Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 25th, 2006

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Yes, which one do you want me to answer, starving children, or...?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Please answer just briefly to clear up the record on this business about the 1,200 troops that the briefing notes clearly said were available. Last week you indicated, as did the general, that they weren't.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I have no recollection of getting a briefing note that said there are another 1,200 troops available.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

I'm sure you'll get a chance to clarify this, since it was raised and became a controversy at the—

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

It's not a controversy in my mind.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madam McDonough—

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I'm just saying to you that the reality right now is that we cannot afford to undertake a major land mission for a few years, until we rebuild the army.

Right now we can keep our commitment in Afghanistan going to the end of February 2009, and depending upon decisions, we could keep it going into the future. But what we can't do right now is undertake another major mission. The 1,200 troops is a major mission because it has to be sustained; we can't do that. When I entered the department, the military briefed me very quickly that we couldn't do such things.

I'm wondering if the briefing note you're talking about may have been given to the previous minister, Minister Graham. I don't know, because I didn't get such a briefing note.

Madam, with respect to the other question you raised about starving children, in fact I quickly contacted our people in Kandahar because I saw that report by the lady who made the statement. In recent times, we fed about 8,500 people in the area, down in the Panjwai. Our military staff went around the whole area looking for people and giving them food and blankets, etc. Either they were unfortunate and missed some group on a road or something, but they're not aware of any substantial number of people in their area who are starving.

What I would appreciate is if the lady who gave that evidence could tell us precisely where she's talking about, then we would make sure that our military go there and give them food. We have been giving food and blankets out to people on a regular basis.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

I think it's extremely important, and perhaps we could have some testimony before this committee from Norine MacDonald, a Canadian woman and a lawyer from Vancouver, who heads the Senlis Council and presented this yesterday with very disturbing footage of children who clearly looked like pictures we haven't seen since the Biafran famine. She personally visited there and was told that they'd never had a single morsel of food from the Kandahar base, which they could practically see from where she was standing. They never had any supplies or emergency relief of any kind.

To clear this up, I hope we can come back to it, but I take it as a serious gesture on your part, Mr. Minister, that you want to get to the bottom of this.

If I could pursue this line of questioning a bit, it's very difficult when you make the assertion that humanitarian reconstruction efforts are at the absolute core of this Kandahar mission, when in fact every bit of information that we've been able to glean through every possible attempt would indicate that for every dollar spent on the humanitarian and reconstruction effort, nine dollars are being spent on the military effort. I'm wondering if you can shed some light on this.

Specifically, I know you can't be expected to have all these statistics in your head, but I wonder if you could supply to the committee a breakdown of the numbers of personnel currently deployed in Kandahar, and within that, the breakdown between how many are in the PRT units, both regular and reservists, because my experience was that there were more reservists in the PRT teams. I'd like to know whether that in fact is the case.

Also, you've made repeated references to the numbers of humanitarian agencies in the area, and yet we've heard many NGO reports that they have simply felt it absolutely necessary to evacuate the area, because they feel that the manner in which the effort is being conducted makes it simply too unsafe to deliver that humanitarian aid. They feel the lack of safety is generated by the militarization of aid formula. Nobody questions the need for a multi-purpose, comprehensive approach of development, diplomacy, and defence, but there have been many concerns raised about how out of balance this is and how much danger is actually created by the approach that is now being taken.

I wonder if I could ask you to elaborate on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madam McDonough.

Just to clarify one of your points, it's my understanding that the testimony of Madam MacDonald is happening right now at defence committee. So even as we meet here at foreign affairs, we can hope that some of these questions will be answered as she appears before the defence committee.

Minister.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I've said in the defence department that our hard-core function in the Kandahar area is reconstruction. The PRT is the key for us, from a military point of view. The battle group is there to try to create a security environment so that PRT can be at its highest level of efficiency. We're moving in 125 more infantry to protect the PRT, so they can get on with their activities. Beyond projects, they also meet all the elders and try to keep in contact with the various tribes. So we're putting an extra infantry company in to protect them. The battle group, which will be reinforced by a tank squadron, will be there to try to create enough security for the PRT to operate. But the PRT is the key. It's the key to it all. We have to make the lives of the Afghans better.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Minister, are you advising Canadians, through this committee today, that Canada has ceased the aggressive combat search-and-kill mission in Kandahar?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madam McDonough, your time is up.

But you can finish, Minister.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I don't accept the way you characterize our military operations. We have to suppress the Taliban. If they attack us with rocket grenades and mines and everything else, we have to deal with them. This is not a peacekeeping operation. We can't just go around and put our hands up and say, “Please stop”. They don't follow the rules. They will throw suicide bombers against us. They will use conventional warfare and IEDs against us. Our battle group has to deal with all these things, and it is absolutely necessary while the Taliban is at the current level of activity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Casey.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you. Welcome to the committee. It is a pleasure to have this opportunity.

Minister, you commented on the parents or the family members of fallen soldiers. It struck me that of all the surprises in our experience there, perhaps the greatest is the incredible support the families have shown for the soldiers. In my riding we've had four fatalities, so we've had more than our share. These people either live in the riding now or grew up there.

My understanding is that some of the NATO countries restrict where their soldiers can serve in Afghanistan. Is that correct? If so, how does it happen that some countries do this? Can this committee do anything to apply pressure to these countries to get them to share the burden?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Various nations under NATO make military commitments to Afghanistan. Many of them make the commitment of a specified number of troops, but they also put what they call caveats on where and how they can be employed.

This has been a challenge for a few years. The NATO Secretary General, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the commander of ISAF—all are aware of it. Over time, some of the caveats have been removed by some nations. Our country and other countries in the south and east are continuing to apply pressure to get more countries to remove these caveats, so that the commander of ISAF has freedom of movement of the forces.

In the Kandahar area, we've got the challenges we've got now, and the countries in the south and east will come to our assistance if we need them. Also, the countries in the northern and western regions provide us with enablers, which is a military code word for equipment such as fighter aircraft or helicopters.

So NATO is pulling together. It's just that we want them to pull together a little tighter.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

From one democracy to another, is there anything you can see that we could do as a committee to appeal, maybe, to a foreign affairs committee in one of the other NATO countries? Would that be helpful?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I don't know whether it would be helpful or not, but I can assure you that our government is working on this, as are other governments. It's not a quick fix; it will take a while for this to happen. It's just continuous pressure, and you find over time various countries relent and keep changing their caveats.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Also, we should mention that this committee has on occasion done specifically that. When we have met with committees, there have been occasions when we have encouraged them to take back the message the minister has made reference to, of needing more resources there.

Mr. Menzies, do you have a one-minute, very quick...?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Yes, I will be very short and concise in my comment.

Mr. Minister, I want to tell you about a meeting. I had lunch with the Aga Khan and a group from his foundation today, and what Mr. Casey was just saying was his main point, which he wanted to drive home. They themselves are doing a lot of development and reconstruction work in Afghanistan, but he encouraged us, in whatever manner we can as parliamentarians, to make sure we engage more of the NATO countries in this. So we're absolutely on the right point, and if you have any suggestions for us, we would certainly appreciate them.

I have one quick question for you. Can you describe the road we're rebuilding? I know DND has been working on this. My understanding of the need to pave or hard-surface that road is that it's to get away from the insurgents' being able to plant bombs or landmines inside it. Is that the main purpose? And what's the purpose of the road?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Menzies.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I am going to hand that over to the chief. He knows it in detail.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Sir, it's a route we call Route Summit, about four kilometres that comes down to the Panjwai-Pashmul area, which is about 25 to 30 kilometres to the west of Kandahar city, right in the middle of what Afghans themselves called Taliban country back in the summer.

There are about 10,000 people who live in that area. They earn their subsistence livings—they keep their families alive—by farming. They grow grapes, and they grow citrus crops in particular. There are no roads in that area. They have great difficulty in getting their produce out to any kind of market, and great difficulty in getting themselves out to Kandahar city, for example, for medical treatment. In short, they have great difficulty in doing anything, because there is no road.

We realized that when we first got to the area and helped clear the Taliban from that portion of the country. We realized that the families returning desperately needed something to help them reach for a better lifestyle ahead. We also realized there was an awesome opportunity to make an impact on those families we were there to help and to bring some development. So we started the construction of the road, using local labour and some local contractors in addition to our engineering resources, and with us providing the security.

Sir, you referred to casualties a little while ago. Every one of them hurts, but you know, these last six have all been taken while directly securing the reconstruction or the construction of a road, the development of that part of Kandahar province. That's a pretty sad commentary, I would think, upon the tactics the Taliban use there.

We want to build that road so that it lasts, and that means we want to pave it. Yes, this does help reduce the chances that improvised explosive devices can be planted there. It doesn't eliminate them or remove them completely, that's for sure, because the Taliban are a crafty enemy, without doubt. But it does give us the enduring road that the folks there need to actually build their lives and maybe see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, so that life for their children will be a heck of a lot better than it is for them, or has been for them in the past with the threat that the Taliban continues to bring.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, General Hillier.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Chair. I have a point of order.