Mr. Speaker, I guess we have been on both sides of this equation, as far as being able to work with the opposition, because at committee, we were able to work together. There were primarily two issues that came into focus. One was the interoperability agreement, and the other was a concern about the word “use” in the bill. We were able to reach agreement on the amendment to the word “use”. I see that my colleague from Ottawa Centre from the foreign affairs committee is here tonight. He was one of those people we worked with. He gave his support to the motion and gave credit to the international effort to fix the bill and to the co-operation we had at committee.
On the side of usage, we were able to work together. We had no intention of having Canadian troops ever use these munitions anyway.
On the other side, on the interoperability agreement, we have a basic agreement with the NDP. In this situation, to have the convention ratified, the clause was put in the convention. In order for our bill to go forward, clause 11 will be part of the bill, because we understand that there needs to be a balance between the humanitarian effort to rid this planet of cluster munitions, and on the other hand, the opportunity to protect our soldiers as they go about doing their jobs to protect us.