National Defence Committee on Oct. 27th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

No.

[Barbara Martin]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that clarification.

I think we'll do a tag team response here.

I made clear in my statement that we welcomed the decision by the chairman of the NTC to undertake an investigation. Indeed, we are very aware that the NTC did not order what occurred in Sirte, and therefore their actions in looking into this are welcomed. I can say that as a matter of what we know of the circumstances to date.

Perhaps I could ask Marie to speak about other elements of that.

[Marie Gervais-Vidricaire]

I would just add in a more general way that you might be aware that the Council on Human Rights of the United Nations has set up a commission of inquiry about the human rights situation in Libya. This is an important exercise, of course, and with our global peace and security fund we have been able to support the inclusion of an expert on gender-based violence and sexual violence in that team that will do the investigation. That was a request we got from the United Nations women, that organization, and we were quite happy to support that to make sure that the women angle will be fully investigated as well.

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

How are you ensuring that this will be a fair and transparent process? How will the average Libyan know that this is a first-time experience where the process itself is open, transparent, and accountable?

[Barbara Martin]

I think we'll have to make that assessment as the process unfolds. As Marie pointed out, there will be some engagement from the level of the UN. There is a UN special representative who will be based in Tripoli as well, who will have a certain concern and engagement with NTC authorities, and of course our own embassy will continue to have a dialogue with the NTC authorities.

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

Are we engaging any NGOs in this process?

[Barbara Martin]

Not at this time, no.

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

And the answer on the question to the extension?

[BGen Craig King]

I just point out that our involvement in the mission was based on a series of UN Security Council resolutions and done in the context of an alliance. Those deliberations, as I mentioned, will be ongoing tomorrow within the North Atlantic Council, which will determine our posture from this forward. We're expecting that the mission will be terminated on Monday, but that decision has yet to be taken. Then any extension of the mission frankly is a question for government consideration. I don't mean to slope shoulders on that, but as the executing arm of the government this is the context within which we get launched.

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

Do you know whether there's been any request on the part the NTC?

[BGen Craig King]

There has been a request to extend us for a couple more months. This is what is making this discussion, not only at the North Atlantic Council but at the UN, something that is being carefully monitored. This is a political discussion that will have to be resolved.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Time has expired, so we're going to go on to our five-minute round now.

Mr. Strahl.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

This is our third meeting since I've been here that is discussing the situation in Libya. At the first meeting in August there was frustration and talk of stalemate and just a lot of uncertainty. In September we had a sense of the light at the end of the tunnel. And now, certainly, there's no disputing that the NATO mission was successful and is nearing a definite end.

I'm wondering whether we have any indicators in place that will demonstrate that the NTC is capable of carrying on alone, now that Gadhafi is no longer a threat. Have we established a formal operational liaison with the NTC forces to determine when they will be able to continue the task at hand on their own?

[BGen Craig King]

Thank you for your question, sir. Those are both really good questions.

I'd speak to the issue of liaison. There is no liaison between the Canadian Forces and the NTC forces; however, there has been NTC military representation at meetings. Yesterday, the chief was in a meeting in Doha that was sponsored by Qatar. There were discussions there. But that's the level of contact; it's at a very high level. There's no tactical-level liaison that is being maintained.

As to your first question with respect to professionalization of.... Is it whether they are capable of carrying on? Is that correct?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Do we have any indication of how capable they are?

[BGen Craig King]

Clearly we're in a period of transition, as has been pointed out, and in a period of transition there's a lot of wait and see. But the indications we have at this stage are that the intent is to reintegrate the militia forces that coalesced to fight the Gadhafi regime and to professionalize them. Over time, their capacity will improve to the point of their being able to manage security for their own country, and that's a good direction for them to be going in.

In terms of some of the indicators we've been seeing at this point, there was a report I just read this morning that a brigade out of Misrata has asked to be decommissioned or to disarm and hand in its weapons. I can't say it's a trend right now, because we haven't seen enough events that would indicate a trend, but it's a good start.

Barbara made mention of the situation in Tripoli. There are definitely tensions, because we're in a period of transition in which forces on the ground, as Barbara has mentioned, could play a hand in political manoeuvers. But there have been some good indications out of Tripoli as well that would suggest that the coalescing of authority by the NTC is occurring, and they clearly understand the requirement to professionalize their force so that it is accountable for its actions.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Do we know whether there are still groups...? Gadhafi is gone, obviously, but are there still those loyal to his regime who pose a threat to civilians? What is the level of threat to civilians now that we're approaching the end of this conflict?

[BGen Craig King]

Again it's a good question and one we're carefully monitoring. I think this is the substance of the debate we were referring to earlier, in terms of where the discussions are going.

What we've said and General Bouchard has said in his comments over the past weekend is that there is no organized ability for the pro-Gadhafi forces to mount a concerted threat to civilians. Nor are there the authority figures of the former regime around whom you could coalesce a force to threaten the population, such as led to our being involved in the first place. We're not seeing those things.

Are there still pro-Gadhafi elements out there? There was a very interesting editorial in the Ottawa Citizen a few days ago, I think under the headline “Gadhafi Was No Joke”. There is a reason that he was in power as long as he was and was able to fight down to the last for as long as he did: there are people who are still loyal in that country. However, our assessment is that whatever loyal forces remain are still within the capacity of the NTC to deal with, and they've demonstrated recently their ability to do it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Christopherson, it's your turn.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Actually, I thought it was going to be Ms. Davies for the second round, and I'll do the third.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Ms. Davies.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Chairperson.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I'm not a regular member of this committee, so I haven't been involved in the briefings that took place earlier. Certainly, like many Canadians, I've been following the news and watching what's been going on in Libya. It's been quite dramatic and incredible to see the changes taking place there. So I was very interested to hear your remarks today in terms of, I guess, the assessment from Canada's point of view and where we're headed now in terms of our future involvement.

Ms. Martin, just looking at the comments you made this morning, you say “Canada will align its assistance with the framework agreed with the NTC and will respond to its requests”.

I realize that there are many things happening at different levels, and it's all developing quite quickly. I could raise any number of them, but one in particular that I think is of importance and of some urgency is the situation regarding health issues, infrastructure, food issues, food security and availability, and basically, the status of the civilian population. There's no question that many cities were almost completely destroyed. The infrastructure was destroyed.

In terms of this framework agreement and your comments that Canada will be responding to requests, I think it would be very good for us to know whether Canadian officials are planning to intervene quickly. What kinds of resources do we have on the ground to respond to some of these very basic needs and to support the Libyan population? Is there a timetable for that? Is there a budget for that? Can you give us a sense of what kind of plan is going to unfold in terms of responding to what I would imagine are still very urgent needs in an urgent situation?

[Barbara Martin]

I am going to start, and then I'll ask Marie to fill in.

Indeed, many of the needs you're identifying—health issues, food, infrastructure—are related to the conflict, but other needs are related to the situation in Libya that existed prior to the conflict. There's an ongoing development requirement in the country.

Canada contributed slightly over $10 million to try to address the humanitarian needs in the country, and certainly in the areas of the most recent fighting there are continuing humanitarian needs. But in cities like Tripoli and Benghazi, those humanitarian needs have diminished enormously. Food is flowing. Food is in the shops. Water is available. There was actually relatively little damage to civilian infrastructure. The bombing was very targeted on military entities.

I could perhaps ask Marie to talk about what kind of programming we are pursuing.

[Marie Gervais-Vidricaire]

Thank you.

The key element in all of this is that there's general consensus that the Libyans have to lead the process; they have to tell us what it is they need.

They told the international community and the UN mission that they wouldn't do that until victory had been declared. So although the UN mission has been in Tripoli for some time now, they were not able to start the assessment of needs process, because victory had not been declared. Now it has been declared, so the process has started. The way it's organized is that, mostly under the United Nations, a series of assessments is going to be done, in close consultation with the Libyans again.

The UN is leading. I'll give you just some examples. There will be an assessment of social services needs related to health and education; a civil society assessment will be done by the European Union; infrastructure repairs will be done by the World Bank. Such issues as border control will be assessed as well. For disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, the UN has the lead. And there are public security and the rule of law, electoral and constitutional processes, and so forth. There is a series of ten different areas in which the needs will be assessed.

As I said earlier, there's also a desire to move quickly. These assessments will take some time, frankly. We were hoping they would start earlier, but they are just starting, so I think it will take probably a couple of months to get the results of the assessments.

In the meantime, we are looking at what can be done in coordination with the UN in the short term. Our stabilization and reconstruction task force, my bureau, to start has sent an officer, who has been in Tripoli with our ambassador for the past three weeks speaking to the UN, speaking to the Libyans, speaking to our partners on the ground, to see what it is we could do in the coming weeks and months to get things done.

We have a number of ideas. When Minister Baird was in Tripoli, he met, as you may know, with a group of women activists. The role of women is certainly something we would like to support in the upcoming electoral process.

So we are looking at what we can do. We are speaking to some Canadian NGOs who have an interest. We are hoping.... We have funds available in our global fund for peace and security.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Time has expired, I'm sorry, and I am very judicious on keeping time.