Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 6th, 2006

[C/Supt David Beer]

There's a certain demographic consideration as well, sir. There clearly are police partners in Quebec who benefit from the fact that they are able to deploy people in Haiti, at the same time as we, of course, benefit from having them in the partnerships. The fact that there's a large Haitian diaspora community in Montreal, as an example, makes it perfect sense for the Montréal urban community police to participate in such missions, simply from the perspective of being more culturally aware of the particular needs of that community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Chief Superintendent.

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Gentlemen, thank you for appearing here today.

In earlier statements we have been hearing that there was some confusion on post-conflict staging, as it was explained, and about whether security is the primary concern, or development, or elections, or democracy, or whatever. It's my feeling that virtually all of those can be started and be worked on in varying degrees, but that security certainly would be one of the most important ones.

What is your assessment of Haiti in particular? Is it post-conflict?

Secondly, you have indicated here, in the number of police officers, that in Jordan there were 37,000 who were trained. We know from previous reports that some 12,000 or 14,000 were projected to be trained, and very few of them, in my understanding, have been trained. Or has all of the training been conducted?

My overall question is, if they have not had the same amount of training in a country like Haiti, what could we do to help you ensure that some of these things that are very necessary to do can be accomplished?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

I'll give that to the Chief Superintendent.

[C/Supt David Beer]

Haiti is an extremely complex question. Actually I could take you through your dinner hour discussing my experience and opinions on Haiti. It's an extremely complex environment.

Unfortunately, the success, albeit limited, that was gained in the 1990s by the international community's participation in police and justice issues was lost with the re-election and return of the Aristide government. From our perspective, all of the senior leadership of the organization whom we had dealt with, some for many years and who had participated, particularly, in Canadian management programs, as a matter of fact, were simply set aside by the government. The entire executive of the organization was gone. People who had no training, no skills--I won't go too far down that road--were replaced by people who were untrained and inexperienced and they went very quickly down the slippery slope to corruption.

Frankly, we're in the situation now of having a more difficult task in training the organization that exists today than the one that we started in 1994.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Would you say that security is one of most primary basics to accomplish, but at the same time, in order to even move democracy forward--

[C/Supt David Beer]

In my estimation, you must create an environment where development can occur, where aid can occur, where humanitarian efforts can occur. In the absence of that environment, success will be extremely slow and extremely difficult.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

And before poverty reduction can begin, before all of these others, the security first, work on the democratic institutions....

[C/Supt David Beer]

Absolutely.

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

Simply to be in a position to get out there and work, you need to have a secure environment. I know in Afghanistan, one of the challenges we have is the back-and-forth movement, for example, from the provincial reconstruction zone area, which is a compound, out to work with the Afghan national police. So security--just to have a secure passage--becomes necessary.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Assistant Commissioner.

Madam McDonough.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much to Assistant Commissioner Souccar and Superintendent Beer for appearing before this committee today.

I have dozen of questions and moments to ask them.

I wonder if I could just go quickly to the information you shared with us in the appendix about training of police in which you've been involved. Specifically, you've reported here that Canadian police have trained more than 34,700 Iraqi police. I wonder if you could tell us over what period of time, precisely.

[C/Supt David Beer]

The Jordan academy first took its candidates in fall 2003.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

And that's ongoing?

[C/Supt David Beer]

Yes, it's ongoing. The mission has actually been extended until March 2007, and it's likely that the academy will close at that particular time.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Could I just ask--

[C/Supt David Beer]

I should add that approximately 10% of those people have been killed in service.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

That's very sobering.

How many Afghan police have Canadian police been involved in training over the last couple of years--whatever time you can specify--and specifically breaking it down between Kandahar and Kabul? You referenced Kandahar and Kabul. Are those the two main areas or the only areas in which the RCMP are involved in--

[C/Supt David Beer]

Right now, all of our people are in Kandahar. We actually only have five people on the ground at the present time. There was some specific training provided for the presidential security group in Kabul, but that was limited in-and-out training. Right at the present time, our commitment is at the PRT in Kandahar.

To put this in context, the German delegation essentially has official responsibility for police development and police planning. That runs counter to the notion that the Americans are making a huge contribution, but at the bottom end. The German contribution is essentially in Kabul. It's higher-end training. It's very long term, very strategically focused.

The American contribution, with huge development dollars, unfortunately is very much focused on getting boots on the ground and in many respects on fulfilling the needs of the military.

I'm sure you've heard of the issues about providing local security after the international military has done its work, basically has gone through an operation, and about needing local security forces to come in behind to fill that gap. So there are some training issues on the ground about getting people out as quickly as they possibly can with a local face on the security. Frankly, the long-term strategic needs of the training of the police are not being met.

Our role in Kandahar is to try to provide a second level, if you will, of professionalization: take the people who have already been through the basic training off the street and give them more and more training on an ongoing basis.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

I understand there are five RCMP now in Kandahar.

[C/Supt David Beer]

Yes. It will increase to ten in the spring.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Could you indicate how many Afghan police have been trained?

[C/Supt David Beer]

I don't have that in front of me. It's about 250.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Can you also give us a sense of who else is involved besides Canada in police training in Kandahar?

[C/Supt David Beer]

In Kandahar the Americans have private contractors, basically former police officers, security agents of different descriptions. All of their people are contractors. I believe DynCorp is the contracting agency that works for the State Department. The military, the International Security Assistance Force, oversees that American contribution. Our own military police participate with us at the PRT in Kandahar.

As far as Kandahar is concerned, it's our group and the Americans.