Evidence of meeting #39 for National Defence in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Seeing as part of his citizenship is French, I would like to know what sort of background and position that country is taking.
Lastly, the Senlis Council presented before our committee, and they showed slides depicting actual Taliban and their families being fed. I'm wondering what---
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
The issue of dual citizenship is again something that's totally out of order on the issue. I want you to ask her to
withdraw his words. Grandstanding like that is unacceptable. That is not appropriate. We have serious questions that we need to ask. If she cannot ask serious questions, we can, but I would ask that she withdraw her words with respect to the issue of dual citizenship.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Casson
That's not a point of order, Mr. Coderre, as you probably realize.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
The Senlis Council depicted them handing out food to the Taliban. I'm wondering how that impacts on the work you are doing in Afghanistan.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Casson
Ms. Gallant, your time is up.
We've indicated that we'd give these gentlemen a few minutes to wrap up, and then Mr. McGuire would like to pose a question that can be answered in writing. So take a few minutes, please, and try to answer some of the questions. For the ones you don't get to, please respond in writing to us.
Spokesman, NATO International Staff, North Atlantic Treaty Organization
I'll do the NATO stuff.
General Richards referred to a large percentage of the population looking to which force to back. They're not sure who's going to win.
The Taliban is from there and we are not. It is very important that we continue not only to think but to express our long-term commitment. The Afghan people want the Taliban to not be in charge; they want their democratically elected government in charge. We have to show that we're in it for the long haul. It's a very important message to give. They will come on board as they see the benefits, but also as they understand that we're there for the long term.
You will never hear NATO say they are satisfied with the relations with the European Union in terms of the breadth of discussions we have. I'm happy to explain at length why it doesn't work, but we would like it to work.
President Karzai briefed the Secretary General precisely on this subject when we were there last week. He is going to be working with parliamentary leaders to ensure the bill that has been put to him is adapted so that it reflects Afghan law, the Afghan constitution, and international law as is reflected in their constitution. He is very aware of international views on this, and he will ensure, as he works with his own leaders, that it reflects national and international law.
On journalists and the military, precisely because journalists are embedded with the military, they tell what we call the “kinetic story”, the military story. They're there and they move with them. It is much more difficult for them to get out and see the reconstruction story. The kinetic story sells papers. That's the other problem. That's the more sexy stuff. We try, but it is a great challenge for me and for all of my colleagues to convince the journalists to cover these other stories.
On casualties, the reason I mentioned other countries' casualties was in no way to denigrate Canadian casualties. I'm a Canadian, and they are my colleagues. But there is a perception, which I see reflected in the media, that Canada is there alone, that Canada is the only one taking the burden. I have seen this many, many times. It is simply not true. I want to make the point that everybody is there and paying the costs--all of our allies.
There are two final points. If NATO were to leave, it would be absolutely devastating for Afghanistan. They cannot defend themselves on their own. We have the potential to build a NATO right now--and we're doing it in Afghanistan--that is battle tested, highly interoperable, and an effective arm for the United Nations. We have 55,000 troops under UN mandate around the world. We are giving muscle to the UN under UN mandate. For Canadians, that is absolutely primordial. We need to build that, not throw it away. But that means active contribution.
On OEF and NATO, OEF no longer exists as a structure, but there are about 8,000 U.S. troops. Most of them are doing training and equipping of the Afghan National Army. There is a small group that continues to do targeted, intelligence-driven operations with the support of both the United Nations and the Afghan government. We have a command arrangement in place, so it's a different mission from NATO. NATO's mission is to provide security to create the conditions for reconstruction and development. We have a command arrangement in place with a deputy commander who de-conflicts the two missions so they don't step on each other's toes. Where necessary, particularly in extremist situations when soldiers from one side or the other are about to be in serious trouble, we can support each other. In essence, they are different missions with different mandates, and we have a command structure to de-conflict and, where appropriate in emergency situations, to support.
Chris, I'll leave the rest to you.
Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, United Nations
With respect to what would happen if Canada and other countries were to withdraw their mission from the NATO mission in Afghanistan, as James just said, Afghanistan would be plunged back into civil war. The investment and achievements of the past five years--institutional achievements, electoral achievements, development achievements--would go up in smoke, almost certainly. NATO would fail in its top mission, and the credibility of NATO would be critically damaged. The United Nations would fail in one of its principal missions in the world, and its credibility would be damaged, with all attendant consequences for the future ability of the United Nations to influence affairs in the world. And most tragically, none of us around this table would be able to explain to the families of the 44 Canadians who lost their lives in Afghanistan what the purpose of that sacrifice was.
Liberal
Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, United Nations
Yes, I thought that was the question.
With regard to the impact of pictures of the Taliban distributing food, obviously someone was--
NDP
Dawn Black NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
The Senlis Council distributing food to the Taliban. You never saw them.
Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, United Nations
I'm not aware of that report, so I can't really comment on its significance.
We welcome debate about the insurgency and about drug policy, but the United Nations is not going to countenance any move to make opium poppy cultivation legal in Afghanistan or anywhere else. It simply has not worked in conditions where the rule of law is absent. And the biggest priority in Afghanistan today is to establish the rule of law, not to apply policies that have only worked in mature democracies, mature societies, where the rule of law has been established for some time.
What concrete measures should we be undertaking with Pakistan? Well, many. We should share and debate assessments of what is happening on both sides of the border. We should ask Pakistan for specific actions with regard to specific leaders or structures that are of concern to everyone. We should update UN Security Council Resolution 1267 to reflect the current reality of Taliban leadership. This is the list by which Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders are subject to a certain number of sanctions. We should provide additional support—and Canada has an important role to play here—for the issue of refugee returns on both sides of the border to create pull factors in Afghanistan and an enabling environment in Pakistan, and thereby help bring this challenge under control. And, of course, we should address the regional context, which includes not only Pakistan, but also Iran, India and many other countries.
We should also pursue confidence-building measures between the two countries. The United Nations has been particularly active trying to reinforce political dialogue between the two countries, and one of the agenda items we are interested in supporting is this idea of cross-border jirgas to allow civil society in both countries literally to ventilate their views on what it will take to bring security not just to Afghanistan but also to the region as a whole.
What is the role of Iran? On the whole, it's extremely positive: $250 million of assistance delivered in a principled and timely manner to rebuild roads, to support education, and to bring electricity to the city of Herat. The United Nations, with 59 other countries, is a prominent donor that has done a great deal to support Afghanistan's transition.
Detention is an area of major concern for the United Nations. Conditions in Afghan detention facilities run by the national directorate of security are relatively good; they are monitored extremely closely by the ICRC and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Our mission is getting more and more involved in this area, and we have made conditions of detention one of our priorities in the human rights monitoring mandate we have.
There is more work to do on the Afghan prison system. The national prison in Kabul, Pul-i-Charkhi Prison, has been partially renovated and standards there have improved greatly, but there is a great deal more to do at the provincial level. I'm proud to say that the corrections adviser at the UNAMA mission in Afghanistan is a professional from the Correctional Service Canada, and we are making progress on these fronts. Obviously we won't achieve the results we want overnight.
James has mentioned the OEF, and there was a reference earlier to slow development. Obviously development has not been as rapid as anyone would like. Stick a microphone in front of any Afghan and they will respond in a predictable way: they would like more. Many of them have lived outside of the country and have seen what a better life is like, and they want it at home.
But slow with regard to what? We are slow in bringing Afghanistan to the standards of living we see in western Europe and North America. Those are distant objectives, but we have been rapid in bringing economic growth from the level at which Afghanistan began as a country suffering for too long from economic depression and decline.
So I would take issue with the German report and with anyone who maintains that nothing has been done. It's very difficult for us as westerners to understand what life is like with $150 per annum per capita and how much better life could be with $300 per annum per capita. But we must not trivialize the sort of progress that has been made, and the fact that it has not just been made for a select group in Kabul who are benefiting from government office; it has been made for the bulk of the population, thanks to programs sponsored by the government and funded by countries like Canada, programs that have reached the length and breadth of the country and up to two-thirds of rural communities—and 80% of the population is rural. This is the centre of gravity of the Afghan population, and we have already made a difference there.
That is why people in Afghanistan are continuing to invest their hopes in us. They will not do so indefinitely--we need to show results on the regional front domestically--but for the time being we do have a story that we are proud to tell. It is important to recognize, frankly, what has been achieved if we are going to justify the further investments that everyone is now being encouraged to make.
Liberal
Joe McGuire Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a couple of questions coming out of our recent visit to Afghanistan, and on some of the things some of the witnesses brought up to us on our visit. Most importantly, given our additional $200 million commitment of yesterday, very little of that money actually gets down to the ordinary Afghan. By the time it goes through government officials, governors, etc., it's really difficult to see, because there are no real accountability measures in place. Nobody has to give an accounting of how all this aid money is actually spent.
I guess you just have to look around to see how delighted some of the Afghans were with the cash-for-labour program that the Canadian military gave. It was the first cash they had had in some time. All those billions of dollars are really not getting down, because there's no accountability and no demand for accountability. We just seem to fork it over and let them do what they want, and it's not really doing the job.
The other thing is that people are actually not that interested, first of all, in schools and hospitals. They are interested in getting a bite to eat, and they are not getting a bite to eat. They are not getting food. That's what they were telling us.
Number three is that the so-called Afghan National Army is really a northern army that's trying to operate in Kandahar and Helmand province, and they have no acceptability there, because none of their people belong to that national army. They send people for training in Kabul, and they don't make it through. Now you are trying to impose a national army onto a part of the country that is the most sensitive of the 34 provinces. We're really not getting any recruits from that area in order to have the army be a more acceptable instrument of national policy there.
I'd like you to somehow answer those questions.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Casson
Just before you respond, we don't seem to have anybody knocking the doors down to get in here. I know there is quite a bit of interest. Does everybody want to fill the time until 11:30 or should we quit? I'll leave it up to the will of the committee.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Casson
I know you had an hour at the other committee and an hour with us. I imagine that was done for a reason. Do you have commitments?
Spokesman, NATO International Staff, North Atlantic Treaty Organization
At 11:45 we have to be somewhere else.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Casson
This fits in. We'll have Mr. Martin after you respond to Mr. McGuire, and then we'll go over to the government, and then finish up with the Bloc.
Go ahead and respond to Mr. McGuire's question.
Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, United Nations
You're absolutely right that there's room for debate about the effectiveness of aid, and let that debate take place, but let it not convince anyone that nothing has been done. Quite frankly, those donors who have been most principled in their approach, who have chosen implementation mechanisms that are effective, which tend to be through the government, who have chosen not to operate through parallel structures but to use the government budget as the principal mechanism of coordination for policy, these donors have had a very serious impact. There is accountability, and there are results to show for what has been done.
Take Canada's commitment to the national solidarity program. There are 17,000 villages that have received block grant funding for the project of their choice, a project chosen by village shuras, village councils, sometimes men and women together, sometimes separate men's and women's shuras. This has reached half of the villages of the country. There is a paper trail every step of the way and really quite hard-edged accountability for this and half a dozen other national programs, to each of which Canada has contributed strongly.
And yes, it is very useful to see Canadians funding food-for-work programs in Kandahar, but quite frankly, there was a national emergency employment program as early as 2002 and 2003, under government auspices, that was doing this across the country very effectively.
We must not lose sight of the fact that it is Afghanistan as a whole that we are trying to heal and that we are trying to stabilize, not just one province, not just some villages. There is a tendency on the part of some members of NATO to now define the challenge for themselves, given the location of their PRTs, given the location of their troops, in terms of one province. It has been one of the great achievements of Canadian development assistance to Afghanistan up until now to have chosen national delivery mechanisms, and our argument in the United Nations would be that these have been the most effective.
Yes, people want food, particularly in the southern provinces. The insurgency has been particularly disruptive to food distribution networks in southern Afghanistan, where most communities face a food vulnerability and a food deficit, which they usually fill by going to market and by selling their labour on whatever market is available. All too often, that's the drug harvesting market these days.
A huge amount of food has been delivered by the World Food Programme, with the support of Canada and many other countries this year. The coverage hasn't been universal. We agree there are major pockets of vulnerability still in Afghanistan, and for that reason we in the UN are hoping to strengthen our humanitarian coordination capacity by bringing eight new professionals into the field, to be located in places like Kandahar, to look after just this kind of issue, and the Government of Norway is supporting us generally in this regard.
Is the army unbalanced in its makeup? Perhaps, but much less unbalanced, much more balanced than it was two or three years ago. Recruitment is now taking place across the country. The officer corps is more or less balanced province by province, but there is a historical challenge here. If you ask President Karzai and others who know pre-conflict Afghanistan--the Afghanistan of the sixties and seventies--there were not many recruits from Kandahar, Helmand, or Oruzgan in those days either. People preferred to serve in traditional structures, in the police, and not to come to Kabul and leave the hearth and home and the tribal affiliations that were so strong in that region.
So we're not simply trying to overcome the legacy of 2001, a Northern Alliance victory. We're trying to overcome a deeper legacy in Afghan history, and one of the tools for doing that is the Afghan national auxiliary police, not an unqualified success yet, but certainly a good effort to recruit people locally into the security equation and put them under the right form of discipline, command and control in the places that count most for the security equation, namely, Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan, and Zabol.
Spokesman, NATO International Staff, North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Can I add one thing? Everything Chris has said I agree with.
You did refer, sir, to one point about the military having cash in hand and the effectiveness of that. I can tell you that the strongest, clearest impression that we in NATO have gotten, and certainly I have gotten from very many trips to Afghanistan and in regular consultation with the militaries, is that this is very valuable. It has an incredible impact, and not having it has a negative impact.
I know there are discussions within Canada about this, but I would make the case from a third party advocate that putting cash into the hands of your military when they go in, in the immediate post-reconstruction moment, is very valuable, and it's something that, as a committee, I think you should consider.
