Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan for her speech.
I cannot help but react to the question from the member for Palliser because of the parallel that is drawn, for instance, with the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction. Article 1 is very clear. It states that each state party to the convention must never use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone anti-personnel mines. This does not prevent the convention from allowing the retention of a small number of anti-personnel mines for training in mine detection, clearance and destruction.
Canada is a signatory to this convention. This bill to ban the use of cluster munitions creates some enormous loopholes that contradict the other commitment we made to ban anti-personnel mines, which has not caused problems with our allies, including the United States.
I would like my colleague to comment further on this precedent, which shows the direction we should have taken with Bill C-6. We should even have gone further in order to ensure that cluster munitions are banned.