Foreign Affairs Committee on March 11th, 2008

[Derek Burney]

I would add, first of all, that improving governance is obviously a top priority from a Canadian perspective, as we understand it.

I just wanted to add that it's my understanding, Mr. Chairman, that it was a Canadian firm, a Montreal-based firm, that provided all of the basic security for the elections that were held in 2005-2006. So as a Canadian, I would hope that since these elections were conducted in a very efficient fashion, with security at the polling booths across the country, that same Canadian firm would be responsible for that portion of the elections coming, because in this kind of environment, you can appreciate just how important it is to have secure polling places for the electors.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll go again to the opposition side. Mr. Chan.

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, Richmond, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Manley was about to answer my question but ran out of time. That was about 40 minutes ago, so I just wanted to remind Mr. Manley about my three questions.

One is on the overall commitment from NATO and the west in Afghanistan. The second is on the country rotation in and out of the south, the Kandahar region. The third one is whether it is appropriate to have a parallel democratic process led by an eminent person authorized by the UN in parallel with the military intervention that we have now. We're talking about the commitment to Afghanistan as a whole.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Chan.

Mr. Martin.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

I have a follow-up question.

[John Manley]

This time we won't get to your question.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thanks for your indulgence in our ways.

When I spoke about the four pillars, I hope that what comes out of Bucharest is that we focus with our NATO allies on the establishment of hard targets in terms of numbers and timelines for those four pillars so that the Afghan people know when we're going to leave, and we'll be able to know what hard assets are required to achieve those targets.

This is my question. In every map that I've seen over the last year, Taliban influence has actually increased in the country. Can you explain, from your perspective, why the Taliban influence is in its ascendancy, as opposed to decline?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

I guess they all want to take a crack with four questions.

For some of these, if you need to get the answer, we would appreciate a written response if possible.

Mr. Patry.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Burney talked about the most dangerous region being with a neighbouring country with nuclear weapons.

Do you have any opinion concerning the silence from China and Russia on this issue?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Okay, Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I just very quickly want to ask about empowerment at the village level. When you take all these national elections aside, the real issue is what are you doing at the village level in terms of clean water, electricity, etc. There seems to be a lack of coordination among our development partners in terms of delivering on-the-ground, real results at the village level.

Could you comment on that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right, so we have questions on the Taliban, on Russia and China, empowerment at the village level, and Mr. Chan's three.

[John Manley]

In my day there used to be pads provided. I guess too many witnesses stole them when they left, so I've been writing on my sleeves. I'm trying to remember these questions.

Actually Mr. Chan's and Mr. Martin's questions do relate to one another. Oh, here comes a pad. It's too late now. Have you written the answers on them? There are no answers on this; this won't help.

First of all, regarding the degree of the commitment, this is one of the messages in our report and one of the reasons, I think, that it's actually being read outside Canada. We have tried, without exaggerating it or making it too dramatic, to make it clear that the status quo is going poorly. The commitment is inadequate. Afghanistan could be lost. Again, it could be lost. The consequences for the international community and the consequences for NATO are serious if that happens. And it's not good enough to simply say we've got troops in this area and the security situation is permissive and we think it all looks good. We're trying to highlight for the other countries in ISAF, which are more than NATO, that this is not going well and it requires a greater commitment.

Now, on the positive side of that, you mentioned in the first round the commitment to the former Yugoslavia. To some degree I've seen this movie before, because when I became foreign minister and I first went to NATO ministers meetings, the conversation was about the former Yugoslavia. Canada had 1,800 troops in Bosnia at the time, and the recurrent refrain was “Why are the Europeans not more committed to reconstruction and security in the former Yugoslavia? After all, it's part of Europe.” And there were lots of excuses and there was lots of hot air. But I think you would have to say at this point in time that NATO members in the European Union and others have responded to the challenge, whether it's in Bosnia or Kosovo, more recently with a much greater commitment, and Canada is no longer there.

One can hope we'll see that re-created in Afghanistan, if the message could just be heard. There was a concept, you're right. You said—and I'm sorry, we're going to have a hard time getting all these questions done, but let me talk while we're at it. When we went in, in 2001, it was to pursue al-Qaeda. That was the issue of the day. We didn't actually foresee that the Taliban government would collapse like a cheap suit. They weren't defeated; they just went away, and they took their time, regrouped, rebuilt, and waited until the attention of the international community, particularly the west, was distracted by what I call the folly in Iraq. The consequence was that things could get regrouped in Afghanistan. Before we knew it, we had an all-out insurgency on our hands, partly because of neglect. It's a risky place, and it's going to require a degree of concentration.

Regarding rotation, there's no principle of rotation. We rotated out of Bosnia. Should we expect to be rotated back in? We're part of a military alliance. We've got a task to do. We stuck up our hands and volunteered to go to Kandahar, and that's where we are. My own view, and I think this is what's reflected in our report, is that we say we went to Kandahar for whatever reason, because we actually don't know what the reason was when the government took that decision. But I think we do need to look at ourselves as Canadians. I understand that your constituents get tired of this issue. They don't like hearing that soldiers are getting killed and brought home. They want to change the channel. Let's watch something else. Let's watch Darfur. Let's watch something in Southeast Asia.

It's frustrating. It looks as if it's not going well, but we've taken on a commitment, and it's an important one, and therefore we have to deal with it responsibly. We're a senior member of that international community. We'd better be dealing with this that we've taken on in that way.

I've forgotten what the other questions were.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Russia and China and the village level. Mr. Burney's got them.

[Derek Burney]

I wrote them down. You see, I used to be an official, not a politician, so I wrote the questions down.

[John Manley]

And I'm used to having officials write them down.

[Derek Burney]

I want to add to the point about commitment. The dog that doesn't bark in this whole debate is what John alluded to in his comments. There is no question that the commitment in Afghanistan has been distracted by events in Iraq by the number one player in the military mission and the civilian mission. Don't forget, the Americans are not just involved militarily, they're making a huge development assistance contribution as well.

One of the encouraging things going forward, in my opinion--and it's far easier to find negative things to focus on in Afghanistan--is that in the eyes of the aspirants for the presidency in the United States today, from either party, this is the good war. This is the one they know they have to win on their terms of winning. So it seems to me that part of the distraction of NATO and the reluctance of NATO is a reflection of the distraction in Washington about the priority Afghanistan has had. I don't think that's going to be a problem going forward.

On the high-level representative, absolutely. The issue of the lack of coordination of the international civilian effort, the multiple agendas, each country doing its own thing.... Even within the United Nations you have individual agencies of the United Nations doing their own thing. There's a desperate need for a high-level representative pulling together the power and the capability of the UN in a concerted way. Unfortunately, the appointment of Paddy Ashdown did not materialize. We have to hope there will be some other form of high-level representative who will give that.

China and Russia obviously are potential players in the region. For good reasons that you're aware of, Mr. Chan, the Russians are in the rear seat at the moment, but nonetheless, they're very concerned. In fact, this is probably one of the few areas in the world where the current Russian government's view on Afghanistan is similar to the view of the western allies.

On China, and this is a personal view, we as a matter of our own foreign policy should be looking for ways to make the Chinese aware of their global responsibilities as a responsible stakeholder in global peace and security, not in pursuit of narrow self-interest, which is the only motivation to date of Chinese foreign policy. So yes, I think today they are a passive participant in events around Afghanistan. They should be more active. It's in their fundamental interest that there be stability in Afghanistan and in that region.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

The bells are ringing.

Can we have unanimous consent to stay for a couple more minutes? We're in the same building where the votes will take place, so we'll get there.

I'm going to break the order as well, because I certainly want Madame Barbot to get her round in here.

Madame Barbot, five minutes please.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

Thank you.

One of the aspects of the war in Afghanistan is that the public does not seem to be really concerned by what is going on. We have not yet been convinced, not made to see what is happening over there. It is a difficult position to be in. It is not that people do not want to help Afghanistan, quite the opposite. But we have not managed to get real answers. There has been a lot of talk about the lack of transparency. We have been trying to find out what is going on over there for several months and people line up to tell us that things are bad and that they will get worse if we leave. Is that enough? You will probably not be able to answer that question?

Let me tell you about a memory from my childhood. Earlier, Mr. Burney spoke about the need to put flags so that people can see what Canada is doing. It seems that people who receive aid do not see what Canada is doing any more than we see what our country is doing over there. I was born in Haiti, and unfortunately, people often talk about Haiti as being one of the poorest countries in the world, without having lived there or knowing what it is about. But that is reality, after all.

I remember when I was a child and we had natural disasters, provisions and flags were provided by the United Nations. I do not want to seem cynical when I say this, but the flags meant that you could identify the provisions when they were sold in the local market. As a child, I wondered why they did that and why those who gave the aid did it in a way that it ended up being sold in the market.

We who are in Parliament are trying to get answers and we get none. We are constantly asking why we went to that country. What exactly are we going to do? We see the focus changing all the time. First we went to Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban. Then we were told that it was to save women. Then we spend money so that we can tell people to look at the good we are doing. On the other end, the people receiving the aid are clearly pleased to get it, but, at the same time, they never get out of their poverty. Come what may, they have most of the casualties. I am conflicted when I hear all this. These are living, breathing people whom we say we are trying to help, but, when all is said and done, the strategy makes me think that we really cannot solve the world's problems.

It may be heart-breaking, but this is really how this situation makes me feel. We have never had a true picture of what is going on, much less a true assessment of our ability to solve the problems.

Do you have any comments?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madame Barbot. There was not really a question there, but comments, and we thank you for that.

I'm going to ask Mr. Goldring. He'll have the last question of the day. Mr. Goldring, go ahead.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The first point I'd like to make is as a former member of the Royal Canadian Air Force in the sixties: I hope we never send our military in harm's way without the best of kit. I think that's an extremely important comment.

You spoke of Haiti before--there's some relevancy and some comparison to Haiti--and you spoke of democracy. We did a study of Haiti, and being there on the ground in Haiti was invaluable to give us a perspective on the country. One of the things that I noticed that came out of that was the real sense--as you said, Mr. Manley--that an election doesn't necessarily make democracy, that there's a lot more involved in it than that.

I know we can build our capacity on governance, we can build our capacity on political parties, we can build all of these other things. But something that came through very plainly in Haiti was that many of the citizenry didn't understand what their representative would be doing for them, their member of Parliament. There was a very poor understanding of it.

One of the recommendations that came through was to--as in Canada--take it into the schools. I know you've been building the capacity on the schools, but the next thing is to work on the next generation and the generation to follow: that they be aware and seized with the importance of what improving a democracy means on the long term. Is that one of the observations that you made too? If you would, comment on the long-term next generation, and the generation to follow too, because those will be the people that vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Goldring.

Mr. Manley.

[John Manley]

We didn't get into what they should be teaching them in schools. It's so basic at this point. We met with a group that was very proud of their school having been built, but their main concern was that it was inadequate in size. There were so many children that they could only attend school in four shifts a day, so each child got two hours in school. The next problem in the education system is teachers being trained and paid. You're building, from the ground up, a system that has so far to go. That's why we need to be reasonable about what we can achieve and what we can really expect.

Quite frankly, we have been all over the map. Madame Barbot made the point that I think we made in our report, that in terms of transparency and communications, this has not been well understood by our population, and we are asking them for enormous sacrifices in terms of our young people and our treasury. If we don't tell people unequivocally what it's all about, it's no wonder they want to change the channel.

There are lots of reasons why we're there; we shouldn't think there's only one reason. We're there to educate children and women, establish security, and make it more difficult for al-Qaeda to use Afghanistan as a training ground from which to attack populations elsewhere. Trying to get a handle on the poppy cultivation that is destroying societies around the world is one of the reasons we are there. There are a lot of reasons why we are there, and they are good reasons. But the failure to have a coherent strategy that encompasses development, the political side, and the security side will potentially undermine our success in achieving any of those objectives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Manley, Mr. Burney, and Ms. Wallin.

A couple of times today Mr. Mulroney has been referenced here. Mr. Manley, you mentioned that you went with him once to Afghanistan. We want to welcome Mr. David Mulroney. He is the head of the new task force on Afghanistan and he was your secretary, from what I am told. I think part of what he is doing answers the fourth and fifth recommendations in your report, as far as systematically assessing the effectiveness of Canada's role and helping cabinet and the Prime Minister to communicate why we are there, as you have stated today.

We thank your committee for your hard work, and we thank you for being here at our committee to help parliamentarians and Canadians understand clearly why we're there.

Thanks for your attendance here today.

[John Manley]

Thank you.