Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in the House this evening, despite the late hour. I would like to speak to Bill C-6, An Act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
It is important to me to speak to this bill because I have a lot of reservations about its content. I plan to vote against Bill C-6 in its current form because it contradicts and undermines the international treaty it is meant to implement.
Here is some background on the horrific effects that cluster munitions can have on civilians. Essentially cluster munitions are a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapons that release or eject smaller submunitions. The submunitions can be as small as a D size battery or a tennis ball.
The reason why these submunitions have such horrific effects is that their victims tend to be women and children. They tend to be civilians in a war zone or in a war situation. Moreover, unexploded submunitions essentially become landmines that can have devastating impacts on civilians many years after a conflict has ended. We have heard testimony from witnesses in committee about the devastating effects that cluster munitions can have on civilian populations.
Canada has participated actively in what was known as the Oslo process to produce a convention to ban the use of cluster munitions. The Oslo process came on the heels of the successes of the Ottawa treaty to ban landmines.
Despite a strong opposition from the majority of participating states and non-governmental organizations, Canada has succeeded in negotiating into the final text of the convention an article that explicitly allows for continued military interoperability with non-party states. Bill C-6 goes beyond even the interoperability allowance in the convention. The main problems with Bill C-6, as my colleagues before me have mentioned, lie in clause 11, which is the most controversial part of the bill and which establishes an extremely broad list of exceptions.
In its original form, section 11 allowed Canadian soldiers to use, acquire, possess or move cluster munitions when participating in combined military operations involving a state that is not a party to the convention, and to request the use of a cluster munition by another state's armed forces.
I had the pleasure of being a member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, which studied Bill C-6. I am proud to be part of the NDP team and to have worked with our foreign affairs critic, my colleague from Ottawa Centre, in supporting civilian organizations in Canada and abroad and in calling for amendments to the bill.
We talked to civilian organizations and worked with committee members. My colleague from Ottawa Centre worked with the government, hoping he could persuade it to expressly prohibit Canadian soldiers from using cluster munitions. Unfortunately, the bill does not go far enough.
If Bill C-6 is not amended, Canada's commitment to the fight against cluster munitions will be very shallow. In fact, in its current form, this bill is the least restrictive of all bills passed by signatory states thus far.
Why is the bill problematic? It is problematic because it creates a dangerous precedent. In fact, it could even be detrimental to the convention internationally, in that the opt-outs and exceptions it contains could be invoked as precedents by other countries.
The Government of Canada is not taking the lead. Instead it is attempting to undermine international initiatives to ban the use of cluster munitions.
I would like to share some of the comments heard in committee. The witnesses are very critical and very clear on the government's position.
Malcolm Fraser, a former Australian prime minister said:
It is a pity the current Canadian government, in relation to cluster munitions, does not provide any real lead to the world. Its approach is timid, inadequate and regressive.
I must also mention that I have never been so ashamed about the government's position on international commitments as when I went to Durban a few years again when the government withdrew from the Kyoto protocol. That is another example of how the government operates and negotiates. It is acting in bad faith towards the international community.
Unfortunately, that is the Conservative government's way of doing things. Consequently, we have become the laughing stock of the international community.
I would like to read some more testimony into the record, and this comes from Paul Hannon, executive director of Mines Action Canada. He said:
Canada should have the best domestic legislation in the world. We need to make it clear that no Canadian will ever be involved with this weapon again but from our reading this legislation falls well short of those standards.
Earl Turcotte, who is a former senior coordinator for mine action at DFAIT and was also the head of the Canadian delegation to negotiate the convention, said the following:
...the proposed legislation is the worst of any country that has ratified or acceded to the convention, to date. It fails to fulfill Canada's obligations under international humanitarian law; it fails to protect vulnerable civilians in war-ravaged countries around the world; it betrays the trust of sister states who negotiated this treaty in good faith, and it fails Canadians who expect far better from our nation.
The important thing to stress is the issue of trust and the very real issue that the Conservative government is slowly eroding the trust that our international partners have in our ability and our willingness to support things like human rights and climate change negotiations internationally.
The Conservative government has also fallen short in other areas. Just today in the House of Commons during question period I was able to question the Conservative government on the signing of the UN Arms Trade Treaty. The government has refused to join all of our NATO allies in signing the UN Arms Trade Treaty and has loosened restrictions on arms exports.
I believe that Canadians expect better from the Canadian government. Canadians expect the government to play a leadership role and to strengthen the convention rather than propose measures such as Bill C-6 that undermine the principles of the convention.
I would like to repeat that we are opposed to the bill as presented and, although we were able to obtain one amendment during committee that the Conservatives worked together with us to implement, it is an insufficient amendment to allow us to support the bill.
I believe without question that clause 11 needs to be eliminated from the bill in order to obtain my support and in order to obtain the support of my party. The NDP and our critic have proposed to delete the clause from the bill before it passes report stage.
Of course, we all decry the horrific effects of cluster munitions, but when it comes to real action, to strengthening our position on the international stage, and to reinforcing human rights around the world, I would invite all of my colleagues in this House to join with me in calling for clause 11 to be deleted from Bill C-6.