Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Even though the things I have to say to you are not very pleasant, I do thank you for being here. I have many other questions to ask you, but, exactly for the reasons you mentioned, I am going to start with the enormous efforts being made by the men and the women in the army, be they from Quebec or from Canada, as well as with the considerable needs the Afghan people and these soldiers have and the grave dangers they are exposed to.
Because of that, Mr. Minister, it seems to me that you have a responsibility to them, to the Canadian people and to the Afghan people, to tell the truth and to do what you say. So, what have we been talking about for so long?
I know that General Hillier signed the first agreement, I remember. Of course, I am talking about the agreement on the handover of prisoners. I have done some negotiating in my time. I have read a few documents. This is not a complicated document, except that it is missing Afghan acceptance and Canadian commitment to allow, like the Netherlands agreement...
My copy of the agreement is in English only. So I am going to translate. In section 4, it says that representatives of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, representatives of the Netherlands embassy, including members of the military acting on behalf of the embassy, and others as required “will have full access to any persons transferred by the Netherlands military forces to Afghan authorities while such persons are in custody”.
These groups will have full access to the transferred prisoners all the time they are in custody. It is also agreed that the Red Cross and the Red Crescent can visit them as well.
In the agreement signed by General Hillier in December at the beginning of the 2005 election campaign, no similar commitment is to be found. It simply says that the participants will “advise the International Committee of the Red Cross through appropriate national channels” and that “the legitimate role of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission is recognized”.
Of course, there is a statement of principle saying that the participants will treat detainees according to the terms of the Third Geneva Convention, but there is nothing that says that the Government of Canada, represented by General Hillier at the time, agrees to hand over prisoners but reserves the right to visit them, or any other group, at any time. That is what is in the Netherlands agreement, and not in the Canadian one.
After all the protests in the House, you finally said that Canada had signed an agreement with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the AIHRC. But the only thing in the agreement is this:
If the AIHRC is made aware, the Commission agrees to notify the Joint Task Force Afghanistan, or the Canadian embassy, of any poor treatment suffered by a detainee who has been transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian Forces.
I repeat “if it is made aware”. Did you give them the authority at all times? No. So why? Answer me.
Mr. Minister, you are an intelligent man. We have two documents each of two pages, plus the Netherlands one, also two pages. The Netherlands keeps coming up. Did you take the trouble to read the documents? Answer, please. If so, why did you not demand the same requirements? This is important. We wasted all that time in the House because we were angry. We were angry because the Government of Canada was lying to us and because this government, which claims to have values, does nothing to prove it. This is serious. It is serious for the soldiers, and for the Afghan people, who not only need to be told what our values are, but to be shown them by our actions. It is also serious for the people of Quebec and Canada.
Why did you not read this document? And if you did, why did you not demand the same requirements in our agreement?