Afghanistan Committee on May 12th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Your time is up on the second question. Thank you.

We'll turn to Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Graham, for being here. And thank you for your leadership in the House during debates to extend the mission back in 2006 and 2008.

As an international law expert in your own right--I think you said it, and I just want to hear you repeat it--you were certain that the provisions of the 2005 agreement met Canada's international obligations under international law. Is that fair to say?

[William Graham]

Yes, although to be fair, sir, I'd been out of teaching international law long enough to know that I'd better rely on people who really knew what they were talking about. As a minister should, I relied on the advice of the officials in the department, who were backed up by the Foreign Affairs officials. That was the advice I got, and certainly everything from my own experience told me that this was good advice.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Okay.

People have characterized the 2005 agreement as flawed, and I think in hindsight, as you said, we could probably point at that. But at the time, it's fair to say, you entered into that agreement in good faith, based on the information you had at the time.

[William Graham]

Absolutely. We felt that it was the best agreement we could get in the circumstances.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Do you think it's fair to say that when the government changed, and the current government assumed the mission in 2006, that we assumed that agreement also in good faith?

[William Graham]

Absolutely.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I know that you can't speak for the government, but would that be logical that we would have assumed that agreement in good faith?

[William Graham]

Oh, absolutely. I'm assuming that you do everything in good faith.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Of course.

[William Graham]

It's for others to determine whether that assumption is correct or not.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

But that would be perfectly logical.

[William Graham]

Yes, of course.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Now, there's just one slight correction: we did take prisoners before the end of 2005. There was a situation with Minister Eggleton, and some prisoners were taken.

[William Graham]

No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that we'd never taken prisoners. I think the facts would show that all the prisoners taken before were transferred to the American authorities, as being the authorities that were, at that time, Operation Enduring Freedom; they were in command of the field.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes, I understand. But subsequent to that, and because of some political considerations at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and so on, the government of the day's judgment was that it was better to transfer them to the Afghan authorities at that point than to American authorities.

[William Graham]

It was certainly a factor, as I suggested, the problems that were arising under Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo; those, however, were.... In the early stages, we didn't know about that. Those were things that were becoming very au courant at the time.

I would suggest that the other really important factor was that we were in Afghanistan. It was Afghan sovereign territory. We had to demonstrate that we were operating within a role to contribute to the pacification and building of Afghanistan for them, not for ourselves. I think we, the British, the Dutch, and others all came to the same conclusion. The only proper conclusion, given the circumstances of the nature of our mission.... It wasn't an invasion. It was a mission to support the building of a government there with a newly elected government. The only thing consistent with what we were doing there was to turn to them, as sovereign in their territory, and allow them to take the prisoners and be responsible for them.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

We talked about the strength of agreements. You had an agreement in 2005, and there was a supplementary agreement arrangement in 2007.

You know, agreements are fine, but it's the people who are administering them. An agreement can be perfect, but if you have imperfect people applying the agreement, you might get an imperfect result.

Is it fair to say that in a country like Afghanistan, working with some pretty imperfect institutions and people in the context of what we would expect, we're going to see some stumbling on their part?

[William Graham]

Yes, I think that's absolutely fair to say. It wasn't just in respect of this issue. We know about drugs, corruption, and all of those issues in Afghanistan. We were struggling with trying to correct all of that, for sure.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Part of our mission there continues to be to correct where they fail to meet our expectations, and continue to work with them to raise their capacity and raise their adherence to the rule of law.

[William Graham]

Absolutely. Yes, sir.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Knowing full well that they will fail from time to time, does that make their failure our failure?

[William Graham]

It depends what we do, obviously, in terms of.... It's very difficult to make an abstract statement to that effect. But I don't think we can be asked to be responsible for all of the problems of Afghanistan once we've gone there. We're there to try to support their improvements. Absolutely. I agree, yes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

When your government found problems, you tried to fix them.

[William Graham]

Yes, sir.