National Defence Committee on Oct. 18th, 2006

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Earlier this year, DND signed a contract with General Gulalai in Kandahar for some base services. Is this the same General Gulalai who was named as a warlord by Reuters and a UN human rights organization? I'm wondering what real assurances we have when we're signing contracts with people in Afghanistan, that we're not contracting with warlords.

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

Afghanistan and the parliament of Afghanistan have people you would categorize as former warlords. They also have a lot of women and the parliament is quite a mixture of their society and their culture. So it's not unusual to have to deal with people you call former warlords. That's the way it is in Afghanistan.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Do we have any assurances about General Gulalai?

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

I don't know what assurances we would have to be given.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

His activities now, I suppose.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

I should take that on. I don't know the individual personally; I don't know what contract we have with him right now, and I certainly don't know what his present activities are. That's a level of detail that gets run through a new country.

I would say, in support of what the minister just said, we're dealing with a country that was destroyed and brutalized over 25 years.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Yes, I understand that kind of position.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Everybody in that country was involved in the violence at one point and everybody is described from one angle, agenda, or perception or another as something else: either as a warlord or as a good guy or a bad guy, etc. So some of those descriptions are in the past, and many of the people who were engaged and called warlords in the past have come into the political process. Many of them play a very positive part. So it's not all bad.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

The previous government bought the M777 howitzers and the Excalibur munitions for use in Kandahar. I'd like to know what the precise cost of each shell is, if you could get that to me. Do you know that?

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

No, I wouldn't, off the top of my head. We'll get that number for you.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

It has been denied to me when I've asked for it.

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

It has, has it? The price of a shell?

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Actually, you're asking the price of the Excalibur round.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Yes.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

It's an expensive round.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Yes, I know that.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

I don't have the precise dollar figure at hand, but as the minister has said, we'll provide the minister the information on it.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you. I'll look forward to getting it.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Could I just say that it's an expensive round because it's a precision round. Going back to the question you asked about making sure we're not driving people away from the government, etc., because of things like collateral damage, this is one of the things we want to precisely use against those who are bringing violence against us or against Afghans only, and therefore it's a very expensive round. I'll provide the minister the cost information.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

General Hillier, last year in the middle of the election campaign you signed a detainee transfer agreement with the Afghan minister of national defence. Putting aside the appropriateness of that, I would like to know if former Minister of National Defence Bill Graham approved that agreement. And did he give you the authority to sign on behalf of the Canadian government?

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

In fact, I think the Government of Canada did. It absolutely wasn't something I was going to go off and sign myself, I assure you. We were all in agreement that this was the right move. This was Afghanistan—this was the Afghans' country—and certainly we were in full support, from Foreign Affairs and the Department of National Defence, that this was the right thing to do.

I acted as the agent in part because of the trust the minister of defence in Afghanistan had in me personally from previous acquaintance and because I was there on the ground at the time when we were ready with the agreement to be signed.

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

First of all.... There are two parts to it. One is that there's an expectation that NATO countries are going to add to the number of troops we have in Afghanistan, and when the previous government committed our troops to the Kandahar area, I think it was under the understanding that those troops who were under Operation Enduring Freedom would eventually transfer to ISAF. Then, part of the concept was that eventually the final part of Operation Enduring Freedom would join us too, so that we would have all the troops there under that thing.

But I guess, knowing that they had the caveats, we still had the expectation and have the expectation now that these caveats will be removed over time. NATO's basic premise is that we all are in Afghanistan together and that if we were theoretically in trouble, other countries of NATO would have to come to our aid. If the reverse arises and somebody in NATO is in trouble, we go to their aid. We're fully confident that over time these caveats are going to be removed.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

My final question is on the issue of danger pay and the soldiers who have been injured in Afghanistan losing that addition to their pay when they are injured and are sent home. It seems to me bizarre, and I'm wondering whether there is not some way we could call it something different when they come home—“recuperation pay”, or something—so that these injured soldiers are not financially penalized when they return to Canada injured from their work in Afghanistan.

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

We are going to correct it. I have said that publicly. The Chief of the Defence Staff has said it publicly. We are going to correct it; we are going to make sure there is no injustice. It's just that at the moment, the way the high-risk allowance is set up, you have to be in a high-risk area, and when we have a serious casualty and they're evacuated out of the area, then they're not in a high-risk area.

We are going to move as quickly as possible, and I've said that—but in bureaucrat terms, that's still a few weeks—to correct the situation so that no wounded soldier is going to suffer financially because of this. We will come up with some other allowance that will make sure nobody loses any money.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much, Ms. Black, right on schedule.

We'll go over to the government now--I believe it's Ms. Gallant--for a question and then to Mr. Hawn.