Mr. Speaker, I thank all of my colleagues for being here tonight to debate a very important bill. I am honoured to speak to Bill C-6 because it is closely tied to our Canadian identity and to Canada's involvement in the community of nations. In addition, the bill deals with a serious moral issue.
It is crucial for us to carefully study this bill so that we can understand the extent of our commitment as we consider passing or abandoning a bill that will create so many exceptions that, in the end, the Convention on Cluster Munitions that Canada has signed but not yet ratified will be devoid of all substance. The convention has already been undermined by the position taken by Canada, which was looking to remove all substance.
I am 47 years old. The Prime Minister has kept the promise he made to his voter base and his core supporters to profoundly change Canada. He is doing just that.
Bill C-6 is a perfect example of the profound changes that are being made to our country, transforming it to such an extent that I no longer recognize the Canada of my childhood, 25 or 30 years ago. The Canada I was proud of is increasingly becoming an illusion and a cause of embarrassment and even shame for many of our citizens. This is a very serious problem.
Canada has long been a leader and innovator. It still has quite a strong reputation around the world as a country that has promoted, defended and put in place a series of measures and actively supported and guided all the nations of this world in affirming, defending and protecting human rights so that human dignity is defended around the world.
Former prime minister Lester B. Pearson, who was minister of external affairs at the time, established the corps of peacekeepers, soldiers of peace, so that there would be an interposition force in conflicts around the world. Canada was recognized as an innovator for that.
Unfortunately, our country has now become particularly marginal in terms of its involvement and having its soldiers once again proudly wear the blue helmets of peacekeepers and serve as an active interposition force between parties in conflict around the world.
Canada also led the charge within the Commonwealth to force South Africa to abandon its apartheid system, which had been in place for decades. That particularly cruel system had resulted in intolerable situations in which people were subdued and their fundamental rights violated.
They were even killed in some instances. We remember particularly tragic episodes in the history of South Africa in which many people paid with their lives for claiming rights as simple as the right to live in dignity, to have enough to eat, to be housed or simply to have a place in society.
We can also be proud of that legacy of Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government. However, it now seems so long ago, and we appear to be increasingly moving away from the ideal that existed at the time.
In the 1990s, Canada also welcomed and supported the community of nations in implementing the convention on the prohibition of anti-personnel mines, also called the Ottawa treaty.
As I pointed out when I put a question to my colleague from Don Valley West, our government was so convinced of the validity and value of that treaty that it signed and ratified it on the same day, December 3, 1997. It was an admirable, far-reaching gesture. We can find no better example of a government moving from words to action.
Unfortunately, the effect of the bill that is before us today is to undermine a convention that has already been significantly undermined by the cycle of negotiations that the Canadian government seriously compromised. Canada forced the principle of interoperability into the convention so that our soldiers could potentially transport and use cluster munitions.
This class of weapons is far from new. Here I must admit a part of my own personal journey. When I was young, I was truly fascinated by human beings’ ability to invent all kinds of ways to gain the advantage on the battlefield and to innovate in order to neutralize and even destroy the enemy. That led me to find out about all those ways, land-based, naval and aerial.
It also helped me understand how weapons as particular, dangerous and destructive as cluster munitions could have evolved to such an advanced degree that it really sends shivers down one’s spine. Whether in bomb or missile form, cluster munitions can scatter dozens of mini-bombs or mini-missiles across the landscape. There is virtually no way to protect oneself from this type of weapon. Furthermore, once they have been used, it is very hard and dangerous to neutralize them, as is the case with anti-personnel weapons.
I listened carefully to the speeches by my Conservative Party colleagues, and I admit I absolutely failed to understand how they could defend the indefensible. I hope the image I am going to use will clearly illustrate how untenable the Conservative government’s position on Bill C-6 is.
What is being suggested as a way to prevent our soldiers from being prosecuted and convicted for using or transporting cluster munitions is comparable to my telling my son, if he sees the boy next door hit students with a baseball bat in the school yard, that I give him permission to do the same thing because I think that is fair.
This is absolutely indefensible. I do not know whether there is a better image than that, but that is the one that comes to mind. It is a deliberately brutal image. I will not conceal that fact. It is an image that shows the extent to which I think we are venturing onto a very slippery slope.
In the past three years, it has been an enormous privilege for me to serve as the member for Beauport—Limoilou and to be able to sit in the House of Commons with my 308 colleagues. I have been able to speak with people from all walks of life who have absolutely extraordinary knowledge, expertise and experience, which makes me feel quite humble. It also makes me see how far Canada’s leadership and, more particularly, the influence it can have, have declined everywhere.
I am an international relations enthusiast. A reputation is built gradually. Canada began to build its identity starting in World War I, and even before that, when the Laurier government demanded Canadian independence from the British crown. It has benefited enormously from a particularly favourable geographic situation and, at certain times, has managed to position itself admirably on the geopolitical stage.
That heritage, that clout and the influence that Canada once enjoyed are being whittled away. Our nation still wields some influence since, fortunately, people in different countries are able to make the distinction. That is what I heard on my few trips abroad. Foreigners tend to make the distinction between the government's position and the values of Canadians. This is a very minor consolation.
It is simply not good enough to say that fortunately, people believe that Canadians still have good values, when the government has gone off track and completely in the opposite direction. We cannot just stand idly by and forsake our parents', grandparents' and great-grandparents' heritage. This heritage makes it possible for Canadians to enjoy a certain degree of privilege. When Canadians meet people from other corners of the globe, they listen to us and respect us. We have credibility when we speak.
There is something that is really disappointing about this government's approach, and that is its hypocrisy. There is no need to mince words.
We cannot claim to want to eventually banish cluster munitions without taking steps to avoid their use. The government has created a huge loophole in the convention with Bill C-6. It is just hot air, nothing but a marketing ploy, a PR exercise that will achieve very little at the end of the day, and that is truly disappointing. It betrays the trust that our constituents place in us. That is why, like my NDP colleagues, I am going to oppose the passage of this bill at third reading.
It is well nigh impossible to describe just how horrific the use of cluster munitions is.
That is why I evoked memories of my adolescence and my young adult life. I was interested in global issues, defence and the tools a country has to wage war and defend its territory. It is staggering to see the capacity of the human spirit to invent new tools that are increasingly sophisticated, broad and blind, as cluster munitions are, in order to target indiscriminately, and even primarily, civilians as opposed to combatants.
I would like to recall a very recent memory. I was learning about the advances in robotic applications and artificial intelligence on the battlefield. I will describe what I learned, which did not completely surprise me. I must admit that I was shocked to see just how easy it is to lose control. It is virtually unstoppable. We all have pictures in our heads of science fiction movies such as Star Wars, in which we see human-like combat robots deploy, fire indiscriminately and find a way of seizing the advantage on the battlefield. Indeed, the fiction pales into insignificance compared to reality.
Now, the reality is robots that have practically no humanoid appearance but a lot of characteristics found in other parts of the animal world, including the insect world. The concept that particularly struck me was that of autonomous robotic swarms. Currently, there is, for example, still some human control over the use of drones. This remote control makes it possible to keep one's distance and kill or injure people elsewhere in the world very easily while feeling a lot less implicated. This leads to huge ethical and personal conscience problems.
However, we now have very small autonomous systems that are able to cause death and destruction in innumerable swarms. I am referring to tens, hundreds or even thousands of small robots that can very easily injure or kill people wherever they are in the world and against which it is impossible to defend oneself, as is the case with cluster munitions.
When I was in university, one of the concepts that I studied in the area of international relations was obviously that of the sword and the shield. This concept indicated that for every improvement made to the sword in order to pierce the shield, the hope was to improve the shield and ward off the increased offensive capacity. Now, this concept seems increasingly outdated to me. Realistically speaking, cluster munitions are a good example of the fact that this indeed the case. It is virtually impossible to guard against swarming, a missile or a cluster bomb.
It is a system of offensive weapons that is particularly pernicious and devious. That is why I want to warn my colleagues. Our soldiers could potentially commit innumerable and immoral actions. In terms of conscience, and considering the responsibility that we have as elected members and, more fundamentally, as Canadian citizens, we need to be cognizant of the fact that we could cause our soldiers to commit such actions.
I hope that my contribution to the debate will have enlightened my colleagues in the governing party and that Bill C-6 will not pass.
