Afghanistan Committee on April 30th, 2009

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

I'll start, and I think Paul will have more to add.

At this point, with 30 police officers in Afghanistan, 14 out of the 30 are non-RCMP and 16 are RCMP. Through the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, we've gone a long way in communicating to them our involvement in Afghanistan as well as other missions in which we participate throughout the world. It provides them a great opportunity to do a number of things. The world is shrinking, very much so, especially in terms of crime and the ability of criminals to interact with their networks throughout the world. The expertise that these police officers gain in travelling to foreign countries to undertake these missions provides them with a great understanding of the cultures that exist in these various countries. They come back a lot smarter than when they left in terms of being able to deal with issues in-country.

Afghanistan impacts us, and as I said, 92% of the opium world supply comes from Afghanistan. About 60%, or a little under, of heroin coming into Canada comes from Southwest Asia as opposed to Southeast Asia, where it usually used to come from. If you look at our ability to push our borders out to be able to deal with issues long before they come to Canada, this allows us to do that by being able to professionalize a police force in that country to deal with those issues long before they leave their country to come to our country. There is gain for Canada from a police and security perspective in participating in these missions.

There is an advantage for these law enforcement agencies to participate by contributing a resource. I think there are seven police agencies right now across Canada participating in Afghanistan. In fact, there are four from the Ottawa Police Service. The advantage for them is that as they let some of their resources go, they're able to keep back the salaries of these police officers to run their operations in-country. The positions we have under the Canadian police arrangements are fully funded positions that then allow us to pay for these resources to attend those missions. It's a win-win for both.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

You can finish up, but if it's going to take a while, we're going to have to come back to you. I want to save as much time as we can to get through as many spots as possible here.

Mr. Bachand, and then back over to the government.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Souccar, I would like you to answer the question that was asked earlier concerning command and control.

Often, the Canadian armed forces give the example of Canadian soldiers who may be under the command of a Dutch or British general, for example. We are told that if the soldiers receive an order to plant anti-personnel mines, they check with headquarters, where the final decision is made. In such a case, they would receive the order from headquarters not to do that, because we have signed the treaty, as you know.

I would like to understand the structure. Can you explain it to me? Are there several levels of command? Is it the RCMP Commissioner or the Minister of Public Safety who has the final word? Please try to answer rapidly because I have a question for Mr. Brodeur as well.

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

Thank you, Mr. Bachand.

I would prefer to answer in English, in order to be more clear and concise, if you don't mind.

On the structure, if you will, it's a whole-of-government approach in our efforts in Afghanistan, in everything that's done in Afghanistan. Key components of every area within government participate in order to plan a strategy.

In terms of the police component itself, law enforcement ultimately is accountable to the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police under the RCMP Act.

The head, if you will, of the civilian deployment in Kandahar is the regional representative of Canada in Kandahar, who is, at this point, Mr. Ken Lewis. To the extent of what we do, direction comes from him. As for how we go about doing it, that becomes a police decision, because we have the expertise as to how we can go about carrying out our duties.

In terms of structure within the police contingent in Afghanistan, as I mentioned in my opening comments, we are going to have a Canadian police commander in Afghanistan at the rank of assistant commissioner, who will be based out of Kabul, at the embassy, working alongside the head of mission. In participating in strategic meetings, in strategic discussions with the ambassador, and with the International Police Coordination Board, which is headed by EUPOL, he will go a long way in terms of having more influence in our strategy for police assistance in Afghanistan. He will head our police contingent in Afghanistan, if you will, working alongside the ambassador as well as the RoCK.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Brodeur, have you had the good fortune, or perhaps bad fortune, to meet Mr. Atmar, the Minister of the Interior?

[Yves Brodeur]

Yes.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Is he a good person? Are you familiar with his past?

[Yves Brodeur]

I know Mr. Atmar as a minister. We are currently working with him as Minister of the Interior. We also worked closely with him when he was Minister of Education.

I can tell you that in both cases, we were fortunate enough to be working with someone who is extremely cooperative and receptive, and who has often taken measures that have been extremely unpopular in Afghanistan. He has taken personal risks in order to implement anti-corruption measures, among other things. He is a credible partner with whom we have done excellent work to date and I hope that this will continue.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I find it odd that a Minister of the Interior was part of secret service special units and that he also cooperated with the KGB, at the time.

To your knowledge, did he receive amnesty from Mr. Karzaï? Mr. Karzaï appealed to a great many people, telling them that if they wanted to accept the new order and move Afghanistan forward, he was prepared to welcome them into his ranks. He even appealed to the Taliban.

Is it the same thing in the case of Mr. Atmar? I find it curious that he cooperated with the KGB against the Mujahedeen. That is something I can't overlook. I must confess that I would be discussing this with Mr. Karzaï if I was in his palace today.

[Yves Brodeur]

That would be a good idea, and I'm sure he would answer you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Brodeur, sir, I'm sorry, but the five minutes are up--

[Yves Brodeur]

I can't answer? That's too bad. Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

--and we're trying to get through as many spots as we can here.

We'll go to Mr. Hawn and then back to the official opposition.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll just follow on, actually, with Mr. Bachand's question, because the question is also un peu bizarre to me. The raw material that the Afghanistan government and Afghanistan people have to work with is not like the raw material that we'd like to think of ourselves having around this room.

As for people like Mr. Atmar, why would he need a pardon because he was part of a secret service, which is a government organization? We may disagree with those government organizations, but they're not ours.

So I'd like some comments in general, I guess, from Monsieur Brodeur about the challenge that President Karzai or the leadership in Afghanistan, whoever it is, has in dealing with people who have come from backgrounds that reflect the history of the country.

[Yves Brodeur]

I guess what I will let myself say is that Canada is in Afghanistan not to run the country. As you rightly said, we work with the people who are there, who have been mandated—designated or elected—in Afghanistan to make decisions. Frankly, I think the question that was asked before by a previous member of this committee is one that should be asked to President Karzai.

As far as we're concerned, in working with people we make sure there's a compatibility of objectives in what we're trying to do. I can tell you that so far we've had a very good experience in working with ministers such as Mr. Atmar, Mr. Ghulam Wardak, who is now the minister of education, with President Karzai, and with Mr. Popal, who is the head of the local government agency. These people, notwithstanding what they did before—and I don't know what they did before, but what I know is that now they are the legitimate Government of Afghanistan, and we work with them—are dedicated. They have a vision; they want their country to get better; they want the people of Afghanistan to have a better life. That's really important; it's the key thing. Again, we're not there to actually govern or run the country for them.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

One of you mentioned border management. Obviously that's incredibly important with Afghanistan. Have we had any contact with the Pakistani police at any level that you're aware of?

Mr. Souccar?

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

We've taken part in discussions with respect to border management, trying to facilitate the border management between both countries and to determine what, if any, training can be provided to them to set up a more secure border.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Has the ANP leadership been involved in some of those discussions with you and the Pakistanis?

[Supt Paul Young]

Let me add, sir, that I recently attended, as part of our delegation, the Dubai process, in which we brought together border police from Afghanistan and Pakistan in Dubai. At that meeting we were able to get Afghan border police officers and counter-narcotics officers into face-to-face discussions with their Pakistan counterparts.

One of the initiatives that have come out of that process is that we will attempt, from a Canadian policing perspective, to initiate visitations between the two countries at the various police levels, including the level of the Afghan National Police.

One of the issues that came clear at those meetings was the issue of mistrust between police agencies across the border. In fact, “border” is not a term that was even allowed to be used at the meeting. To generate face-to-face discussions, we will be organizing delegations from each police force to visit training centres and operations in their neighbouring country.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

What's your assessment on the Afghan side of the ANP's leadership, to be able to handle that situation and progress? As I say, there's mistrust.

[Supt Paul Young]

The Afghan side, in my personal opinion, was very receptive to the suggestion. As a matter of fact, the suggestion stemmed from their conversations with their Pakistani counterparts. They're very receptive.

To go back to a question we spoke about earlier, there's a growing sense of pride amongst the Afghan National Police leadership that they can now hold their own in discussions with their neighbouring police agencies. That growing sense of pride is facilitating their willingness to become more involved.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

You were just going to start some comments on training in response, I think, to Mr. MacKenzie. With whatever time is left, I'll let you continue with those.

[Supt Paul Young]

Yes, if I could very briefly, in case there are any fears or considerations about how we're training our Canadian police officers we're deploying abroad.

We use a very comprehensive process. Our police training over the last 12 months has moved from a two-week training process to approaching six weeks now. We have moved to a competency-based selection process where we go out to our police partners and we tell them what type of police officer we're looking for based on certain competencies, such as the ability to develop adult learning techniques in the field in very trying circumstances. That's coupled with a very comprehensive psychological profiling to ensure we're getting the right people.

We then bring them to Ottawa, where we conduct specific training activities within our organization, everything from cultural sensitivity to actual rule of law in the country and how our incident management intervention models will apply in a foreign land. We then integrate our training with various aspects of the Canadian Forces. We take part in the Maple Guardian training, which is taking place in May in Wainwright, Alberta. We also take part on the base in Petawawa. So we're integrating survival skills for our officers, which they absolutely need in that country, with the Canadian Forces.

On top of that, in a new iteration of the training we will be starting on Monday for a group of 18 police officers from Canada who are getting ready to go, we are now building in a comprehensive physical training regime. One police officer recently said to me he feels as if he's going back to Depot. We're going to build that in, knowing the hardships they're going to face on the ground in a province such as Kandahar.

So our training has moved from two weeks to just about six weeks. It's integrated. We are working with DFAIT and CIDA and CSC to integrate with their training. We offer our training to any Canadian civilian who's going to Afghanistan. We're growing, we're learning from our experience over there, and our number one goal is to send trained police officers who can do the job that's required, the mission, but more so to bring them home safely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

We just have a few minutes left.

Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'm going to have my colleague Mr. Tonks go first.