Mr. Speaker, I would not say it is a delight, but it is absolutely a privilege to stand and speak to Bill C-6, an act to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions. I want to make it clear right from the beginning that I do not think that any of us in the House actually support the use of cluster munitions. As my colleague just said, many of us are parents and grandparents. As a teacher I have worked for a peaceful world for all children for many years of my life.
I am also one of those fortunate ones who has never actually lived in a place engaged in war, as many of us in this room. Yet today, with technology what happens in war is brought right into our living rooms through television, the Internet, and our social media. Even if we did not see those images, the description of what cluster bombs and land mines can do is etched in our memories.
I am sure many of us in this room were activists to get rid of land mines. Many of us have worked very hard against the use of cluster bombs as well. Someone described it earlier as little D-sized batteries, hundreds and hundreds of them, exploding and the impact of that explosion hitting something like two to five football fields. When we have that image in our minds, especially now that soccer is being played and we can all see the size of the field, we wonder how many children get impacted. It is not just talking about something that happens overseas, it is also about what our soldiers had to face when they went to Afghanistan. They were in situations where there were land mines and cluster bombs.
Having said that, it is with a great deal of reluctance that I am going to be speaking against the motion that is before us. I was very proud of the day that my country, Canada, signed the UN convention. We were not the only ones; 113 countries from around the world signed that convention and 84 countries have ratified it. We signed the convention in 2008 and here we are in 2014 debating this.
Why has it taken this long for the bill to come into the House? It entered the House a few days before the end of this session under time allocation. If any bill should not be forced through time allocation, it should be a bill like this. We should get to have that kind of debate that is necessary and make sure that we end up with legislation that really works well, especially when the legislation is tackling something as fundamental and as serious as cluster bombs. That is what we should be doing.
I am not going to spend too much time talking about time allocation because that is the way the government does business. It does not really want to hear serious debate or a different point of view. It wants to limit that. In my riding there are people who are concerned and they want me to come to the House and represent them and speak for them. I have constituents in Newton—North Delta who care very deeply about the use of cluster munitions. They are absolutely opposed and they would understand why I am standing in the House today in opposition to this piece of legislation.
Our foreign affairs critic, the member for Ottawa Centre does an amazing job at committee. I know that he is very persuasive. He has often persuaded me to look at things differently. I know how hard he works, how knowledgeable he is on this file, and how much he cares about Canada's reputation in the international arena. I also know that we would have to go a long way to find a member of Parliament who is more interested in working on this file in a non-partisan way, in a way that will best serve Canada and best serve us in our international community.
This was an opportunity missed by my colleagues across the way. If they had heard not only his concerns but concerns expressed by others, including some of us, and had actually taken a look at section 11 of this legislation, and if they had removed that, then the government would have had the kind of coverage we have heard that the section is supposed to present.
The agreement already has section 22 in it. The interoperability clause is there. Our member, my esteemed colleague, the foreign affairs critic, the member for Ottawa Centre actually agreed, or offered, to lift the wording from the convention and put it into this legislation word for word, so that it would provide the kind of protection we heard about from our colleagues across the way.
That really was not the intention here. It is only when I listened to him that I began to see why this bill is as flawed as it is today. It may be the process it went through even before it came here. Of course we know that our colleagues across the way do have an allergy to data, science, listening to experts, or anything that might disagree with them. That would mean that they might actually have to change their minds on something. In parliamentary democracy that is supposed to happen. That is the way it works. Otherwise, there would be no need for us to debate. We could all just come in here with our minds already made up, sit, and say that is it. However, that is not how we are set up.
Here we have section 11. I heard the member for Ottawa Centre talking about that particular section and the fact that whenever we go to war we do put all kinds of caveats. We do have all kinds of arrangements that we make as to what we are going to do and what we are not going to do.
Why is it, in this case, that we have that reluctance toward doing that? The member was talking about section 11 and that we have categorically said that Canada will not use cluster bombs. Then we have a section in this bill that says, however, we will direct or ask or lead to. It reminded me of Monty Python. I do not know if members ever watch much British television. Monty Python is extremely funny, but it is also extremely serious. It deals with some horrible issues in a very entertaining way. As the member for Ottawa Centre was going through the bill, I thought that it was beginning to sound like a Monty Python sketch, where we are going to say, “We will not use cluster munitions. We will not, however, we can direct or take direction or give direction for the use thereof.”
Therein lies the problem with this bill. That is why, in good conscience, being a mother, a grandmother, and a teacher, I could not possibly support this. There is an escape hatch in this bill that is miles wide.
We either believe in the use of cluster munitions or we believe in banning them. We cannot have these halfway measures when it comes to something as critical as this. I think about my own grandchildren, and I think, “There, but for the grace of God, go they”. They could have been unfortunate enough to have been born in a war-torn country where, as little kids, they pick up little batteries or what they think are little toys that could explode. We all know how horrific that is. I do not have to paint that picture. I actually do not have the heart to paint that kind of a picture. Why would we want to have an escape hatch that is a mile wide when we know that the interoperability clause in section 22 already gives protection and cover to Canadian soldiers?
I heard a lot about our neighbour, the U.S., how we co-operate with the Americans and we work closely with them, and they are our great ally. All of that is true. However, we do not always agree with everything that our colleagues to the south of us believe in. We just found out recently that we do not agree with them on some pretty major issues, like maybe pipelines. However, on the other hand, when we deal with the Americans, when we have gone into war with them, we have stipulated what our forces are going to do or not going to do. Those are the kinds of agreements that are made because when we decide to go into a place where our soldiers go, we do not say, “Just go and do whatever”. When we are working in partnership, whether with the U.K. or Australia or the U.S.—