Mr. Speaker, let me thank my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca for sharing his time with me to give me the opportunity to add my voice to this most important debate.
I am pleased that the member also mentioned the shortage of time when this debate first started a couple of years ago. At that time, as members will recall, we were in a minority government and in such a short period of time were not able to take out some of the bugs and bring forward something better. Today again it is a minority government and here we are asking for the time to discuss this. Why? Because we are asking our men and women in uniform to go into harm's way and, we hope, bring some peace, security and development to this most unfortunate region of Kandahar, Afghanistan.
I followed the debate throughout the day and was saddened in many ways by some of the comments that were made.
I want to say first and foremost that I think I speak on behalf of every member in this House when I say that when we stand to speak, we are not here to pit our military against party A or party B. It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with doing the right thing, making the right decision. That is why I am going to start by reminding each and every Canadian of some words that the Prime Minister has used in the past. In essence he used George Bush's words when he said, “We're not going to cut and run”. It is not a matter of cutting and running. The government has not said so, no member has said so, no Canadian has said so, and our men and women in uniform have not said so. We are simply trying to set the terms of engagement for a successful outcome. I just wanted to clarify that for the record.
In the last Parliament I had the privilege of chairing the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs. Today I am vice-chair. I have had the opportunity, unlike most other members who I am sure would have appreciated the opportunity, to listen to various witnesses who came before our committee, including people who were formerly in the military, academics, recognized organizations, NGOs, people currently in the military, and the previous minister of defence as well. We were able to hear all their comments.
Members also listen to their constituents. This past Friday, I met with an Afghanistan group, who said, “You guys don't really know what is going on over there”. I heard some other comments, which I will bring forth today.
Some good things have been said in the Manley report. Through this debate I also want to inform Canadians that the committee on national defence committee worked very hard to put a report together which was tabled last June, with 12 recommendations. There was a 13th recommendation which unfortunately we could not put in the report, and I will explain why. It concerned something which everyone is talking about, and that is training, training, training.
We recommended that we get more involved and make sure that the Afghanis are trained properly to provide security, policing and whatnot. The researchers came back to us and said, “There is no evidence to support the recommendation as stated. The current ANP training program is the responsibility of the U.S. and Germany, at a cost of $1 billion”.
So, what are we talking about? We are talking about training, training, training. If we are going to address an issue, we have to deal with reality. The Canadian forces provide only about seven or eight policemen to help with training the military police, local ANP, only in the area of Kandahar. I mention that to clarify it for people who are very interested in this most important issue.
The Minister of National Defence went to the recent meeting and he was promised by the French that they would send 700 troops. That was an empty promise. There is no delivery.
The concern I have with respect to the Manley report is the 1,000 additional troops. I am hoping it does not include the 2,500 troops the United States of America is to send in for a period of seven or eight months. One of their senior military people said a couple of weeks ago in a press conference in the United States that 400,000 troops are needed.
We have been told by witnesses that until now approximately 50,000 to 51,000 troops are there and we have trained approximately 49,000 to 50,000. The problem we have with that is what my colleague pointed out earlier in terms of the poppy growing areas.
Mr. Siddiqui wrote in the Toronto Star a couple of weeks ago that that is where the problem lies. The organizations pay a farmer, or a security guard, or a police officer $50, $60 or $100 a month and the drug lords pay them $300, $500 or $600 a month. During the day they are acting as police officers and during the night they are pushing drugs. They bring in hundreds of millions of dollars which they then use to support their insurgent activities. We are cutting off our nose to spite our face. We are not making any headway.
My colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca hit the nail on the head. We know where the problem is. Why are we not focusing on those poppy growing areas? He talked about a feudal system. We understand it. How do we get them to move away from that system? By engaging them, by providing security, by providing development, but security especially, so that the farmer's life is not in jeopardy.
I have another concern in terms of the borders. I read a headline, “Taliban calls truce with Pakistan”. As far as I am concerned, the president of Pakistan, Mr. Musharraf, needs to be put in his place. He should either shape up or ship out. On one hand I remember when the Conservatives were in opposition they said they would not deal with those guys. Today we do not want to deal with them, but the guys we are trying to protect are in essence dealing with them behind our backs while our men and women are in harm's way. I do not find that acceptable and I am sure every Canadian does not find it acceptable either.
Witnesses tell us what is going on in Afghanistan. In a recent article, Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier said that we are making progress, that insurgent ambushes have fallen in four of Kandahar's 17 districts. However, further on the article states that Major-General Marc Lessard, the new commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, says that violent incidents are up by 50%. Who can we really believe?
Let me summarize. With respect to NATO, I would ask the minister when he goes to Bucharest to pull up his socks and let Canada be counted. We had before our committee the chairman of the military committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, General Henault, former chief of the defence staff for Canada. My question to him is on record. I asked him if he was preparing for 2009 knowing that that was the date. It took me three questions. I finally got out of him that they were preparing.
We do not buy this argument that if we give them short notice, we cannot replace the troops. That is hogwash. I want everyone to know that NATO does not respond overnight. It does sometimes in an emergency situation, but it knew that we would be leaving in 2009 and it was planning for it.
I close by saying to all the NATO partners that if they are going to be members of NATO, then they should participate equally. The Korean conflict was mentioned earlier. Let us share in this together. It should not just be Canadians taking the hit. Let us rotate. If a country is going to be a member of the club, then it should take up the responsibilities.