moved that Bill C-22, an act to implement the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their destruction, be read the second time and, by unanimous consent, referred to committee of the whole.
Madam Speaker, I am very happy this morning to join with members of Parliament in commenting on the second reading of a law which would put in place the convention banning the use of anti-personnel land mines.
First of all, I wish to thank all members of the House for co-operating in the speedy passage of this bill. I would like to emphasize that all political parties are prepared to work together to pass this bill today.
This, to me, says much about the Parliament of Canada. Each day, our views on taxes, the environment, the Constitution and so forth may differ widely, but when it comes to debating a bill to save children and help innocent victims, we can work together. This is an important message to Canadians and an appeal to parliamentarians the world over to move swiftly to eliminate anti-personnel mines.
The debate today is a very important one, as we understand it, that unites all parties and through uniting all parties brings the country together in a very important statement to people around the world that we are prepared to take action which will work quite literally, without exception, save the lives of thousands of people on an annual basis.
Over the last several years members on both sides have expressed themselves very eloquently and very forcefully on the matter. I see in the Chamber today a number of members who have personally taken on the cause and have worked actively to pursue it.
It is important that we act together as a parliament to demonstrate that we are in a good position when countries come to Ottawa next week to sign the treaty. The Prime Minister can be the first to turn over to the UN secretary general a ratification and begin the second part of the process. It will not just be the signature but the actual ratification. Within a matter of a few short months a basic minimum of 40 countries will have ratified the treaty, at which point it will become a binding international law requiring signatory countries to live up to its conditions.
This movement has an interesting history. It began with the enormous expression of will among thousands of individuals around the world. It is a prime example of the new face and fact of international politics. It is no longer just governments that make decisions. It is what I have called the global commons, the new democracy of the international arena where NGOs, civil organizations and individuals are united together through the power of the new systems of telecommunications and information banded together over the years to draw to the attention of governments what a scourge this weapon is and how malicious it is in its application.
I have seen nothing in my personal experience that more aptly demonstrates the evil that works in the minds of men than what I saw in Lebanon a week ago. I visited young children in a hospital in southern Lebanon who had been maimed and handicapped by mines that were shaped in the form of toys. The mines were not designed for military purposes but clearly to entice young children to pick them up. The mere heat of their hands would detonate them and they would lose a limb such as an arm.
We are in a position today to take a stand against that kind of human malevolence. We called together for a meeting 13 months ago in Ottawa like-minded countries and NGOs to see what we could do to take advantage of the mobilization of public opinion around the world and to take advantage of the extraordinary effort of NGOs.
It became clear the conventional pathways would not work. The normal corridors of disarmament discussion were becoming cul-de-sacs. They were closed off to any meaningful approval. At that point we challenged the countries of the world to come to Ottawa a year later to sign a treaty. In the first instance, if one had gauged the reaction, it was more scepticism and sometimes outright scoffing that any such thing could happen. It was just not the way things were done.
The proof is that next week we expect over 100 countries to be in Ottawa to sign the treaty. It shows a new sense of public participation in developing significant initiative in the international arena. It is now one of the most powerful, important and significant developments of our time.
It is a great commentary and tribute to members of Parliament and their work in various parliamentary associations around the world. I recall resolutions being passed by groups like the IPU, the NATO assembly, and others. Members have also played their own part in mobilizing that effort. In some cases the onus has clearly moved on to parliamentary systems around the world. It is now clearly within parliaments that ratification must take place.
It is important to point out that what was dubbed the Ottawa process is not simply a signature on a piece of paper. It is not simply the fact of the treaty. It is the fact that countries will be coming here not only to indicate their adherence to the new convention but to become actively involved in discussing how we can make it work. What we can now call the Ottawa process II is designed to bring countries together, to mobilize resources for de-mining and to use the effort that went into placing mines to now removing them.
There are 110 million land mines around the world, 600 to 800 casualties a month, and 80% of the victims are civilian, children and other innocents.
Again, if I can just use a personal moment of when I was in the Golan Heights last week. Our own peacekeepers, Canadians, along with Austrians and Japanese were required to undertake their duties in an unmarked area land mass so that each step was a potential disaster.
Only about a week before I arrived, a young Austrian soldier lost his leg. Here was a prime example of how the weapons themselves are not just a threat to fire up lands but in fact pose a danger to our own Canadian peacekeepers around the world.
This is why our own army and our armed forces have taken such an active role in places like Cambodia and Bosnia to try to eliminate the land mines.
I think members of the foreign affairs committee who have just returned from Bosnia can speak for the fact themselves that that country, as real as it is with land mines, its ability to redevelop, to recreate some economic life and substance is substantially hindered because of the threat and fear that the next step may be one's last. Who will go and plant a new crop when the plough may hit a land mine and end forever the life or certainly maim the individual?
The two purposes of the Ottawa meeting are to bring countries to sign the treaty and also to mobilize money, skill, commitment and engagement so that around the world they can engage in the massive test of taking mines out of the ground, of helping to rehabilitate the victims, not just to replace their limbs but also to help them restore a healthier view of life.
Nothing can be more traumatic for a young child who has been maimed by a land mine, to restore a sense of some confidence that the world is still a humane place and that the adult world still believes in them, and also to help the countries which have been marred and scarred by land mines to begin the slow process of redevelopment. That will not happen overnight.
That will take years but we can use the meetings in Ottawa next week to be the catalyst, to start that process and to begin to engage the commitment and the resources of countries around the world to begin the massive task of taking out land mines.
Some have said, and there are always comments and critics, that the land mine treaty does not include some of the big players, the United States, China, India, but it is important to note that it is already having its impact.
China has declared a moratorium on exports as has the United States. The Prime Minister, in his talks with President Yeltsin in Russia, confirmed that they would continue to provide a moratorium and may be prepared to come to sign.
It is interesting that even countries that are still in some ways in a state of conflict, Syria and Israel, have committed to come to the conference itself to begin exploring how they can become part of the broad movement to eliminate the world from land mines.
I am not expecting miracles. I do not expect conversions on the road to Damascus, but they will be here. They will be part of the conversation. They will be part of the discussions.
Again, I would encourage colleagues in the House who will have opportunities to meet with these delegates and talk to them, to begin to look and to explore how we can work together with many of these countries to undertake projects in which we can help de-mine the Golan Heights or to eliminate the sources of conflict in Cyprus or wherever the case may be, where the mines themselves have become part of the problem.
It is also true to say that a lot of work will have to be done in the area of developing more effective technologies to get rid of land mines. Nothing is more primitive to me than watching a de-mining activity where trained people are literally out on the fields with a steel rod probing the ground in the hope that that prod will not hit the trigger and detonate the mine and then have to go through the painstaking exercise of slowly clearing the mines.
I do believe that there is, in the sense of our own technical excellence in countries around the world, the capacity and the will to develop new needs by which we can begin to eliminate these mines and to begin to help the countries affected by them.
I will give one example that struck me as absolutely astounding. I think it is probably a well known fact that there is a new book out called Aftermath that talks about the consequences of war and what happens to it.
France, one of the most sophisticated, civilized countries in the world, 75 years after the first world war, is still engaged in an active campaign of de-mining 16 million hectares of some of the most fertile land in France that is still polluted by the munitions left over after the first world war.
Lives are lost every year in de-mining activities 75 years later. Think of what it must mean if that is the problem that France has. What does it mean in Angola or Cambodia or Nicaragua where there are not nearly the resources or the capacity to make that kind of effort? We have an opportunity at the meetings that will take place in Ottawa next week to remind countries that a treaty is really the first step. The next step is to make the treaty come to life, to give it meaning, to give it the tools and the resources needed to make it work.
The bill before members today is a way of ensuring that under the laws of Canada we are in a position to fully implement the treaty. Bill C-22 does several important things.
First, it bans the production, use, storage and transfer of anti-personnel mines in Canada. It requires the destruction of all anti-personnel mines, except for training purposes. It outlines provisions for the verification measures that the convention provides to ensure compliance with the provisions of the convention.
Bill C-22 also criminalizes in Canadian law activities prohibited under the convention. We have appended a text of the convention to the bill. It demonstrates the integral relationship between Bill C-22 and the treaty that we are sponsoring next week in Ottawa.
The legislation proposed was prepared in a short timeframe. In reviewing it further we thought it important to address some charter concerns. In this context, we will be introducing an amendment to subsection 11.2 which provides charter safeguards to persons who are requested to provide information to the government concerning the acquisition or possession of land mines.
In this respect, the bill addresses potential charter concerns where appropriate warrants must be secured if fact finding missions wish to gain access to private facilities or residences. That way, once again we can use the protection of our courts as prescribed under our Criminal Code to ensure that there will be no abuse under the human rights provision.
The bill and the convention differ slightly in some respects. The definition of mine and anti-personnel mine have been altered to make it more precise under Canadian law, not in any way to weaken it, but in fact to strengthen it so that any interpretation by the courts would be more clear and more effective. In fact, these definitions are even stronger than those that are contained in the convention itself.
The bill also includes provisions exempting properly de-activated mines that might used, for example, museum displays or kept as souvenirs. It also exempts Canadian force members or peace officers, or appropriate officials who may need to temporarily possess anti-personnel mines in the context of their duties, for example, when delivering them for destruction.
At home the legislation gives us the legal basis for ensuring that Canada can remain mine free for all time. By legislating this bill into law, we formalize our commitment to stay out of the anti-personnel mine business forever. It means that we can send a message to all other countries of the same kind. We can set a real example by being the first to ratify. This will speed the process of getting the other 39 countries that are needed to bring the convention into binding force.
The clock can start counting down today as we pass the bill which sets a measure and standard for all other countries to follow.
The process can begin here in this Chamber. I do not use the words lightly, but I do think this is a defining moment for this country, for the House of Commons and for the Parliament of Canada that we can once again take a major step of leadership. We have an opportunity to demonstrate our dedication to peace and to the elimination of suffering and to the welfare of children in mine affected countries.
I call on all members of the House to join me in supporting Bill C-22, as they have in the past, as all members of Parliament of all parties have given their co-operation, involvement and in many cases their passion and engagement.
It is interesting that the most effective and eloquent way of explaining the purpose and what we are doing comes not from long experienced parliamentarians, but oftentimes from the mouths of children. In Toronto on Thursday I participated in a UNICEF event where a number of young children from Ancaster school had come together to launch a new videotape that is being sent to schools across Canada and, in fact, to schools in Cambodia to talk about the problems of land mines.
These young grade four students of their own volition undertook to write their own treaty. I thought a fitting end to my opening speech would be just to recount to the members of the treaty what they had to say as they presented this treaty to me. This is a bill of rights for children who live in countries where there are land mines. These are the words they used:
children have the right to know what land mines look like, and to learn about them
children have the right to know where land mines are located
children have the right to be in a land mine free area
children have the right not to be teased when they are hurt by land mines
children have the right to have the best possible medical treatment at no cost to the family
children have the right to be supervised
children have the right to have fun and respect, even when they are hurt
children have the right to play and not get hurt
c. Children have the right to go to school, even if they are hurt
The children of Ancaster asked me to bring this children's treaty on land mines to the House of Commons to share it with my colleagues. It demonstrates that this generation believes that Canada can make a difference.
I recommend Bill C-22 to members of the House. I ask members to make speedy passage possible and to say to the rest of the world that Canada will continue to take the lead to ensure that the world is land mine free for the children who wrote this treaty and who speak for children around the world.