Afghanistan Committee on May 9th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

General Eyre.

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

I know of the group, but I don't know much about it.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Do you know that the group is said to have liberated at least three of Afghanistan's provinces, mainly in the northwestern part of the country?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

I don't know how many provinces it may have liberated.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

You do know, however, that the group has liberated a certain number of provinces.

As chief of the defence staff of the armed forces of a country that sent soldiers to Afghanistan, I imagine you have access to certain intelligence.

Would you say the group is a minor or a major player in the current conflict involving the Taliban and al‑Qaeda groups on the ground?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

I haven't received any recent assessments on the group.

Major-General Boivin may have something to add.

[MGen Steve Boivin]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have a general sense of the situation in Afghanistan and groups like the one you are referring to, but we can't make an assessment as to their military capacity or their credibility. A significant number of intelligence resources have been reassigned to current operations. An assessment would not be very useful at this time.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Are you able to tell us whether the group is currently a minor or major player?

[MGen Steve Boivin]

No.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you. It's nice to get clear answers.

I have one last question.

You probably work with NGOs. At the very least, you have certainly spoken with representatives of NGOs on the ground.

I want to reiterate that I'm not trying to lead you into political territory. I would just like to know whether you had heard that NGOs had had trouble delivering humanitarian assistance because of Canada's Criminal Code?

I am asking the question from a factual standpoint.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

General Eyre, the time is up, but briefly respond. Please go ahead.

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

No, I have not spoken directly to NGO representatives.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Very well.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

Now we'll go to Ms. Kwan for two and a half minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

I wonder if the department would have any concerns if Canada were to conduct biometrics of Afghans either in third countries or in Canada after they've arrived in Canada.

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Mr. Chair, I would have to get advice on that question. Any collection of biometrics would be in support of another department. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for you on that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I would love to get your answer in writing to the committee at a later time.

The reason why I ask is this: IRCC will say it's not up to them, that because of national security it's up to Defence and others to make that decision. So we consequently have a situation where everybody is passing the buck to someone else, and I'm interested in knowing what can be done and how it could be done, and can Canada work in collaboration with allied countries to help to get this done? Because, if based on the numbers we have received, the 3,800 which you referred to IRCC, only 900 have been processed—hopefully, here, but maybe not.... The rest of them, I don't know what's happened to them.

With respect to documentations, because of the collaboration that's required, there are situations where people literally are hiding right now and they're burning their documents at the moment, so to require them to submit those documentations is almost an impossible task.

I understand national security, but I also think we need to step up to try to figure out what to do here and how we can proceed, so I'd love to get your advice on what Canada can do to help bring more Afghans to safety.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Admiral Auchterlonie, please go ahead.

[VAdm J.R. Auchterlonie]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks very much for the question. I guess there a few questions in there.

One is, do we have the capability to do that? I'll give the Ukrainian answer right now.

Right now, the Canadian Armed Forces are supporting IRCC at the Canadian Biometric Operations Centre in Warsaw. We are working with the IRCC to support the biometric operations for the visas for Ukrainians coming to Canada. So is the capability available? Yes. In fact, based on my experience on the joint staff in 2015 with the Syrian refugees, we have done this in a third nation.

I guess the key point in this is that we are doing it in Warsaw right now with a co-operative ally. We have host nation consent with our partners in Warsaw—the Poles—to actually be doing this. IRCC is leading it, and we are supporting.

Is the capability available? Yes. To be speculative, you would have to have host nation consent to be able to do it in a third nation, and that is probably not a question for this department.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan. Your time is up.

We will go to Madam Findlay.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I'm going to defer to the Honourable Mr. Chong.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

We will go to Honourable Mr. Chong for four minutes.

Let's go for four minutes each between you and the other Liberals.

The floor is yours.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Deputy Minister and generals, for appearing in front of our committee.

As you know, Canada paid a high price for the war in Afghanistan. We had some 40,000 service members who rotated through that theatre. There were 158 deaths from the Canadian Armed Forces and one diplomat who was also killed, and over 2,000 Canadians were wounded or injured—some with horrific injuries—during that war.

During the 2011-14 period, NATO military commanders, including Canadian military commanders, assured their elected legislatures that the training mission was going well. They assured the public that they were making tremendous progress on the cornerstone of the war in Afghanistan strategy, which was to build a national Afghan army and a national Afghan police force that could defend the country.

Canada trained that Afghan National Army and that Afghan National Police force. There were some 1,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces who participated in that training mission during that time.

The events of last August make clear that the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police force were very poorly trained. “The Afghanistan Papers”, which were published by The Washington Post just before the pandemic, and that somehow did not get enough attention as a result of the pandemic, make it clear that, at the time, NATO military personnel on the ground did not have the same view of the training mission. They said that the Afghan military and police were “unmotivated, poorly trained, corrupt and riddled with deserters and infiltrators”, the opposite of what NATO military commanders were saying at the time.

Some of you were involved at the time in that NATO training mission. Did you believe at the time—as General Mattis and General John Allen said at the time—that the training mission was going very well? Or did you see at the time how much of a problem the training mission was?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Chief Eyre, please go ahead.

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Mr. Chair, that is a great question, and, yes, I was involved at that time, as were others in this room, with part of a NATO training mission in Afghanistan.

I refer back to my notes that I journaled at the time, and the Afghan national security forces at the time were missing a number of things—logistics and the ability to plan and sustain themselves; higher-level planning capacity and the ability to plan and sustain operations; personal management; and the ability to properly manage the progression, the pay and the welfare of their people.

Could they fight? It depended on leadership. I saw Afghan units in the fight who performed very well based on the leadership they had. They would take the fight to the enemy, and they would prevail. In the case of others—and I go back to my comment in the earlier section—if the leadership was not in place, no, they wouldn't fight.

As is the case with any war, the decisive element is leadership, that will to win, that desire to be successful, and I think that was the part that was lacking.

Yes, the training that was provided was good training, and the equipment that was provided was good equipment.