Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Eglinton—Lawrence.
I am pleased to participate in the debate today on the future of Canada's mission in Afghanistan. I fully support our leader's approach, which means that the mission must change, the mission must have a stop date and the mission must be more than a military mission.
However, I hope to broaden the conversation to put in proper context the ongoing relationship between Canada and the people of Afghanistan, particularly the women of Afghanistan.
During the nineties, when Sally Armstrong began writing about the women of Afghanistan in Homemakers magazine, Canadian women became aware of the situation in that country and wanted the Government of Canada to help.
Thousands of letters were received at the magazine, newspapers and MPs' offices. We came to know of the courageous work of Dr. Sima Samar, setting up the schools and clinics for young girls in defiance of the Taliban government. Dr. Samar was awarded the John Humphrey Freedom Award in the summer of 2001, before 9/11. She met with women members of Parliament here.
We participated in the Afghan Women's Association with Adeena Niazi, together with Marilou McPhedran and Sally Armstrong, in February 2002 at the Afghan women's leadership in governance training at York University.
We, as Canadian women, were in solidarity with these courageous women. We were in awe of them. Most of us born in Canada have never known what the absence of security feels like. We have taken peace for granted, peace in its fullest sense, not just the absence of war but the presence of justice.
When the fatwah was placed on Dr. Samar while she was still in Canada, Minister Graham responded immediately.
The debate today will reflect the friendship and the commitment of Canada to the people of Afghanistan. This is not just about a military mission. It must be about our commitment to do everything we can to work with the Afghan people to build peace and security for the long term.
My remarks are influenced by the friendships and ongoing dialogue with Afghan Canadians, like Adeena Niazi, Sheenkai Tahiri, and her wonderful family, by my trip to Afghanistan in 2007 with the defence committee and a town hall meeting we held last spring in my riding of St. Paul's, but also by my respect for a history of multilateralism and the commitment Canada made in the Afghan compact in 2006.
To change the 2006 commitment, for our support of multilateral approaches, for the framework of cooperation principles for the next five years, we have the Afghanistan Compact. The Afghan government articulated its overarching goals for the well-being of the Afghan people: security; governance, rule of law and human rights; and economic and social development.
A further vital and cross-cutting area of work is eliminating the narcotics industry, which remains a formidable threat to the people and state of Afghanistan, the region and beyond.
Furthermore, genuine security remains a fundamental prerequisite for achieving stability and development in Afghanistan. Security cannot be provided by military means alone.
When we signed this, it was clear that we were going to help. The debate today is that we need to help in a different way but, nonetheless, committed.
It is true that before I went to Kandahar I probably thought, like so many Canadians, that it would be possible to just pick up and move to a less dangerous area. We all knew that the work Canada was doing with the PRT in Kandahar was based on relationships, on principles, such as every soldier a teacher, and on a commitment to help the Afghan national army achieve a contingent of 70,000 people by 2009 that would be effective.
We were surprised in Afghanistan to learn how the military was actually helping within the bureaucracy of the government of Kabul, helping in ministers' offices and teaching organizations how to pick great chiefs of staff and develop work plans. We know that our military has been very good at this but we think there needs to be more of a role for the diplomatic core, as well as CIDA.
I, too, like the previous speaker, was impressed when we went to the hospital at Kandahar airfield. I could not believe the severity of cases that were taken on by the team, such as the huge piece of shrapnel that was successfully removed from an Afghani's face at the base because of the CT scanner. Colonel Boddam, the psychiatrist, explained the real progress that had been made in post-traumatic stress prevention, screening and treatment because of the interventions of the previous Liberal government and people like Senator Dallaire.
It seems the incidences, because of the preventive measures, are much less than they would have predicted. However, they were hugely grateful for the American medevac helicopters but the fact is that we still need to rely so much on others. It was interesting that even there we were desperate to know more about the 3D approach. We wanted to know if it was working. We also wanted to know why we saw mostly defence and not so much diplomacy or development.
The briefing was clear on the ground at the PRT by Simon Hetherington that the 3D was supposed to be his board of directors. We did not see, while we were in Afghanistan, that was being reflected in the cabinet room or here in Ottawa. It seemed to be very disorganized.
We were impressed to learn that less than 1% of the projects built via the national solidarity plan had been damaged because of the Canadian way. Canadians want to know how they want things done. It is done in a totally collaborative way, bottom up, with local ownership in the planning and execution, even though 70% of that population was illiterate, including the bureaucracy and the director of education.
There have been real achievements, the Summit Road clearly the greatest. As soldiers said to us, they were built with Canadian blood and paved with Canadian dollars. Some of the achievements have been medical clinic repairs, security infrastructure, the confidence of the Afghan police, schools reopening, irrigation and soccer, but it was very clear that the goal was capacity building, not capacity replacement. Setting the conditions for sustainable success, they realized that this needed an Afghan face and an Afghan pace.
It is an old adage that it is better to teach people to fish than to give them a fish and it has been renewed by the explanation that the Canadian bottom up approach is now to be a pipeline instead of a water tanker.
We were totally impressed by the cash for work program run by Warrant Officer Healey. An article in Legion Magazine said that an amazing school teacher from Barrie, Ontario, who happens to be a reservist, now has been named the prince of Panjwai. The cash for work program was very much part of winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan youth with the idea that they could work for us instead of the Taliban.
In the briefing at the national military college, it was heartening to hear that they felt they were getting to their optimal 70,000 soldiers without compromising equality, but that they still might need specialty teams that would need mentoring and help, though the goal of self-sufficiency was close at hand. Every soldier we talked to at lunch had the mantra, “every soldier a teacher”.
When we met with Sarah Chayes, the American journalist who chose to take a break from her career as a journalist in public radio to stay in Afghanistan, she was very worried that the discourse from Canada was far too simplistic.
We cannot reduce the discussion to stay or go, to less military or to more construction. Sarah wanted everybody to understand that this was not about an insurgency as much as it was about protecting Afghans from invaders who were using Afghans as fodder. She believed that security was essential to any humanitarian assistance and that economic development and good governance must go hand in hand.
As we go forward, it is important that we listen to the voices of the Afghan women here in Canada who are in daily touch with their people and their colleagues in their home country.
There is no question that when speaking to Adeena Niazi she believes that although the military component is important, there should be much greater emphasis on development assistance, more emphasis not only on the Taliban but on the warlords and more emphasis on what to do about the poppies and the drug problem which contributes to the insecurity.
There is much discussion on strengthening the civil society. There was great disappointment that the Manley report did not reference the need for promoting civil society, particularly the enhancement of women's organizations.
I would like to quote from Adeena Niazi who said, “Finally, the debate in Parliament should be firmly rooted in a commitment to the universality of human rights. It's going to have to include a lot more Afghan voices, particularly women's voices”.