Foreign Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. MacDonald.

We'll go to Madam Barbot.

You have seven minutes.

[Sarah Chayes]

Sorry, could I please add something to the previous answer on CIDA?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes.

[Sarah Chayes]

I actually disagree very strongly with Ms. MacDonald's approach. I think a couple of things. I think CIDA procedures need to be streamlined. Like every public development agency, it's way too bureaucratic.

I'm actually in the process of applying for some money from CIDA. I look at the application form. I have a master's degree from an American university, and I can't read the thing. You need a PhD in development contracting.

The fact is that CIDA has now been on the ground for a year and a half to two years and it has built up an experience. In other words, there were a lot of programs that took way too long in the pipeline that are now, finally, beginning to hit the ground. If you were to halt all of that and create a whole new structure, believe me, you would create a lot more bureaucracy.

What I would look at, again, as a committee, is bypassing some of the extremely rigid procurement requirements and think about how we can make our public development agency more flexible, a more rapid-reaction kind of agency, not just for Afghanistan but for all the other crises that are going to face Canada and other western countries in the future. I think it would be a real waste of an investment to pull CIDA out now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Chayes.

I should also mention that Mr. Greenhill, the head of CIDA, is here listening. There have been times when he's been nodding up and down and times when he's been shaking his head, too—I won't say when.

Madame Barbot.

[Sarah Chayes]

All right. Can I put in a plug, then?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

No, you've already done the plug.

Madame Barbot.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, ladies, for joining us.

Your account today of what is happening on the ground confirms the fears of those who want Canada to withdraw from this region. Worse still, something is not very clear about the actions of the soldiers deployed to the region. Their actions are directly putting people's lives at risk, so much so that according to Ms. Chayes, the tactics being employed need to change completely. This shift should have occurred at the very beginning. Be that as it may, five and a half years have elapsed, nothing is working and 50% of the population believe that the Taliban will emerge victorious.

I would like you to give us one good reason why our troops should be in this country, something that I could tell people who say that we are wasting our time or making the situation even worse. You said it yourself. Conditions are worse today than when the Taliban were in power.

Unless I am missing something here, tell me why we should continue to support Canada's mission to this country, aside from the fact that Canada is a prominent nation and is providing money.

Not only are we realizing that things are not working, we are putting CIDA at risk. This Agency is extremely important to us. Some are even saying that CIDA is the problem. I really am at a loss to understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mrs. Barbot.

Madame Chayes, and then Madame MacDonald.

[Sarah Chayes]

To say that conditions today are worse than they were under the Taliban regime would be an exaggeration. Obviously, some Kandahar residents long for the old days, but it is very easy to be nostalgic when times are hard. If we were to poll residents and ask them if they want the Taliban to be back in power in Kandahar, I do not think the majority would want that. To say the conditions are worse today is an exaggeration.

I think we could do much better. I believe people view the current government in more or less the same light as the Taliban regime. We must not leave because we are responsible for giving them this government. We have a responsibility to the Afghan people to improve the situation that we put them in. The Western world, and in particular the Americans, made the decision to end the Taliban regime and to install a new government. We are responsible for surrounding the president with a number of strong men.

It would be irresponsible of us to abandon the rather impoverished Afghan people to their fate. We put these people in power and we provided them with arms and money, including development assistance. And now we are saying that they are responsible for holding on to these individuals. That is completely unfair. Afghanistan and the rest of the world have already faced a similar situation, namely when Afghanistan was left to contend with a civil war. The repercussions were terrible. We need to be mindful of history, because it does not necessarily have to repeat itself. However, we do need to learn from what has happened in the past.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Madam MacDonald.

[Norine MacDonald]

On why Canada should stay, Afghanistan is now effectively our own backyard. The last time we let the Taliban run Afghanistan they gave a home to al-Qaeda, a global terrorism movement that is dedicated to the destruction of the west. They planned and executed their attacks against the United States from there. We have seen attacks in Britain and Spain. If we allow the Taliban to return to southern Afghanistan and be a home to global terrorism, it will affect Canada's security--the security in this country, the security of Canadian citizens and their families--for generations to come.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madam MacDonald.

Mr. Obhrai.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thank you very much.

I want to say thank you to both of you for bringing your point of view here. I agree with Sarah, from Afghanistan, that we can do much better to improve. Nevertheless, I agree with both of you that we need to be in Afghanistan, as both of you have stated, because.... This is the only point that I will agree with Ms. McDonough on, when she says it's because of terrorism that we have to stay there.

But beyond that, what I am finding difficult to understand.... Sarah, here, has been on the ground in Afghanistan. But let me tell you what people who have also been on the ground in Afghanistan say. You have stated that there has been no substantial food aid into Kandahar since March 2006. Yet the World Food Programme, which is one of the NGOs that is very highly respected, said in their press release that Canada's support of their operation over the past year has been crucial in Afghanistan and has helped over 10,000 families. As a matter of fact, since the last time, when Canada spent $4.9 million, we've given 3,425 metric tonnes of food to the region you talked about.

Now, we have here UNICEF, which is respectable, I would say, which says that in 2001 an estimated 30,000 Afghans, mostly children, died of measles. Thanks to the enormous immunization efforts supported by the Canadian government, measles has remarkably declined.

Let's talk about what Dr. Ashraf Ghani, who's in Afghanistan, who is the chancellor of this thing, said when he was asked what he thought about CIDA. You know what he said? He said it's one of the best in Afghanistan.

While we agree that there's room for improvement, and as you said, there is paperwork and all these things, we are making a difference. For you to come and say that we are not is absolutely.... I don't think so, because we have credible people who work over there who are saying that Canada's contribution, CIDA's contribution, is making a difference in that country.

Most importantly, you have talked about the eradication program that the Americans.... As far as I know, the government of Karzai has made a decision not to spray poppies over there. So I'm having a little difficulty understanding where you are coming from.

Look, Afghanistan has gone through a tremendous amount of war. Afghanistan is not a developed country. There are areas that require attention. There are areas, like the hospitals and other things you mentioned, that require improvement. And there is a desire by the international community to go and help Afghanistan in its effort.

I was at the reconstruction conference in New Delhi, with the regional countries. They all came out there to provide economic activity for Afghanistan.

You mentioned poor people there who are not able to get an economy moving. But this whole business of moving an economy requires a concentrated international effort, of which Canada is absolutely a part.

To just say that our development assistance has failed is wrong. As a matter of fact, as my colleague here has said, you want CIDA out and you want a person over there, a coordinator over there. You know, Canada does not have a single approach. It's a multifaceted approach. We have the RCMP there; we have governance being provided there. And it's all done through our ambassador, who's working in cooperation with everything, and that is where we can put all the focus.

The Prime Minister has actually set up a complete Afghanistan working group in which the whole effort of the Government of Canada is coordinated to go ahead and provide what we do.

So, yes, there are a lot of achievements.

I have extreme difficulty when you say that no development projects have taken place, that development aid has failed, when it has actually not failed. Like you, people who work in Afghanistan have come forward and said that we are doing a pretty good job.

I think we do require a pat on the back. Under difficult circumstances, our aid officers, our CIDA people who are out there, do require a pat on the back for working under very difficult situations, and I think we should help them by recognizing this.

Canada has also increased its aid, and we keep on increasing our aid. We went from $5 million to $39 million for Kandahar district. Kandahar is a very tough area, as our friend in Afghanistan has said, because of the insurgency coming from the border with Pakistan. But I think we should give Canada a pat on the back and not keep criticizing all the time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Obhrai, for that very eloquent speech.

We have seven minutes for presentation and questions. Unfortunately, Mr. Obhrai has not left any time for answers.

We'll move to Mr. Dewar. Hopefully, you may want to cover some of that on someone else's question time.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I think you've seen the problem that many of us have with the government's direction. It's all about them; it's not about the people of Afghanistan, and that's sad. It's out of the play book this government has been using in committee.

You've outlined some problems that we have to confront. We have to look at some of the concerns you have about strategy, which Ms. Chayes referred to. I want to say, to start, Ms. Chayes, that I do have some problems with what you said, and maybe you want to correct it.

You talked about the government we have given them. If that's the case, I think that's a problem right there. If you look at the history of Afghanistan or other countries, the problem starts when you start to impose a governance model on them. I guess if you're saying that, then I think, bang on, I would agree with you, that's been the problem. In fact, that's how we got the Taliban, some would suggest.

I'm going to move on because I have some questions.

The other thing is that when we look at Pakistan and address their role here, I couldn't agree with you more. We all know of the instability that they're presently going through, and that's a huge issue.

I want to turn to the fact that, Ms. MacDonald, your organization has really done some groundbreaking work on the whole issue of the economy within Kandahar, and that the approach, the tactic, the strategy we've been using hasn't been working. In fact, I have been reading reports where, right now, police chief posts in the poppy-growing districts are sold to the highest bidder for as much as $100,000 for a six-month tenure. Guess what the salary is. It's $60. So the competition is pretty obvious. You'll go to the corruption model over the governance model, which is what Ms. Chayes was talking about in terms of concerns about governance.

On strategy, we know that the U.S. and the British governments are talking about bringing more troops back in, deploying back into Afghanistan. I'm very concerned that this will simply bring back the counter-insurgency model times ten. We're already doing that, and I think that's the failure right now in the south. I'm hearing that in some of your reports. Notwithstanding your notion that we need to remain there, I would agree, but it's how we remain there. We've talked about pulling out the counter-insurgency forces.

Now that we have the Brits and the Americans possibly redeploying and bringing back the counter-insurgency model, I would like to know from each of you, very briefly, what you think the effects of that will be, the effects of bringing back more British and American troops into the south, using the strategy of counter-insurgency.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madam MacDonald, and then Ms. Chayes.

[Norine MacDonald]

I'll be very brief. When we talk about a classic counter-insurgency model, that does include this hearts and minds and development and economic aid. In that way, I completely and absolutely support that type of counter-insurgency model. I think what concerned people in southern Afghanistan is more this special forces headhunting with some bombing roped into it that really is not working...it's working militarily, but it ruins our relationship with the rest of the community.

So you're right, there's a concern there about how we go forward from the point of view of those tactics that should be fully discussed.

Also, very quickly, to the gentleman from the government, I agree with you. Anybody, any Canadian, who goes to Afghanistan to work is entitled to a pat on the back. If you get off the plane in Kabul, you are entitled to the full support of the international community and Canadian citizens. I have nothing but respect for every single person who goes there to work.

The problems we have identified—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt and be impolite, but the fact is he didn't give you time to answer the question. I'd like to pivot over to our guests. Thank you.

[Norine MacDonald]

I'm so sorry.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It's okay; it's part of what they do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Ms. Chayes in Kandahar, perhaps you would like to respond to Mr. Dewar's question.

[Sarah Chayes]

I basically agree with Ms. MacDonald. We haven't been doing terrorist searches. If we had been doing proper counter-insurgency, which means a real commitment to the civilian population in the area we're working in, we wouldn't be seeing the situation we're seeing now. This may be a semantic issue, but on the other hand, I do think there are too few troops here. Believe me, I watched a year of combat at the gates of Kandahar last year, and I know there were serious situations that Canadians simply could not attend to because there weren't enough troops. These were situations, as I said, of what amounts to an invasion and the capture of districts, centres, and things like that right outside town. When ISAF doesn't have the resources, then...if you're going to be here, you have to be here with proper resources.

Just two words on the two other issues you raised. It's not the governance model that's a problem; it's that we're not adhering to the model that we claim to be bringing to Afghanistan. We're talking about bringing democracy to Afghanistan, but what we have brought are stolen elections, corruption, torture. Some people might say that looks like American democracy today, but I would like to think we have something better to offer other countries.

Secondly, on Pakistani instability, I've heard that term used twice today. I think it's very interesting to take a look at what's happening in Pakistan. President General Musharraf has been facing the west with a dichotomy: “Either me or the mullahs; if you don't give me everything I want, if you don't provide me with $1 billion a year to fight the Taliban, then you're going to get the mullahs instead of me”, or “If you push for increased democratization of Pakistan, you're going to get the mullahs.”

Look what's happening. Who is demonstrating against General Musharraf? It's lawyers, and it's the civil society of Pakistan, which has been completely ignored in the current debate about Pakistan. I think it would behoove us to provide a lot more support to the huge proportion of the Pakistani population that feels itself to be represented neither by the military nor by the mullahs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Thank you very much to both groups for being with us today. Our time is up. We appreciate your straightforward discussion as to what you believe are the concerns and also the areas where we have seen substantial victory over there. We know it's going to be a long road, and we thank you for your presentations.

To Kandahar, we will cut down our transmission now.

I would like the committee to stay around for two minutes. We have committee business.

I'm going to ask Mr. Goldring if he would hold off on his motion that you've all had circulated to you for the next meeting on Thursday. We're going to deal with the motion from Mr. Casey. Actually, it's not so much a motion, and basically it hasn't been given. It's more of an update to Mr. Patry's motion. It's in response to something we want to do a week from Wednesday, and it goes back to Mr. Patry's motion on the detainees.

Mr. Casey, we don't need to clear the room; we're in public. Do you want to give a bit of an update on a motion that just came out of some of our other committee business as well?

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

Yes. I would like to propose a motion that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development meet jointly at the first opportunity with the Standing Committee on National Defence to hear the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Public Safety, and the Minister of International Cooperation in relation to the handling of persons detained by the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.