Afghanistan Committee on May 12th, 2010

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

So as a lawyer who is familiar with international law, you could not allow the transfer of detainees if you felt there were risks.

[William Graham]

There were no transfers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Monsieur Graham.

We'll go back to Mr. Hawn, please.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Graham, you know we've talked about the CF and we've talked about DFAIT and so on. Is it fair to say that your government took a whole-of-government approach to situations like Afghanistan? Is that the logical approach that any government would take in that kind of a multi-faceted, complicated international operation?

[William Graham]

Yes, we tried to do our best to do that. Yes, sir.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

It's not a CF here and a DFAIT here, doing things in opposite directions. It's trying to work together for the mission?

[William Graham]

Yes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Perhaps you could clarify; I think somebody mentioned Prime Minister Martin was brought into it in May of 2005. Did I mishear that...? Anyway, regardless, what kind of consultations went on amongst cabinet colleagues in your government with the Prime Minister, or just amongst colleagues, about the situation in Afghanistan and how to deal with it and so on?

[William Graham]

Well, we had regular discussions about Afghanistan itself, which translated into a lot of...but around prisoners, I can't recall any specific cabinet discussion about this issue other than, as I said, I wrote the Prime Minister to get authority to work on the issue. I know that there were inter-departmental discussions, but I don't recall any cabinet discussions around that specific issue.

The discussions were largely about CIDA's role, our role, how would we fund it, what the PRT would do, whether we would commit to the combat role, etc., and our relationship to NATO. That was very preoccupying as to NATO, what we were going to do, the transfer of NATO authority from the Americans to NATO after our role. You'll appreciate all that. Those were the large discussions we had.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I guess following up from that, there's been talk about what a foreign affairs minister knew or should have known, or what a defence minister knew or should have known.

In your experience in both of those positions, can you describe for us the kind of activities that you would have undertaken as either Minister of Foreign Affairs or Minister of Defence with respect to a mission like Afghanistan? For instance, who would you have consulted, what kinds of messages would you have received, what volume of message traffic would you have received, and that sort of thing?

[William Graham]

You can appreciate that we got a large volume of traffic on all sorts of different issues. We had to look at the problem of what was the proper equipment to be sending. That was a huge thing, because it was a large matter and we had to get money for it. We had to deal with all those usual problems, you'll appreciate, of equipping.

We had to deal with the relationships between the departments, which would be CIDA, Foreign Affairs, and ourselves. You'll appreciate the discussions have shown that there weren't as many Foreign Affairs officials in the country at the beginning as there were; you had the Manley report, and things were changed.

So all of those sorts of discussions would have been literally every day, practically, once we got more active in Afghanistan. I went to Afghanistan once as a foreign minister and once as a defence minister, so on those trips I would have met with Mr. Karzai to discuss what we were doing.

We were constantly involved in one way or another in the file.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Is it fair to say that in either ministry, the minister would be fairly inundated with information and would be relying on people filtering the information to him that they thought was most important for him to address personally?

[William Graham]

Yes, that's the way the system works. You basically get what you're given. But we're also politicians, and we use our judgment as well.

As I said in my opening, I kind of pushed this issue of prisoners because I felt it was going to the legitimacy of the mission and it was important for us to deal with it. In the department, some people felt, you know, why we were spending as much time on this at that time, but I think everybody came around to recognizing its importance.

So our job as politicians is to put in our political input, but our job as ministers is to listen to our officials and basically base our conduct on the good advice we're getting from them.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Is it fair to say that Afghanistan today, notwithstanding continuing problems, which will probably always be there, is a better place than it was in 2002 or 2005?

[William Graham]

Well, in 2002 I wouldn't want to live under the Taliban, that's for sure.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Post-Taliban.

[William Graham]

Well, it's obviously extraordinarily complicated, but I think it depends on whether you're a glass half-full person or a glass half-empty person. I tend to be on the optimistic side. I think the glass is more half-full, and I'd like to believe that we're making progress.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Do you think some of the activity that's ongoing in this committee and in the media and what not is perhaps distracting, or detracting from further progress along that route?

[William Graham]

No, as I said at the beginning, I think it's really important for the committee to make sure that they get to the bottom of it and that the public know the transparency is there. These are serious allegations, and I think the committee's doing serious work to make sure the Canadian public and everybody's assured that, as Canadians, we're making sure that the rule of law is being obeyed.

So I don't see the committee's work as problematic in any way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Graham.

Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Graham, it's clear from your comments that in 2005 we did not expect the ferocity of response from the Taliban in terms of the mission that we went into. We went in with LAVs and we needed tanks.

Clearly on the MOU that was made between Canada and the Afghan government, one of those assurances was assurance against torture. Would that be correct?

[William Graham]

Yes; well, the assurance was that specifically the Geneva Conventions would be respected, and so, absolutely, that's contained within it, along with a host of other things, yes.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

My question to you, Mr. Graham, is does that satisfy Canada's legal obligation to ensure that prisoners are not transferred to a state when they face the real risk of torture? Because it seems to me that, in your comments, we were relying on the Afghan human rights commission and the Red Cross...empowerment, and I understand about capacity-building for those too; that at the time, first, there weren't that many prisoners taken, and second, we didn't expect that we would be taking a lot; and that therefore, using the Afghan human rights commission and the Red Cross would in fact ensure our legal obligations in terms of torture.

[William Graham]

We certainly believed that the agreement was capable of ensuring our obligations. And I believe or understand, without being completely au fait with all the facts, that there were circumstances subsequently when military officials decided they wouldn't transfer prisoners when they were of the view that the agreement couldn't be properly monitored and that, in fact, there was no protection for the prisoners. There was one occasion when they wouldn't transfer for a period of time because they were concerned about it.

So, absolutely.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

And because this was an MOU between Canada and Afghanistan, did we receive written assurances from the Afghan government that they would live up to their legal obligations in this regard?