Mr. Speaker, I must say that this is one of the more interesting debates that we have had in this House in a while. I do not doubt the sincerity of the government side in what they are saying, in spite of the heckling that goes on from time to time.
However, the fact remains, that as the official opposition, people bring concerns to us they may not want to share with any particular government. The concerns that we have raised from the various stakeholders and people of interest out there bring us to a place where we are in conflict with the view of the government side.
We believe that Bill C-6, in its current form, would contradict or, worse, undermine the international treaty it is supposed to implement.
During the committee review of the bill, NDP committee members attempted to amend the bill, but the Conservative members only allowed one very small change. I have to say that those amendments we put forward were in response to some experts and other folks who had brought their concerns to us.
Sadly, Bill C-6 is seen, internationally, as the weakest and worst legislation on this matter in the world. That is not the NDP saying that. That is other people who have come to us with that. In fact, it is broadly believed it would undermine the very spirit of the treaty it is supposed to implement.
I am not saying that is something deliberate on the part of the government. We are saying that, for whatever reason, it has reached the point with this bill where it needs more work. We are prepared to do that, in spite of the fact that the NDP has worked successfully alongside Canadian and international civil society groups to try to persuade the government to totally prohibit the use of munitions by Canadian soldiers in any manner. I understand that there was testimony from military folks asking for this to happen, but we are saying, as legislators, we have a responsibility to respond, perhaps in a different way.
Sadly, we believe that there are many dangerous and unnecessary loopholes in the bill, and I will get to those a little further on.
We hope that the government will understand from this debate tonight that it is important to further amend Bill C-6 to ensure Canada's humanitarian reputation is not tarnished by this piece of weak legislation.
We have heard people in here talk about the damage done because cluster munitions can release hundreds of explosives over a very large area, in a short period of time. Again, speaker after speaker has spoken about the impact of the devastation on civilians, in particular, that lasts many years after the conflict. We are all aware of that, and so is the government side.
Think for a moment back. For many decades following the Second World War, countries were clearing bombs, primitive by today's standards, of course, and from time to time some would explode. Many people, particularly, in the early 1950s, were injured and some killed by them.
To its credit, Canada, in another time, participated actively in what was known as the Oslo process to produce a convention to ban these cluster munitions. That process came on the heels of the success of the Ottawa treaty to ban land mines.
Sadly, as we have heard in this debate today, the U.S., China, and Russia chose not to participate in that process and, again, they continue to stockpile these munitions to this day.
Very concerning to the NDP is the fact that, over the very serious concern expressed by a majority of participating states and non-governmental organizations, the Canadian government succeeded in negotiating into the final text of the convention article 21, which explicitly allows for the continued military interoperability with non-party states, people who are not signatories to the agreement.
The NDP has very serious concerns because Bill C-6 would even go beyond the interoperability allowance of article 21.
I would offer that the main problem with the bill lies, in fact, with clause 11, which would establish an extremely broad list of exceptions.
Sadly, in its original form, this clause permitted Canadian soldiers to use, acquire, possess, and/or transport cluster munitions whenever they were acting in conjunction with another country that is not a member of the convention, and to request the use of cluster munitions by another country.
To my mind, that is using other countries as a blind to hide behind, to allow our forces to use these munitions, when Canadians clearly do not want them under any circumstances.
At the foreign affairs committee, in response, the NDP worked closely with the government, not only in public session but also through direct dialogue, to work to try to improve Bill C-6 before it became law.
I am pleased to say we were successful at committee in persuading the government to formally prohibit the use of cluster munitions by Canadian soldiers. The member for Carleton—Mississippi Mills made that point during the debate here tonight. I was pleased to see that. He is an individual with great experience in our military, and it is worthy to take his advice.
Having said this, other serious loopholes remain, and as a result, the NDP believes that without further amendments to fix these loopholes, Canada's commitment to ending the use of cluster munitions will appear at best to be superficial.
I would suggest that, even worse, Bill C-6 may well damage this convention, as it may lead to other international precedents or one that other nations would use to justify themselves opting out or seeking further exemptions.
Let us imagine, as a result of Bill C-6's exemptions, that Canada's legislation could be viewed as the weakest and the worst of all countries that have ratified the convention to date.
Overall, I would suggest the government's approach to the cluster munitions convention further demonstrates an overall pattern of weakness on arms control. I am sure that will be debated, but that is the view from this side.
We often hear the government side in the House touting NATO, but now the Conservatives have refused to join all of our NATO allies in signing the UN Arms Trade Treaty, except the United States, and worse, loosening restrictions on arms exports. That puts us in a very questionable position on the world stage.
I want to be clear. New Democrats fully support the creation of a treaty to ban cluster munitions. However, this bill would undermine the convention, rather than just implementing it.
We oppose the bill as presented at committee stage. Again I repeat, we worked hard, and that is everybody's job in this place, as I see it, to try to make legislation better. We have civil society groups, and I know there are some, not all, on the government who frown on civil society groups, but I know from experience that those are groups of people who work hard to keep all of us accountable in this place.
Although the one amendment the Conservatives allowed is an improvement, it certainly is insufficient for the NDP to come to a point where we could support this bill.
At this point, the NDP believes the best option would be to remove the problematic clause 11, so the NDP is proposing to delete this section from the bill before it passes report stage.
There are some statistics and facts around this: 113 countries signed the convention and 84 have ratified it. We signed it on December 3, 2008. It was tabled in the House of Commons on December 15, 2012. That was a significant gap in time.
A very striking statistic I think we all should consider is that 98% of the victims of the use of cluster munitions are civilians. Let us think about that for a moment. I understand that the people here are not cold-hearted. I understand there is some belief in the necessity of having weapons of this nature or at least in working side by side with countries that have them.
However, I would ask the members on the government side to consider for a moment that 98% of the victims are civilians. How many are women and children and non-combatants?
With that, I will end my comments.