Madam Speaker, when Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, decided to establish the prizes that would make his name a household word, he said that the main dividends of his invention should be used to promote peace in the world.
In 1997, the dividends went to the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines and its co-ordinator, Jody Williams, in recognition of more than six years of intense efforts by more than a thousand non-governmental organizations in over 60 countries. Thanks to this campaign, described by the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, as the most important and effective exercise in civilian society since World War II, several countries banned the export of anti-personnel mines, destroyed or began to destroy their stocks of mines, banned or halted their use, or announced that they were ceasing production of them.
These efforts by civilian society, which thus forced all governments the world over to react to the scourge of anti-personnel mines, would probably never have resulted in the convention to ban these mines, but for the initiative and determination of Canada's current Minister of Foreign Affairs.
By bringing together representatives of governments, international organizations and NGOs in the federal capital in October 1996, and by initiating the Ottawa process, the minister assumed a leadership role that will culminate in the signing, on December 3 and 4, of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction.
The Ottawa process was marked not only by unprecedented co-operation on the part of government and non-government actors in the international community, but particularly by its speed of execution.
Whether in Vienna, Bonn or Brussels, these numerous players always kept in mind the deadline proposed by the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, in October 1996. Less than a year after the challenge issued by the minister, on September 18, in Oslo, they approved the text of a convention to totally prohibit anti-personnel mines. Bill C-22 seeks to implement this convention, and the House is being asked to give speedy approval to it today, both at second and third readings.
I am pleased to say that the Bloc Quebecois will support Bill C-22, subject to a number of amendments being considered, so as to improve this implementing legislation. Support for the bill is first and foremost support for a convention to work together to maintain international peace and security, as stated in the preamble to the UN charter, to which Canada is a signatory, and which a sovereign Quebec will fully support when it joins the other nations of the world.
It is an instrument which primarily seeks to eliminate deadly weapons, namely anti-personnel mines, by prohibiting their use, stockpiling, production, conservation and transfer. Hopefully, the general obligations assumed by the states will put an end to the use of anti-personnel mines, which is still a serious problem, given that for every mine removed, 20 new ones are installed.
This convention will contribute to the destruction of the 110 million mines distributed throughout more than 70 countries in the world, which mutilate in excess of 25,000 people yearly, 80% of them civilians. Anti-personnel mines claim 70 new victims every day, or one person every 20 minutes. During the time I am speaking here today, one more person will be killed, or if lucky only maimed by this little instrument of death. This victim is likely to be a child, probably a child in Afghanistan, Cambodia or Somalia, since many of the deaths and injuries caused by land mines in those countries involve children.
This convention will also encourage the destruction of anti-personnel mines in mined areas and will oblige signatory states to ensure that mines are destroyed within ten years of the effective date of the convention, at the very latest. These will be onerous obligations, very much so, for states such as Bosnia-Hercegovina, which alone has more than one million mines hidden in its territory as I learned during a recent parliamentary mission. But they will also be onerous for developing countries such as Angola, Croatia, Eritrea, Iraq, Mozambique, the Sudan and Vietnam.
Farm lands remain unworked and large grazing areas unused, and will remain so as long as the land remains riddled with anti-personnel mines and burden these countries with deaths and injuries, and the costs related to victim assistance.
In this connection, the convention rightly promises international co-operation and assistance, without which the objectives of the convention cannot be met. The convention gives each state party the right to seek and to obtain assistance from other signatory states, if possible and insofar as possible. The state parties that are in a position to do so commit, moreover, to provide assistance for the care of mine victims, as well as assistance in mine removal.
In article 9 of the convention, the state parties also commit to “all appropriate legal, administrative and other measures, including the imposition of penal sanctions, to prevent and suppress any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention undertaken by persons or on territory under its jurisdiction or control”.
Bill C-22 seems to be the primary legislative means of assuming this obligation, and seeks to give legal effect in Canada to the Convention as a whole.
I have examined the text of Bill C-22 closely and it seems to me to contain the necessary provisions for performance in good faith of the anti-personnel mines convention, as required by the pacta sunt servanda rule set out in article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. There are, however, certain amendments that could improve this implementing legislation and I will have an opportunity shortly, in committee at report stage, to present and explain the amendments the Bloc Quebecois would like to see made to Bill C-22.
As with other foreign affairs issues, the Bloc Quebecois is motivated by the values and convictions common to the government party and to other parties in the House. In this instance, the values of international peace and security are involved, as are the values associated with promoting and protecting rights and freedoms, particularly the most basic right, the right to life.
That is why the Bloc Quebecois is prepared to support Bill C-22 and the convention it is intended to implement, as they are both the reflection of such values. In a few moments, the Bloc Quebecois will submit to the House suggested amendments to improve the bill and to make more democratic the process by which possible amendments to it would be passed in future.
The passage of Bill C-22 by the House of Commons, its subsequent approval by the Senate, and assent will enable the Government of Canada to complete phase 1 of the Ottawa process. And although phase 1 of the process will have been effective, phase 2, which will focus on international assistance and co-operation, must succeed if we want to see the objectives of the anti-personnel mines convention achieved. Other measures will have to be implemented, and the Bloc Quebecois will continue to support those that will help attain the convention's objectives.
In another moment of insight, and wisdom it should be added, the Swede Alfred Nobel said, and I quote:
<“My factories may make an end of war sooner than your congresses. The day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops”.
Parliaments the world over must go on repeating the wishes expressed by Alfred Nobel. They must join forces with civilian society and international organizations in promoting peace and protecting humankind from the scourge of war so that humanity can triumph.
