National Defence Committee on June 12th, 2013

[LGen Stuart Beare]

For Canada it is that our contribution has delivered the outcomes to which we have committed ourselves. Those outcomes, at the end of March 2014, in military terms, are the successful development within the time and the resources we have had to contribute to the overall capacity build of the Afghan security forces in the quantity, quality, and capacities that I referred to earlier.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

That sounds a little vague.

[LGen Stuart Beare]

Number two is that we will have transitioned the leadership of the functions we have been performing to the Afghans themselves.

Number three is that we will have taken care of our own people and for their own protection to make sure they get home safe and sound.

That will define mission success for the men and women we're sending into operations.

Mission success for the international community effort and the Afghans themselves will be the demonstrated transition of security to Afghan authorities over the course of what started two years ago through to the end of 2014, and the sustained leadership of Afghans in that particular role.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

We can clearly measure March 2014 as a leaving date, getting everybody home safe and sound, and your equipment, etc. That's an easy measurement. But the first two are exceedingly vague.

Do you have a metric established as to when you will say we have successfully transitioned the leadership, for instance?

[LGen Stuart Beare]

We've done that already.

General Ferron can certainly speak to some transitions that have already gone on, but I'll just speak to it in terms of the principle or the image that puts merit to the efforts we've taken and the sacrifices we've made through the lens of transition in 2011 in Panjwai district.

At the end of 2011, when General Milner and task force Afghanistan transitioned security in that district, they didn't transition it to an American force who was leading on the security front. They transitioned it to an Afghan brigade commander and his entire brigade. They had not even existed as a PowerPoint slide four years earlier, but they came into being and became real in terms of people, capability, and capacity to deliver for their own security in that district.

It's a powerful image to leave behind something better than when you got it, and in the hands of those who live there and own it.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

You haven't set it out in terms of “By 2013 we want to have this done, and by 2014 we want to have that done”, or are there benchmarks by which you measure your success on your metric?

[LGen Stuart Beare]

Yes, sir. Thank you for that question.

The answer is, yes, it is the NATO measure and it is the NATO benchmark through the ISAF machinery within which we are delivering this effect. Canada on its own has not delivered a uniquely Canadian effect in this mission. Canada with its partners has delivered a combined effect of multinationals in this mission.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Your metric of success is therefore the international metric of success rather than the Canadian metric of success. So the only sure thing with respect to the Canadian metric of success is that we're leaving March 14.

[LGen Stuart Beare]

No, I would say the measure of success is that we'll deliver our part of the transitions, which I'll ask General Ferron to speak to, and it will have made sense for the level of effort we've invested in terms of the real capacity of the Afghans to deliver things that we used to do for them.

Jim.

[MGen Jim Ferron]

There are four areas that we have led on: the Kabul military training centre, the consolidated fielding centre, the regional military training centre in the north, in Mazar-e-Sharif, and the signals school. All of them have reached a capability milestone level one bravo, which in NATO terms means they are able to execute independent operations.

So from purely a Canadian perspective, it was mission success in those four areas in which we were entrusted with a leadership role.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'm going to have to intercede here. The bells are ringing.

You guys know the drill. Standing Order 115(5) says that if we want to continue to sit, I need consent.

Do we have consent?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I have no consent, so we'll have to suspend.

It's a half-hour bell, which will take us beyond our time when we return. I'll thus be adjourning the meeting.

Before I do, I want to thank the leadership from Canadian Joint Operations Command and the training mission from Afghanistan: Lieutenant-General Stuart Beare, Major-General Jim Ferron, and Rear-Admiral Peter Ellis.

I want to thank all three of you for taking time out of your very hectic schedules to appear before committee. I wish we could have had more time, but we do appreciate your getting us up to date with your briefing today.

Thank you very much.

We're adjourned.