Afghanistan Committee on May 14th, 2008

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

My question concerns the schools. This subject often comes up. We hear that some schools are being built, but that others are being destroyed. I would like you to give me the most accurate picture possible. How many schools are there? Are some being built for girls and others for boys? What can Canada do better in that area? I imagine this subject should appear in the action plan you are preparing. I would also like to know what position it occupies in Canada's priorities, and how we can evaluate progress in that area. People should avoid telling us that certain schools have been built, when they don't know there are no more schools in another region.

I also imagine it's not the same in the Kandahar region as in the rest of the country, and I'd like you to provide a picture of that situation.

[David Mulroney]

It must be said that education is one of our priorities in Afghanistan. It's a priority of the Government of Canada. When we work in this sector, we must work at the national level in Kabul, for the entire country, and also at the provincial level in Kandahar. This work is being done at two levels.

Security is very important. It is closely linked to development. We must coordinate our development ambitions and progress accomplished on security. It is therefore important to conduct our operations in the sectors where there is an Afghan army presence, Afghan police officers or the Canadian armed forces. It's a matter of coordination. When we make progress in security, we can also make progress on development.

The school we visited is a school for men and women. It is located in the city of Kandahar. That city is better protected than other locations far from the capital. We have a number of ways to measure our progress. First, we can talk about the number of students, which continues to rise. We can also talk about the number of women at school, which also continues to rise. That's a very important measure. Perhaps it's easier in the north of the country and harder in Kandahar. One of our objectives is to increase the number of women who are studying.

We are also focusing our actions on administrative issues. How should we manage the education program in Afghanistan? Is the department functioning well? Is there a real administrative framework? Schools have to be built, but there also has to be a functional administration. We have a number of measures of progress.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

May I continue?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

Yes, of course. You have three minutes left.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

All right.

You talked about the deployment of civilians in Kandahar. What do you mean by that?

[David Mulroney]

In Kandahar, we now have 25 civilians who come from a number of organizations like the Department of Foreign Affairs, CIDA, the RCMP and the Correctional Service of Canada. Ms. Elissa Goldberg is acting as consul general; she is responsible for all civilians in the south of the country. We will need a number of civilians as a result of the many program objectives in Kandahar. And we are increasing the number of civilians.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

I hear that security is sufficiently established to bring more civilians into Kandahar.

[David Mulroney]

We will also be targeting our activities in Kandahar because 80% of the population lives in Kandahar and in the suburbs of Zahri and Pundjuai. So it may be easier to protect our civilians when they are targeted in this way. That's one of our concerns, and we are working closely with the Canadian armed forces to ensure there is enough security.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I want to thank our guests for appearing today, and to say for many of us it's really important that we do have that kind of information from the ground and have more reporting. I think there are many things people might disagree on in terms of the mission in Afghanistan, but one of the things I think everyone agrees on is having more information, more reporting. So that's helpful, and your presentation tonight was a piece of that.

One of the people who has been working...and it was interesting to see Rory Stewart. I'm glad you visited him there. I was able to catch him when he presented here in Ottawa. He's a delightful speaker but also very knowledgeable. One of the things I think he brings to the table is a knowledge of how not to do things as well as how to do things. One of his considerations is that when you're planning development and aid or you're looking at governance models, it's perhaps helpful if you talk to the people you're trying to aid. I recall his charts of the acronyms, pages of acronyms, that have been brought to Afghanistan from the international community. He would flip to a village elder and say, “He doesn't understand these acronyms and neither do I, and this guy is a wise person, and I think we would do better to listen to him.” The shuras are obviously something we're trying to use a bit more so that we can have first-hand input from the people we're trying to help.

You said that just in the last month or so we've increased the number of people on the ground, both in Kandahar and Kabul, from the perspective of an integrated approach, diplomatic as well as aid and whatnot. Are there plans for more people to be going to both Kabul and Kandahar in the next couple of months?

[David Mulroney]

That process has been taking place over the last year. Over the course of the last year, we've more than doubled the number of civilians in Kabul and Kandahar. We're looking at the next phase now. We have a total of more than 50 on the ground in both places and we're going to move beyond that. We'll probably be putting more in Kandahar in relative terms. We've got a good, strong team in Kabul; we've got to augment that a little bit.

But we think we've got to have more people in Kandahar, from the following perspective. One, we want to reinforce the team at the PRT and put some more management structures in there. We've got lots of young people working in the different sections. Now we need to put a management structure on top that mirrors the management structure the forces have.

Two, as we look at specific projects, whether it's in education or water supply, we're going to need more people who can help implement those projects as subject matter experts, but also to handle the administration. We're also looking at devolving more funding to the local level at the level of the PRT, so they can fund projects they see as valuable much more quickly.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

So that's working in concert. You said kind of marrying the management structure the military has in place there, in terms of doing the PRT development, and buttressing that, if I can use that word, a bit more?

[David Mulroney]

Yes. Right now, the PRT is run by a lieutenant colonel. We're going to put a civilian in place who is his counterpart, so the lieutenant colonel will be responsible for enabling the work of the PRT and the senior civilian will be responsible for coordinating all the civilian, governance, and development work. But it's actually a little more integrated than that because the force is also, in addition to developing.... I've always been impressed when I've been out there talking to some of the young captains who go out into the districts. They take their community work quite seriously, so there's a level of expertise that we want to tap into.

For me, I think it's ensuring that on the civilian side we're doing the burden-sharing we need to do. So we simply need more civilians.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I guess Kabul would be the place, but do we have people who are actually monitoring human rights and doing human rights reporting to the embassy in Kabul?

[David Mulroney]

We have people in Kabul and in Kandahar who do that.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

So they actually are doing human rights reports and handing them, obviously, up the chain?

[David Mulroney]

There are human rights reports. Reporting on human rights is part of our daily stock in trade, so that's one of the things we monitor in Afghanistan. It's part of our regular reporting, but beyond that, there's also capacity building. For example, we've had teams out with the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to talk about things: how you conduct an investigation, how you safely detain someone who may be perceived to be a danger to others, proper rules of evidence, and things like that. It's essentially professionalizing their work.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I appreciate that. So right now we have people who are doing fairly regular human rights reports for the ambassador and obviously for the government?

[David Mulroney]

As I say, human rights reporting is part of the daily business of the—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, no, I appreciate that. I just mean a document that would be a human rights report—and I know this has been done in embassies in the past, and in fact I have had access to some—that would say that right now, in Afghanistan, be it Kandahar or Kabul or where we have people, we have a report; here's the human rights report for the last three months. Is there—

[David Mulroney]

That has been an annual process. There's an annual report that is done on a formal basis, and there is ad hoc reporting that goes on through the year.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay, and we're still doing that.

[David Mulroney]

We're still doing that.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you. Two minutes?

I'd like to switch slightly, and I know the military facet isn't your expertise, but it does touch your work obviously. I'm thinking back, I guess it's two weeks now. We had reports from the States--musings, I'll put it that way—by Mr. Gates about how maybe they should just bring in their folks because they do this better than the other guys. I guess that would be the premise. I guess that means we would go somewhere else, if that is in fact going to happen.

When you look at some of their concerns, the six-month rotation we have, and they're looking at.... I guess they feel they can do a “better job” in terms of the military mission in the south. Here's a very straightforward question. Are there any discussions at all at this point, speaking about military and planning, because you'd be somewhat involved with that, contemplating moving our troops at all and having American troops come in?

[David Mulroney]

No, there are no discussions about moving Canadian troops.