Afghanistan Committee on March 26th, 2009

[David Mulroney]

Thank you very much.

In response to the parliamentary motion, the government really set about transforming the mission. It meant a real change in terms of our focus, so that we were focused very specifically on the development and rebuilding of Afghanistan, and that we also took seriously the time limitations, the fact that we have work in southern Afghanistan that will take us through to 2011. In everything we do, we're entirely organized around that. You'll notice that our public benchmarks reflect specific goals to address the things the motion asked us to do. The fact that we are benchmarking and reporting is also part of the motion. We've staffed up; we've put people in place to ensure that we're doing this as carefully and rigorously as possible. I meet once a quarter with key people from headquarters in Ottawa and the field, civilian and military, and we talk about how are we going to go month by month, quarter by quarter, to navigate to 2011. So that is our entire focus.

I should say we have military police who are also training Afghan National Police. We have about 40 now. We've got 30-plus civilian police. That will go to 50 by the middle of this year. They're working on a couple of levels. First is basic survival skills so that the police know how to do their job safely. Secondly--and this is what the minister saw last week--they're teaching them how to manage a crime scene, how to do their job professionally. It's quite impressive to see them do their work. The announcement that ministers made last week of our new contribution to the law and order trust fund will effectively ensure that salaries are paid for Afghan National Police in southern Afghanistan for the next couple of years. We're also working very hard to ensure that they get that salary money. We've worked on an electronic payment system so that officers can actually collect the money themselves on a monthly basis.

We're working hard to ensure not just that we're doing the training but that we've got some of the other conditions of service right.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Would you concur that putting in civilian police and the prison officials and the judiciary is a big part of the security going forward for a country like Afghanistan?

[David Mulroney]

Very much so, and you're right in reminding us that this has three parts: the police, and you also have to have the judicial system right, and you have to have the correctional system right—because if you're arresting people but you have no courts and no place to send them, you have a problem.

I'd say we're making real progress with the police, although it's a challenge. The judicial sector is a challenge in itself in that we have to get more and better-trained judges into the south, and we've got to figure out.... There's a local dispute resolution system on issues around property that probably should remain as it is. It's a traditional system and it works well. We're listening to Afghans on the question of how much direct intervention of the judicial system is required there.

On the correctional system, Canadians are in Afghan prisons more than people from any other country, so I think we have a better sense. ,We are establishing very important relationships with the senior managers and the people who actually manage the prisons, and we're seeing that is having an impact in terms of how they operate. That side of things is also a challenge, but I think we're pretty well engaged.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

We'll go over to the official opposition, Mr. Wilfert, and then back to the government.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Mulroney, Afghanistan is our number one recipient of assistance, and last year when we were in Afghanistan we discovered concerns with regard to a disconnect between the aid that's going there—the assistance, the job building—and the failure to really employ and coordinate working with the local officials and with the local people. That's reinforced again by the Kabul-based Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies, which talks about the failure in terms of our work both through CIDA and through the PRT, that it's not coordinated with the local government, that local people are not being hired. This is not just in terms of Canada's role, but in terms of other countries' assistance.

What are we doing to address that, given the fact that it's not helping? People are not going to be very supportive of a government if in fact they don't feel their own standard of living is improving, because in fact they're not being part of the equation.

[David Mulroney]

The finance minister of Afghanistan met with Minister Oda recently, and he congratulated Canada as being one of the lead countries in terms of putting funding through Afghan government institutions, including his ministry. At the end of the day, you have to show you have confidence in the Government of Afghanistan and fund through them. So about half our funding goes through them, but there are good reasons why we don't send all our funding through them.

First, we have NGOs working in Afghanistan who are very, very competent. Think of Rory Stewart and Turquoise Mountain—the British former diplomat and soldier who set up a project in central Kabul. Canada is one of the lead funders of that. Peace Dividend Trust works to ensure that the money the international community spends in Afghanistan stays in Afghanistan. We fund Peace Dividend Trust.

So we fund the Afghan government. We run some of our support through them and through the UN, some of it through NGOs, and some of it we spend directly in Kandahar because the NGOs aren't operating there or the Afghan government isn't operating there. So we have three chains, but we're very, very focused on ensuring that at the end of the day we're helping to build up Afghan capacity to manage its own affairs.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Are we measuring this? Clearly there is a problem that has not been addressed satisfactorily.

[David Mulroney]

We have benchmarks that measure the capacity of ministries like the ministry of finance. We are measuring it and that's why we're putting people...for example, in the education ministry, we've got the former deputy minister of education from Manitoba.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'll split my time.

Finally, can you provide those benchmarks and results so far?

[David Mulroney]

Yes, they're in our last two quarterly reports.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Rae.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

One has the sense, Mr. Mulroney, that the issue of the narco-economy has almost gone by the boards. It wasn't mentioned in your report. I don't see it in very much public information. Half the GDP of Afghanistan is tied up in the opium industry, and we don't seem to have been able to develop a coherent strategy to deal with that.

Do you have any comments on that?

[David Mulroney]

Defeating the narco-economy, the problem in Afghanistan, is going to take a long time, if we're to take the measure of any country where it has flourished—think of Southeast Asia or Turkey. There are no shortcuts.

Canada is doing a couple of things. First, we are funding, to the tune of about $30 million, a program that includes money for alternative livelihoods—i.e., encouraging people to grow other crops—and also to improve the courts and the police and the prosecutors, to get the people upstream. So it's not just focused on the farmer; it's focused on the bad guys who actually make this business work.

The other thing we're doing longer term is economic development in Kandahar. A poppy grows, first, where the roads end and the insurgency begins, but secondly, it grows in places where irrigation isn't available, because unfortunately poppy is very hardy. Because there is no irrigation in southern Afghanistan, farmers turn to that often as a last recourse. Once we begin to get traction on Dahla Dam and irrigation, we think we're going to make it possible for people to grow wheat. Afghan farmers don't want the risk of growing poppy. It runs counter to their religion; they have to deal with very bad, scary people who take money from them; they can't feed it to their livestock. So there are a lot of reasons why they don't want to do that.

Economic activity and alternative economic prospects work against that. So we're working on it on a number of tracks, but it's going to be a long-term problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

You have one minute left, Mr. Coderre.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

One of the problems, Mr. Mulroney, is that the Taliban control more and more of Afghanistan. The future of Afghanistan will also have an impact on the future of NATO. For example, in the northern region, the Germans and the soldiers from other countries have a mission that is completely different from that of the Canadians, the Americans and the British.

At this meeting on April 3 and 4, will there be a redefinition of the duties so that there is a single mission in Afghanistan, or will countries continue to be allowed to do what they want?

[David Mulroney]

It is true that there is a difference between the conditions in northern and southern Afghanistan. However, in the south, there has been a steady increase in the number of troops there, not only the NATO force but also Afghan troops as well. There will also be 17,000 more American soldiers there. That will change things. At each NATO meeting, we can see progress in the areas of coherence and coordination.

It remains a challenge. Because there are different conditions in Afghanistan, people are focused on slightly different things. If we could go back and redesign and redefine how Afghanistan was managed, I think the international community might do that, but we don't have that luxury. We've had a system under NATO where different people have done different things in different parts of the country.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

The definition of the mission itself is different. Governments are not doing the same thing as the—

[David Mulroney]

Region by region, I would say that the tightest coherence and unity of vision is in the south. And we're not alone in the south. There are many partners--the Danes, the Romanians, the Brits, the Dutch, along with the Americans, the Australians--and we very much see things the same way. That is building up as we go north in Afghanistan, but we still have some challenges.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

We have enough time for just about three spots. We'll go over to Mr. Abbott and to the Bloc, and then back to the government.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Mulroney.

I was interested in the questions of Mr. Bachand in particular because they're reflective of the perspective that somehow, without having a strong military presence at this time and sometimes taking aggressive action to rout out the opponents, do the kind of development work that we're doing, we could, as it were, pull back our Canadian military and continue to develop schools, the dam, and other humanitarian work, as though the two things are mutually exclusive.

I wonder if you'd like to comment on that.

[David Mulroney]

Security and development and security and governance are really tightly interrelated, and nothing we do in southern Afghanistan is done without really close coordination between the civilian authorities and the military. In fact, one of the things that people are taking notice of is the degree of integration in the Canadian plan, that it's jointly developed by the civilians and the military.

But the most important factor is increasing Afghan military presence, and the last time I was here I think I described briefly how last summer the Taliban, as they have done in previous summers, infiltrated Arghandab region, which is to the northwest of Kandahar City and is a vital strong point to the north of the city. In previous years it has fallen to ISAF to remove the Taliban, to push them out of Arghandab. Last summer the Canadian Forces, commanded by General Thompson, provided guidance to the Afghans, but they led the mission. They even flew in troops from Kabul, which is not an easy undertaking for any military, to bring troops into a battle situation in short order. And the Afghans chased the Taliban out.

So the ultimate measure of our success is increasing Afghan ownership of the security situation, but as we do that, we have to do it hand in hand with the Canadian Forces. They enable the rest of the mission to take place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you. You still have three minutes.

Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'll finish off the time here.

Can you comment, Mr. Mulroney, on the impact of the new airway?

[David Mulroney]

The new air assets that we have are serving a number of functions, and I had the great pleasure of accompanying the ministers to travel in a Canadian Chinook last week. First of all, we're able to deliver people, civilian and military, to places they have to go. We're not going to be doing as much road transport. It doesn't eliminate road transport, but it allows us to get people around. It makes our Canadian Forces more mobile, but certainly when we talk about the Griffon helicopters and the UAVs, they give us eyes on the situation. They are already making a difference in terms of spotting, for example, IED implementation, ambushes, and things like that.

So it has added a big dimension to what Canada can do, and it has also sent a very powerful message within NATO of Canada's continuing engagement. We are building up to 2011, when our mission ends. We're not losing focus. We're not losing commitment. That has been a real positive addition to the NATO effort.