Thanks, Chair.
No, I can't support this amendment either. I can't speak to how PCO or Global Affairs Canada writes these reviews or reports, but having been part of the pen of many of them in the past from the Canadian Armed Forces, I'm sure most departments follow a very similar procedure. In every document that is produced on something like this for an operation, each paragraph is classified based on the content of that paragraph or that report, so anything that comes out and gets released to a non-secure committee will be redacted. I expect to see redactions in it if it potentially compromises national security.
These reports need to come to this committee. This is part of our mandate. When they created the Special Committee on Afghanistan, it was to look into and look back at what went wrong, what went right and how we can learn from it to make sure that we don't make these mistakes going into the future. The second point on the part of the committee is definitely to make sure that we are making those necessary changes we need to make from a humanitarian assistance perspective as a primary focus.
These reviews have been done by the government officials, by the departments. If there's anything that's of national security and needs to be redacted, redact it. That's my viewpoint. I expect that's the way they'd send it to us in the first place, but the majority of the report should not be redacted. Most of the stuff that is done is not of a national security brand.
You can look at the U.K. report that was publicly released yesterday, which was very damning of their response to the evacuation of Kabul in the fall of Afghanistan. Most of the stuff in there that's commented on.... I think a lot of the testimony already alludes to the fact that from what we've heard over the last number of months, we will likely find very similar conclusions. That's based on what we've heard to date, and it may be contained in these reports.
I can't support this amendment by MP Damoff.