NATO. I thank my colleague from Burnaby.
It does not matter. We ourselves, as a sovereign nation, write down the parameters, the caveats, the restrictions, and then we decide to expand them.
For me it is not good enough to say, “Because the U.S. has not signed this particular convention, therefore the legislation we are going to introduce right now has to have an escape hatch a mile wide”. That is just not going to sit right with me, nor with many Canadians who are looking to us to set an example. Let me just say that we are not the only ones, sitting across this House or at the committee, who realize that the government has signed a convention and that weakens that convention, that signature on that piece of paper, through this legislation. I know my colleagues get very upset whenever there is some thought that somehow Canada's international standing might have suffered slightly over the last few years. I would say that we have been smacked a few times recently by the international community.
We had the rapporteur on first nations who came in and wrote a pretty damning report. Our reaction to it was to attack him instead of looking at the real plight of many of our first nations communities. The ILO has looked at some of our approaches to labour issues and it has not had many kind words to say about us either. We no longer have a seat on the Security Council. I have had the pleasure, when I was in my other file, of talking to many international diplomats in Ottawa who were saying how our international standing had been damaged.
We have gone from being the peacekeeper and a country that played a critical role in bringing different people together to build a consensus to a country that signs a convention and then, through this House with a majority, looks at weakening what it signed.
Here is a quote from the former Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Fraser:
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.
That hurts. It hurts me when I hear the term “regressive” being used to describe Canada in the international community. I can remember the days when I taught social studies and history 12 . I would talk with great pride about the role Canada plays on the international stage, and when we get things like this, it does begin to disturb us.
Here is a quote 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.
Let me explain again what we are saying in this legislation.
By the way, we do not have difficulty with this legislation. It is only clause 11, and if that section had been removed, we would not be here debating this bill tonight. It could have been passed and gone on to other stages. However, the reason we are here tonight is that we have a huge contradiction. We are saying that Canadian soldiers and Canada would not use cluster munitions. On the other hand, we are saying that if we are working with another country, we may direct their use. I cannot fathom how that is adequate. For me, as I said, this is where we enter the land of Monty Python.
My colleague earlier also talked about the Red Cross. Those of us who know the workings of the Red Cross know that it very rarely gets involved in political debate. Its work is more of advocacy and delivering services on the ground. However, in this case it was almost forced to get involved, because it sees first-hand the real impact of these cluster munitions. The Red Cross is on the front line.
The Red Cross said that clause 11:
...could permit activities that undermine the object and purpose of the convention and ultimately contribute to the continued use of cluster munitions rather than bringing about their elimination.
That is a pretty damning comment from a group that does not really get involved in politics.
Let me get back to saying what we would really like to see. Of course we want to have the strongest legislation possible to ban cluster munitions, but this particular bill is not it. I would urge my colleagues to take it back and accept amendments, which they have not done so far. Let us make sure that this bill would do what we want it to.
At this point, the bill is really problematic. As long as it has clause 11, it is impossible for us to support this bill, because with that little piece in there, this bill would not actually ban the use of cluster munitions 100%. We either do or we do not. There is no halfway.