Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will present my opening statement in English but I can answer your questions in the official language of your choice.
My name is Scott Proudfoot. I am currently the director of the Sudan task force in the Department of Foreign Affairs, a position I have held since August 2007. In this position I'm responsible for coordinating Canada's whole-of-government engagement in Sudan and for directing Canada's foreign policy toward Sudan.
Previously, I was director of the policy and advocacy division in the Afghanistan task force until July 2007. I began work on Afghanistan in August 2006 when the Afghanistan task force, known as FTAG, was founded. I was its first director.
The task force was created in part to consolidate diverse Afghanistan-related functions that were previously dispersed throughout the department. These included policy formulation and diplomatic engagement, bilateral operations, and public communications. Until the task force was greatly expanded and reorganized in early 2007, responsibility for a number of files remained in other branches. The issues that remained outside the purview of the task force included civilian deployments, program design and execution, narcotics issues, and the detainee issue, where the international security branch retained the lead within DFAIT until the summer of 2007.
Although I was not directly involved in the detainee issue at the time, I do recall seeing reporting on the subject in the autumn of 2006, and I have since reread these reports. The reports in question did not indicate that Canadian-transferred detainees had been subject to mistreatment. They were largely procedural in content and pointed to a number of deficiencies in the implementation of the arrangements then in place for the transfer of detainees to Afghan custody.
I also recall that DFAIT and DND took steps at the time towards remedying these deficiencies and improving the modalities then in place.
By the early months of 2007, however, there was a growing awareness that additional steps were required to minimize the risk of mistreatment of Canadian-transferred detainees. This was based on reporting and recommendations from the field as well as other sources, including information with regard to the broader human rights context.
As a result, in the winter and spring of 2007 Canada expanded and formalized our relationship with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, increased programming activities to build indigenous Afghan monitoring capacity and to improve conditions in Afghan prisons, and developed a diplomatic contingency plan in the event that there were allegations of mistreatment of Canadian-transferred detainees. This plan was put into effect when such allegations arose in April 2007.
During the March-April 2007 period I became more involved in the detainee issue, along with many others from DFAIT and other departments, and I contributed to elaborating the supplemental arrangement that was concluded with the Afghan government on May 3, 2007. As you know, under the supplemental arrangement, Canada obtained enhanced access rights to detention facilities to which detainees were transferred by Canadian Forces in order to ensure the monitoring of those detainees.
I would be happy to respond to any questions you may have.
Thank you.