Evidence of meeting #15 for Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was detainees.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
Yes, that's very true.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Have you ever visited a Canadian prison and asked Canadian prisoners how they feel about the way they're being treated?
4:10 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
No, I haven't.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I have, and generally the answer is that they are not being treated well. This is the answer you'd be likely to get from prisoners anywhere.
Mr. Colvin, one of the recommendations coming out of Justice O'Connor's inquiry into the Maher Arar affair was that consular officials posted to countries that have a reputation for abusing human rights should receive training on conducting interviews in prison settings, in order to be able to make the best possible determination on whether torture or harsh treatment has occurred. I know you're not a consular official, but have you ever received this kind of training?
4:10 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
No, none at all.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Okay, thank you.
Are you familiar with what the intelligence and section 38 experts call the mosaic effect?
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
This is information that by itself may be innocuous, but put together with other pieces forms a mosaic of information that could be of use to people who aren't on our side.
Given that what may seem like a piece of information of no consequence may in fact be of consequence if somebody puts it together in a mosaic, do you think the government has a responsibility to be conscious of the mosaic effect?
4:10 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
Yes, I absolutely accept that the government has a duty to protect its people and its interests.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
In your memos and e-mails and so on, a lot of them had a very, very long list of addressees, 76 on the “cc” line in several of them. You were co-author on some of these memos; you were not the principal author. You were shown as a contributor on many of these.
4:15 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
Mostly I authored them, but sometimes other people were consulted on them. Generally, I signed them and sent them myself.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Can I suggest to you that if I were trying to get somebody's attention about something serious, I would direct it pretty carefully and precisely at the level that I thought should do something about it, even if that were a minister?
4:15 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
Sure. Usually there'd be on these reports four people on the “To” line, which were the kind of key divisions of DFAIT who I expected would reply, and then the other 72 would be on the “cc” line--you know, “For your information”. It could be anyone from our mission to NATO, to different DND departments.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Do you have any idea how many reports like this are produced daily in Afghanistan, for example, on a mission of that size?
4:15 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
Yes, I have a pretty good sense.
4:15 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
At the time—this may be surprising, and I was surprised—there were very few of us in the field, so the volume of reporting was actually quite modest. If you added the numbers, certainly the list would be longer. Maybe it would be in the order of twice as much on the civilian side. The military produces a lot of reporting. I'm sure there's a great volume that comes out of the military side.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
In many of these reports there's a wide variety of topics covered. It's not only one topic. There's not only a report on alleged torture; there's a whole bunch of topics covered. Is it fair to say that somebody getting one of these--I'll call them omnibus communications--if something's not standing out, might say it's relatively routine?
4:15 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
The way I report and I think most of my colleagues report, usually it does have quite a specific subject and the subject matter refers to that. You would have sometimes omnibus topics, if there was a meeting that dealt with a lot of issues, but the ones on detainees usually dealt only with detainees and were quite narrowly focused.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
That's too bad.
What I really wanted to point out is that none of your evidence you're talking about is actually first-hand. It is coming second-hand from prisoners who are trained to give false information. That's what they do; that's the way they're trained. It's come second-hand or third-hand from other colleagues, people who have received information, which was probably second-hand to them as well. So there really is nothing here that is actually first-hand.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Casson
Sorry, Laurie, we're out of time. I apologize.
Mr. Dewar, for seven minutes.
November 18th, 2009 / 4:15 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Thank you.
Thank you to our witness. Thank you, Mr. Colvin, for appearing before us and finally shedding some light on a topic that many of us have tried to get more light shed upon.
I want to go to the question around Mr. Asadullah Khalid, the Governor of Kandahar. You had grave concerns about him. You laid out why you had grave concerns. To whom did you pass on your concerns about him?