process that we have taken is to use language that is similar to language that was used in the Netherlands parliament to reduce the scope, thus protecting people who may have inadvertently invested in these stocks or mutual funds, as the case may be. Amendment CPC-4.3 contains that provision.
This provision protects individuals who have bought stocks or mutual funds that may have inadvertently or accidentally invested in a company that engaged in cluster munitions. Obviously they are not the target of this legislation, and we want to make sure those people are protected.
I will tell you, just as a bit of background, that right now in Canadian law, those people would actually be held accountable. They are actually technically offside if there is a mutual fund holder. This is actually a relieving provision compared to where we are right now.
Fortunately, the government in its wisdom has not been going after those people, but this actually protects those people in law as opposed to just under an administrative policy.
We propose—and I believe I have agreement from the NDP and the Bloc—to do three things. The first is to vote for amendment CPC-4.2, which is a cleanup provision, just changing the language to reflect what needs to be put in place for CPC-4.3 to be passed, and voting down G-4.
Amendment G-4 is a Liberal amendment. We strongly believe, in consultation with stakeholders and NGOs such as Mines Action Canada, that the bar here is set far too high from a legal perspective.
Amendment G-4 says that an individual will be held accountable if they “knowingly provide”—which, of course means mens rea in legal language, or you believe it would happen—“financial assistance for the purpose of enhancing the ability...to commit [an] act”.
That is a very high bar to hit. I think any prosecutor would have an extremely difficult time achieving a conviction based on saying, “You had to know that this money was going to cluster munitions. In addition, you had to not only know that the money was going to a company that would produce cluster munitions but know specifically that those dollars could be traced back to the construction, manufacture and sale of cluster munitions,” which would be nearly impossible to hit.
We would prefer to go back to the original language. That's why we'll be voting that down.
To sum up, we'll be voting for the cleanup provision, voting against amendment G-4 because it's basically a gutting provision that will render the legislation without purpose, and then voting to respond to the government's concern that it might be overly broad, to protect Grandma who has invested in a mutual fund that inadvertently invested in the manufacture of cluster munitions.
We will also be responding in an act of good faith to the government and reducing the maximum threshold from 5% to 2%. We believe that will limit the scope of this provision and therefore prevent us from, as staff have mentioned, perhaps looking like an outlier in that we are allowing any manufacturer of cluster munitions to be financed by a Canadian company.
I hope those three provisions are somewhat clear. That's where we stand.
We've had a lengthy discussion on this issue, so I would prefer to go to a vote on one after the other, with the proviso that we need to subamend CPC-4.3 to bring the threshold down from 5% to 2%.