Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just very briefly, because my colleague from Foreign Affairs in particular has covered most of what I would have said. Translating what was said by the other two witnesses here down into the practical realities of legislative drafting, our task in this bill has been to take the sorts of operational scenarios that the lieutenant-colonel has just explained and try to work out how those would apply in a Canadian criminal court.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, just very briefly, Mr. Chairman. In general, if you put an obligation, and this applies more to some of the amendments, I think, that have been stood, but it applies here as well.... If you put a positive obligation into a statute and you don't provide otherwise in the statute, then the criminal offence under section 126 of the Criminal Code applies, which is disobedience of a statute.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have one final comment on the honourable member's comment on conditions the minister considers appropriate. The intention there is to allow for the possibility. Again, we considered that these things would be extremely rare. The object of the exercise was not to create a large, bureaucratic exercise that the minister would delegate to officials the job of working out who needs the exemption, what they're going to use it for, developing the conditions, and then the minister might personally approve it.

Foreign Affairs committee  Forgive me, Mr. Chairman, I have to go from memory here and I don't have the anti-personnel mines legislation in front of me. We did start with that as the template for some of the provisions in this bill. The offences and things like that are based on it. When we looked at the ministerial powers, we basically tried to keep it simple in the drafting because there's very little that the minister can do.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The reason is quite simple. The only function for which ministers can be designated under this bill is in clauses 7 and 8, which is a ministerial order allowing someone to possess a cluster munition or submunition for research or training purposes and that sort of thing.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It reflects the judgments of the Supreme Court in two cases. One of them is called R. v. Covin and the other one is called R. v. Hasselwander. I can provide the clerk with the citations if you want them after the session. Basically this provision is based on Canadian firearms law and it deals with the bill.

Foreign Affairs committee  This is an exclusion again to the prohibitions in clause 6 and the offences in clause 17. So it applies to whoever is found in possession of one of these things. It doesn't deal with Canada's deactivation; it just allows for the technical deactivation of something that is a keepsake, for example.

Foreign Affairs committee  I will just note that under both section 2 of the Criminal Code and the provisions of this bill, liability extends to persons or organizations. Some years ago, Parliament amended the Criminal Code to make sure that organizations cover a wide variety of strange creatures out there that ought to be subject to criminal liability.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll just be very brief because it follows up on something I've already said. Bearing in mind that this is a criminal law bill, it's very helpful to ask as you look at amendments who would be the accused. The effect of an amendment putting a provision into clause 6 as a prohibition then makes it a criminal offence under clause 17.

Foreign Affairs committee  Very quickly, Mr. Chairman. It will save time, perhaps, because this is a recurring issue obviously with both the bill and the convention. The legislation was specifically drafted with what lawyers would call a class closing rule in it. If you look at the way clause 11, in particular, has been drafted, apart from what is permitted as an exception to the prohibitions in clause 6, there are two other requirements.

Foreign Affairs committee  I didn't want to get too far into policy, but there are also other scenarios where possession of a stockpile might take place in Canada outside the eight-year period. We've made provision in the bill, for example, if a Canadian company wants to go into the business of destroying these things, because it's quite difficult, and it's possible that we may want to import cluster munitions into Canada for the purposes of destruction at some point in the future.

Foreign Affairs committee  Just a note that it's covered by clause 8, Mr. Chairman.

Foreign Affairs committee  Just in criminal law terms here, Mr. Chairman, I only had a short time to look at the amendment but, as I understand the policy of the amendment, it fits within the scope of the bill and certainly fits within the scope of the convention, not that I'm an expert on the convention, but being amended into a criminal law bill causes some concerns.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Far be it for me to become involved in the debate; it's not my role. But just in terms of the mechanics of how this sort of thing is done, it would depend on the nature of the amendment. The legislative services branch of the justice department normally drafts the legislation and it would normally draft government amendments.

Foreign Affairs committee  Sorry, was there a question?