Mr. Speaker, I will share my speaking time with the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.
In 1997, Canada distinguished itself on the world stage by hosting the meetings on the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction.
Those important meetings led to the signing of the Ottawa treaty, which made it possible to reduce the number of innocent civilian victims during and after military conflicts. The treaty concerned anti-personnel mines, but there is another threat to which Canada could respond with genuine leadership: cluster munitions.
It is a brilliant invention: deploy a bomb that deploys hundreds of bomblets. Why not just deploy a bigger, more accurate bomb? That is true military genius. The bomblets, which do not explode immediately, cover an area the size of four football fields and are transformed into anti-personnel mines. Some of our soldiers are injured by those mines.
On initial impact, 98% of the victims of cluster munitions are civilians. As the bomblets are very colourful and remain in place for years after the bombing, children are the most common victims following a military conflict.
If Canada has committed to opposing anti-personnel mines, why has it done nothing tangible to combat this inhuman invention? My position on this issue is clear. I am opposed to Bill S-10 and I am going to show how it does nothing to assist in controlling cluster munitions. When I see these bomblets, I think of our children and of my grandchildren, who could be seriously injured or killed by them.
Even more so since the aim of this bill appears to be to facilitate their use.
The 2008 Oslo treaty became the next logical step after the Ottawa treaty since its purpose was to prohibit cluster munitions. Several of the greatest weapons-producing countries, such as China, the United States and Russia, decided not to take part in the Oslo process. Unfortunately, it appears that Canada bowed to American lobbyists to ensure the plan would not be successful.
Unlike the United States, Canada took part in the Oslo process. Rather than refuse to participate, it managed to negotiate the inclusion of an article permitting ongoing military interoperability with states not party to the convention in the final text of the convention. This loophole in article 21 of the convention makes it possible for a signatory country to tolerate the status quo. It goes without saying that the scope of the Oslo process was dramatically reduced.
The idea of an act to implement the convention is an excellent one, but what we have here more closely resembles an insurance policy for the military-industrial complex. Considering that the position the government has adopted is largely modelled on that of the United States, it is fair to ask what has happened to Canada's sovereignty.
What will the Conservatives say? That this is good for the economy? What economy? What will they say to the 50,000 victims of cluster munitions in Laos, who are poor people and mostly civilians?
I also wonder what arguments the Conservatives will offer our soldiers returning from Afghanistan injured as a result of the use of this icon of human technical knowledge.
I thought the Conservatives were tough on crime, but I am disappointed they have chosen to be soft on humanitarian international law, which cluster munitions violate outright.
That law includes the principle of distinction, which requires weapons to be directed at combatants with a certain degree of accuracy. I should point out that 98% of victims in this instance are civilians.
The principle of humanity is also violated by cluster munitions because they cause enormous, long-lasting damage to the natural environment.
In addition, between 5% and 40% of sub-munitions do not explode on initial deployment and are guaranteed to cause losses following a conflict.
Lastly, there are the principles of prohibition of superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering. Following combat, a site infested with cluster munitions causes even more harm to innocent victims, very many of them children who may not even have been born at the time of the conflict.
However, what is the point of reminding people that these weapons are so inhumane, the Conservatives introduced a bill to prohibit them? To put it simply, perhaps the purpose of this bill is not really to prohibit them.
Instead of implementing the convention, Bill S-10 instead affirms that the Conservatives have chosen their camp, the camp of needless slaughter.
Tough on crime? Pro-life? Really?
This is laughable. These are nothing but slogans that fail to conceal the fact that the Conservatives are soft when it really counts. Instead I see a narrow-minded group of people bowing to U.S. demands so they do not have to face their own consciences.
I am not alone in thinking so. The former prime minister of Australia, Malcolm Fraser, said it was a pity the current Canadian government did not provide any real leadership to the world on cluster munitions. He added that its approach was timid, inadequate and regressive.
The Conservatives have long since chosen to act as lackeys to the great powers, and their fawning will eventually deflate their image as tough guys. This applies to climate change and the tar sands, the Canadian economy, which they are shamelessly undermining, and now Canada’s international reputation.
But they will not drag us down when they fall. Canada is big enough and strong enough to show them the door quickly.
People will say I am using a broad brush, but in my opinion, this bill says a great deal about how this government operates with respect to legislation. They do things in a hurry, they are lazy, and they only want to please their friends. Bill S-10 is no small matter, but we have very little time in which to discuss it.
Earl Turcotte, former coordinator of the mine action program at DFAIT, led the Canadian delegation that negotiated the convention. He resigned when the government tried to impose a weak enabling act, saying that the proposed law was the worst of all the laws passed by countries that had so far ratified or signed the Convention. The worst! Not the second-worst, the best of the not bad, or the fourteenth, but the worst.
With that, I believe I have nothing more to add, except that the disproportionate zeal this government puts into the funding or promotion of its party might better be put into a healthy approach to legislation. Laws require time and study, and their objectives should be to help people. It is not enough to spend a few hours discussing such an important bill. Above all, it should not be said that this is to protect children.
These are all targets that Bill S-10 fails to hit, because this is a law that is as disastrous as a cluster munition.
I hope the members opposite understand that there will be collateral damage.