Mr. Speaker, I want to start across party lines by saying how indebted I think all of us in this House should be for the consistent dedication and commitment from the member for Ottawa Centre, who is such a champion on these issues. I look to him for leadership on these issues, across green to orange, and I make no bones about that. We all should be in his debt. I am.
The member has really cast the light for me to understand what went wrong here. I have been struggling to understand how the bill could be this bad when I believe the intentions are actually good. This goes to what the member just explained, which I had not heard before, that the course of the bill started in the wrong place. Instead of going to the Department of Foreign Affairs, it went to the Department of National Defence. That is why we have legislation before us that falls so far short of what Canadians would want of our government to end the scourge of cluster munitions.
I thank the member for that explanation. I would ask him to expand on it.