National Defence Committee on Oct. 18th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Ms. Gallant, and then back to the Bloc.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

What can be done to better explain to Canadians the tremendous, yet unsung, accomplishments the troops are achieving in Afghanistan?

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

In many cases, the troops are the best spokesmen. When they come home, many of the troops talk to their local newspapers, to the local media, and they explain their situation. I have been impressed by the quality of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and how eloquent they are in expressing their feelings about the mission. Time and again, they explain why they believe in the mission.

Even the families of the soldiers, whom I meet when we're receiving back in Trenton, family after family tell me and tell the chief that their loved one believed in the mission and they believe in the mission. I think allowing individual soldiers, when they return, to explain what they were doing will help the public understand.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

With Remembrance Day coming up, we have Legions looking for keynote speakers. Would it be permissible for the soldiers to tell what they witnessed in Afghanistan?

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

Yes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Could you tell us a bit about the care in theatre and in Landstuhl? What sort of care do our soldiers receive once they've been injured and taken out of combat?

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

I'll ask the chief to answer that.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Ms. Gallant, it's world-class. I've talked to many of the soldiers who have come home wounded—in fact the majority of them, either in Kandahar, in Landstuhl, Germany, or here across the country, depending on which hospital they've been in. To a person, they have been effusive in their compliments and praise for our Role 3 hospital at the Kandahar Airfield, which is a multinational hospital that's Canadian-led, with British, American, and Dutch physicians and physicians' assistants all sharing part of the burden. They have an incredible team, and the soldiers say—including a couple I sat down with on their beds when I was there two weeks ago—they've never had care like that. This kind of care has been delivered for them in a hostile environment. We believe that's necessary in order to have the confidence to ask them to go out and do something that is risky and dangerous.

Secondly, when they leave Landstuhl and come home, they will say, almost to an individual--and perhaps every one of them—that this is the foremost medical facility in the world. That's their assessment of it.

The families that go over—and sometimes we have families go to meet the individuals in Landstuhl, if we anticipate their being there for more than a few days, or particularly if they're very critical—also agree. They come back here and say, sir, nothing is better than the Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre.

So as part of making sure that we thank them appropriately, I visited them last week. In fact in November, as I'll be back in Europe for a variety of meetings, I'm going to award them the Canadian Forces Unit Commendation, because they deserve it for their care of our men and women, and their families.

Back here in Canada, we have worked with regional centres. For example, I think it's the University of Alberta Health Centre as one example, and the Civic Hospital here in Ottawa, where we established an understanding of who those great young men and women are who come home wounded, who care.

Young Private Mike Spence was on the Hill several weeks ago for the “Wear Red Friday” rally. He and his dad, who also happens to be a serviceman, and his mom and family say the care has been second to none. They could not want for a single thing. When I went to the University of Alberta Health Centre, the staff lined up to meet me to tell me what great men, great gentlemen, and what great patients our wounded soldiers were, and they asked if they could use them all as examples for the rest of the patients--because there's no reversing those guys we bring home. They want to get better and get out, or get on with their lives, no matter what.

The care is world-class, Ms. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

Over the course of our study on Afghanistan we've had witnesses tell us how wrong it is to encourage the farmers to grow crops other than opium. Would you explain to us why it's important that we encourage the farmers to seek other crops?

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

Afghanistan produces about 90% of the world's opium supply. At the moment, within NATO, the United Kingdom is responsible for trying to bring this problem under control.

The drug trade is a great source of money for the Taliban. What happens is that the drug people pay the Taliban to protect them, and then the Taliban, in turn, have cash to buy day soldiers. As the CDS mentioned earlier, the Taliban itself--the professional organization--might be a relatively small number, but they buy people at $12 U.S. a day, which is a very good salary in Afghanistan, and the drug trade is a source of that money for the Taliban.

If you just go in there and destroy the crops and you don't compensate the farmers, you alienate all the farmers. And from the point of view some of these farmers, that's the only thing they can grow right now. They haven't been given an option.

As I said, our government and our military are not involved in suppressing the drug situation, but it is a root cause of some of the actions we're engaged in. Whatever solution NATO and the Afghan government ultimately come up with, there has to be some way to legitimately compensate the farmers. They have to have a livelihood so that they can survive with their families.

This is still being considered. I don't think that a coherent approach to dealing with the drug trade has been determined at this moment. Occasionally, from time to time, the Afghan army and the Afghan police go into areas and just destroy the crops. We want to destroy the crops; we want to suppress opium, because it's bad, except in a medical way, for populations, but we have to find a solution that compensates the farmers so that they have a livelihood.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

We'll go over to Mr. Bachand and then back to the government.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In our quest to resolve the conflict, since we are still trying to ensure that it does not go on forever, there is one subject that we have not yet broached today, that is, Pakistan.

Increasingly, we hear that the Pakistani secret services are actually giving sanctuary to the Taliban and that the border is extremely porous. This means that, when the Taliban are pushed back, they simply cross the border to the Pakistani side, where they replenish themselves, and then come back to attack the international forces.

I know that your visit to Mr. Musharraf, recently, was not a great success. I heard Mr. Musharraf on the CBC. He did not wish to cross swords with the Canadian military. Your attempt concerning the possibility of having joint and other patrols was a good one to my mind.

I would like to know whether you have any discussions with your colleague, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to try and solve this problem. If the Pakistani problem cannot be resolved, if the border cannot be sealed more tightly or the Pakistani government cannot be convinced to stop giving sanctuary to the Taliban, it seems to me that resolving the conflict could be much longer. There are rumours going around to the effect that there are agreements with the Taliban at present.

I would like to know whether discussions have been initiated with the government, between you and your Foreign Affairs colleague, to try and solve this problem.

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

One of the challenges faced in the south is that the Pashtun people.... There are about 12.5 million Pashtun people on the Afghan side of the border; they're the predominant tribe within Kandahar province, Helmand province, and a whole bunch of provinces in the south and east. There are also 22 million in Pakistan. So collectively they're about 33 million; they're the population of Canada, the Pashtun. There may be exceptions, but the Taliban essentially come out of the Pashtun.

We have on a map a line that shows a border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but in reality it's a porous border. There are mountains and desert, and people can move back and forth all the time. And of course when somebody moves across the border—two or three men—we don't necessarily know they're Taliban; they're just tribal members.

There's no paperwork needed for the Pashtun to move back and forth across the borders, because they have the rights, much as native Canadians have to move back and forth into the United States. So that causes a problem.

There's also.... How do I put this? Afghanistan may dispute where the border is with Pakistan. That adds to the problem.

When I was in Pakistan most recently, and when I met yesterday with the president of their senate, I gave both of them—I was dealing most recently with the defence minister of Pakistan—the same message, that we appreciate what they're doing. They have 80,000 or 90,000 troops along their border with Afghanistan, and they have been suppressing Taliban. They also have other insurgencies in their country that they're dealing with, but they have been suppressing Taliban.

But we asked them to do more, because to us it's like an open door, back and forth into our area. When the Taliban need reinforcements, they come across the border from Pakistan. And so we have been encouraging them to do more.

One of the modest steps of confidence I've suggested, and my meeting was quite receptive yesterday with the leader of the senate, is that we deploy a liaison officer, not troops. One of the press people in Pakistan—I guess her knowledge of English wasn't that good—translated a single liaison officer into “troops”. I was suggesting that we put a liaison officer with the 12th army corps of the Pakistan army, which is south of us in Pakistan—south of our province—and that we put a Pakistan liaison officer in our headquarters in Kandahar.

I was never suggesting we send troops anywhere into Pakistan. It was that if we have a liaison officer on both sides of the border, they can increase the confidence of both sides that they are both addressing the problem and can pass information back and forth.

I have received relatively positive comments on this and I'm going to keep proceeding with it. We will keep proceeding through our government—and NATO is doing it too through the ISAF commander—to encourage the Pakistanis to do more on their borders. The more effort they can put on their borders into suppressing the Taliban, the better it is for us and the better it is for Afghanistan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

We're just about out of time. I understand the bells will be ringing at 5:30 for a vote. If my colleagues on the government side will allow me, I'd just like a minute to wrap up here.

We'd like to thank you very much for being here today. We understand--I believe the committee does understand--the pressures that are on the department and the military at a time when we are deployed in a very major way. We have asked for officials and people from both of your areas to appear, the department as well as generals, and to date we've had some pretty good cooperation. We understand that at times some people have to postpone or take up other duties because they are busy, but we do hope, Mr. Minister, that you'll take to heart your comment that you will reassess the issue. I think the committee would be very appreciative of that.

We also understand that at this time in the history of this country, the work this committee does is extremely important. We're working on this Afghanistan report, not only for Parliament to better understand when the report is tabled, but also for Canadians to better understand what we're doing there.

I think your comments today were very straightforward, both of you, and we appreciate that. We hope that in the days to come the situation will get better, and that we will be able to start making the difference over there that we went there to make.

Before I adjourn, I'd like to tell the committee that we received approval in the House today for our travel to Petawawa next Tuesday. The clerk will be working on the details of that, but we have a meeting on Monday as well, so stay tuned and that information will be coming out to you. Plan on an early morning rise next Tuesday morning.

The meeting is adjourned.