Afghanistan Committee on May 7th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

One minute is all you have left before you run out of time.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'd like to ask a question about this gender adviser we've had in the Ministry of the Interior since 2005, promoting security and other aspects of women and girls. Can you tell me how we are paying for that?

Also, what kinds of assessments are done? Presumably this person would have been cognizant of the law. How is this communicated back to the embassy to ensure that the benchmarks we've established are in fact being addressed?

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

What we know is that several ministers were not aware that the President had signed the law, the Minister of Foreign Affairs being one of them.

As well, the Minister of Women's Affairs did not know the law had been signed. When I met with her, she told me that this came as a complete surprise, even though her ministry was involved in the negotiations about the drafting of this legislation and she had five members on the drafting committee, whom we supported. This came as a surprise to her also.

As far as the whole issue of security for women and girls is concerned, we are working with several women's civil society organizations, about 60 of them in six provinces. We're working with legal clinics that specialize in protecting women and girls. Women and girls can go to them if they feel their rights have been abused. We do radio programs. We train people on the ground.

But this is a long process. This is a country where abuse of women's rights has been ongoing for several generations. To create a culture of respect and to promote the protection of human rights is going to take some time.

I'm sure that the Minister of the Interior, whom you met, has good intentions. For example, when those 300 young girls went out in the street to protest in front of the Blue Mosque in Kabul, the interesting thing is that the people who came to their rescue were women police officers. I think that's the story. That would not have happened 10 years ago.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bachand.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Beauregard, I would like to thank you and your team for being here.

Were you in the room when I asked Mr. Wallace and Mr. Brodeur about...

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

Yes, I was here.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Don't you, to some extent, share my take on the situation? Don't you think it is a bit strange that things unfolded the way they did?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Are you hearing voices, Mr. Bachand, my friend?

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Those voices are never wrong.

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

We work on the ground directly with the people involved in the process. Of course, we cannot control the political aspect of things. We work with civil society groups, and with people from the Ministry of Women's Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Court. The drafting committee is working with these groups to move the file forward.

We were just as surprised as everyone else about this turn of events, but I will not engage in speculation because I don't know what really happened.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Approximately how many people serve on the drafting committee?

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

I think about thirteen or fifteen people. They are mostly women. There are representatives from the Supreme Court, Kabul University, the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the Ministry of Justice. There are also representatives from civil society and from the Faculty of Sharia and Islamic Studies. Lastly, there are also representatives from an international NGO, Medica Mondiale, the Afghan Women's Network, and two members of our staff.

These people are all experts on issues of human rights, women's rights and the rights of religious communities.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Would you have a problem with giving us the list of people who sit on your drafting committee? I think this could be useful for committee members.

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

I have no problem with that.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Does the drafting committee, which is studying several pieces of legislation, including new ones, have any contact with SAT, the well-known Strategic Advisory Team, which at the time was comprised of members of the military? In fact, I was very pleased to learn that the team is now made up of civilian members only. However, I know this caused some problems because some members of the military were unhappy with the decision.

When you produce drafts and state your opinion on various pieces of legislation, is that information transmitted to President Karzai? Do you provide a copy of such texts to the President's entourage? Unless I'm mistaken, the Strategic Advisory Team also includes an expert on Islamic law. I think it is important for the parties to be in contact with each other. Do you work at arm's length from government institutions?

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

No, we work closely with them, but we go through government channels. Two of the Afghan government channels we work with are the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the Ministry of Justice. I had the opportunity to meet the religious affairs expert who has been on the job for three months. She is in contact with the people from our office. They exchange information. We work at that level.

Under the current process, it is the Afghans themselves who mostly put forward their ideas. Our role is support them. We facilitate the process, we provide informed advice, but we must never lose sight of the fact that from the start this process belongs to the Afghans.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

The members of the drafting committee will provide opinions on future pieces of legislation, but I don't suppose they go so far as to draft the legislation themselves, do they?

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

No, because the legislation is drafted in Dari. I have seen English translations of their work. I don't think it is legislative drafting, even though, if I think back to my experience in government, a bill is drafted by a legislative drafter. That is probably how it is done over there as well.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I am not very familiar with Afghan parliamentary democracy, but isn't there a risk that bits and pieces of the great ideas you submit to a legislative drafter will be cast aside?

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

In our experience last year with the marriage contracts, we were led to believe that the process would be exactly the same as the one implemented at that time. It is on that assumption that we based our work.

Last year, over the course of about eight months, we provided opinions on what should be included in a marriage contract. We had discussions and shared our views, and there were issues on which we agreed and others on which we did not, particularly on some of the divorce clauses. Be that as it may, once we had enough elements to proceed, we handed our work over to a legal drafter who prepared the final text and submitted it to the Supreme Court, which accepted it.

We believed that the same process would apply here, but obviously...

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Things got a bit out of hand.

You mentioned the upcoming law on the guardianship of children, the more extended family law for the Sunni majority and the law for the elimination of violence against women. Will you be involved in the drafting of these laws?

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

Yes, and we have already begun our work. With regard to the law related to the Sunni community, we should have concluded our discussions on the exchange of documents and the drafting of a first bill by mid 2009. The plan we are working on will ensure that the bill is made public, debated openly and then tabled in Parliament. The parliamentarians will then come to a decision as part of their normal course of business.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

We'll have Ms. Glover. I'm sure that, being a former female police officer, you've found some of this testimony pretty interesting.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Absolutely, and thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to ask questions here today.

I would like to welcome Mr. Beauregard as well as the other witnesses.

I want to tell you why it is I have appeared today.

I want to take a moment to thank my colleagues for actually allowing me to be here. I'm not a regular member of this committee, but I am a mother of five children. I'm a victims' and women's advocate.

I have been a police officer now for 18 and a half years. I'm on a leave of absence to be a member of Parliament in the House of Commons.

I've spent much of my career trying to fight here in Canada exactly what we're talking about in Afghanistan. I also want you to know--I spent four and a half years as a detective with the child abuse unit--that we have atrocities here in Canada that we need to deal with as well. But it is absolutely imperative that we continue our work with you, and I commend you for what you've been doing in Afghanistan.

I also had a partner by the name of Ray Arnal, with the Winnipeg Police Service, whose son was the very first soldier in Winnipeg brought home from Afghanistan in a coffin. So I pay tribute to him today.

Having said all that, I am very concerned. I'd like to know, following up on what Monsieur Bachand said, how many women were on the panel. When you submit your information, can you submit how many of those 15 people you were speaking of are women? You said “mostly”, but I would like to know exactly.