Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right to raise the issue of sovereignty. It does raise the question as to who was pulling the strings if the senior negotiator on behalf of Canada resigned or was fired because he did not approve of this clause. It is a worrisome thing.
Mr. Earl Turcotte said, “The proposed Canadian legislation is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the convention, to date”. That is pretty strong language and is pretty clear that something went terribly wrong. We entered into this with great hope and optimism that it would be something of which we could be proud.
Canada's stance at these negotiations is usually on its knees. The great appear great when we are on our knees. There is a saying we have, “Let us rise and stand up on our hind legs and declare ourselves as a sovereign nation in these negotiations and put our foot down and say this is the way we are doing things in this country, take it or leave it. We will work with you, we will trade with you, we will even fight with you, but if you are going to use cluster munitions in this particular field of combat, we are not there”.
That would be a position I could be proud of, and it would meet the nod test of most Canadians.