Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the debate this afternoon. I want you to know that I am sharing my time with the member for Hamilton Mountain.
This afternoon we are debating an NDP opposition day motion and I going to read it again because it has been a while probably since we have heard it. The motion was moved by the member for Ottawa Centre and it states:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should, in accordance with Part I of the Inquiries Act, call a Public Inquiry into the transfer of detainees in Canadian custody to Afghan authorities from 2001 to 2009.
It is a very important motion and I am glad we have the opportunity to focus on it this afternoon, given not only the concerns that have been raised in recent weeks, but over many years, on the issue of the transfer of detainees during the war in Afghanistan.
As my starting point, I want to be very clear that I oppose Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan. I firmly believe and am firmly convinced that this is the wrong mission for Canada. If there were some way of bringing the troops home immediately, I would support that endeavour. I look forward to when Canada's troops do come home from Afghanistan in February 2011.
The conduct of war is a very serious issue, and everyone in the House would agree with that. It is essentially what we are discussing today, one aspect of the conduct of the war in Afghanistan. I am very disappointed and often angered by the approach of the Conservative government, that its members would slag honourable public servants who are doing their jobs, like Mr. Colvin, who remain dedicated public servants in senior positions, in intelligence positions in the Canadian Embassy in Washington. I am disappointed that they would slag someone like him who has served our country admirably and that they would insult opposition MPs who ask serious and important questions.
The record of the Minister of National Defence is particular abysmal in that regard. It seems he cannot respond to a question without somehow insulting the person who has put the question in the House. The other is to suggest that Canadian public servants and opposition MPs who raise questions about the matter of the transfer of detainees in Afghanistan are somehow dupes of the Taliban. That is particularly objectionable.
I believe the government is hiding behind the false notion that to raise questions about the conduct of the war in Afghanistan is to somehow not support the men and women of the Canadian armed forces. It is exactly the opposite. It is our job to ensure that they are in this war in exactly the appropriate circumstances. We hold their political masters, the government, accountable for its actions in sending the Canadian armed forces into that theatre of battle, into that war. The motion is about that. The attempts of the standing committee in recent weeks have been about that.
It is hugely disrespectful to parliamentarians and to the Canadian public to characterize the questioning and the attempt to hold the government accountable for its decisions on the war in Afghanistan in the light. I would hope Conservatives change course on that immediately.
The fact we have been unable to use the mechanisms of Parliament so far to hold the government accountable on the question of the transfer of detainees is exactly why we need a public inquiry. We have to ask this question. How does the House and how do MPs do the job of accountability, particularly when the government refuses to release the appropriate documents that would allow people to have the information they need to make appropriate decisions on these issues? If those documents are not provided, it is impossible for members of Parliament to do the job. Again, that is why we need to go to a full public inquiry.
The issue of the detention of detainees and the transfer of them has been raised by New Democrat members of the House for many years. I participated in a take note debate in the House in November 2005 in which we discussed Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan. The matter of the transfer of detainees was raised at that time. In other circumstances I have also tried to get information about the transfer of detainees. I even put a question on the order paper in the House in June 2006. I tried to get information on exactly what was being done in terms of transfers.
I want to read the question I asked and the answer that was given on June 7:
With regard to the Canadian armed forces presence in Afghanistan: (a) how many persons taken prisoner or detained by the Canadian armed forces in Afghanistan have been turned over to (i) Afghani officials, (ii) American officials, (iii) officials of other countries or organizations; and (b) how many of these persons remain in custody?
The answer I received from the minister of national defence at that time was:
Mr. Speaker, due to operational requirements and taking into account section 15(1) of the Access to Information Act, information regarding the current status of detainees apprehended by Canadian Forces elements in Afghanistan, as well as to which authorities these individuals were transferred, is not releasable to the public.
I was stonewalled back at that time in getting any information about the transfer of prisoners.
I note that just last week the Globe and Mail seemed to get information about prisoner detainees and reported that in the first 14 months of combat operations in Kandahar province, 130 prisoners were turned over to Afghan authorities. That was according to a government source. There is again an inconsistent policy about what information can be provided to parliamentarians who are trying to make appropriate decisions about this issue with regard to the war in Afghanistan.
Back in that debate in November 2005, which I mentioned earlier, the NDP defence critic at that time, the hon. Bill Blaikie, also raised the issue of the transfer of detainees. Members may remember that the context was slightly different at that time. The context was a concern that Canada's JTF2 was turning over prisoners taken to the United States. At that time there were very serious questions about the United States' record on prisoner detention coming out of its operations in Iraq but also in Afghanistan.
Mr. Blaikie raised those issues with the minister of defence at the time. He also raised the issue of Canada abiding by the convention on torture, particularly article 3 of that convention, which states:
No State Party shall expel, return...or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
Mr. Blaikie raised that in connection with the concerns that we had back in 2005 with regard to the transfer of Afghan prisoners taken by the Canadian armed forces. Mr. Blaikie also then quoted Professor Michael Byers of the University of British Columbia on the issue of turning over detained prisoners to the Americans and the American involvement in torture.
Dialogue was happening in Canada and in our Parliament at that time about the transfer of detainees to American and Afghan authorities.
We have raised over a long period of time our concerns about the limitations of the transfer agreements that Canada had in place and the fact that they did not seem to meet Canadian values or the standards of similar agreements negotiated by other countries.
In that regard, the work of the most recent NDP critic for defence, Dawn Black, was also very important. On her first day in the House as NDP defence critic, after she was elected to the House in the 2006 election, her first question in question period was about Canadian values and how they were exhibited in Canada's policy of turning over detained prisoners to the Afghans.
We need to remember that in that period Ms. Black was often up in the House asking questions about Canadian prisoners, including what measures were in place to ensure they were not being tortured. The minister of defence of the day, time and time again, said that the Red Cross was in charge of doing that and, eventually, after the Red Cross reported that it was not mandated to report on that, he had to withdraw that statement.
We know from sources, like the U.S. state department and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, that torture is practised in Afghan prisons. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has said that 98.5% of prisoners held in Afghanistan are subject to torture. We cannot believe that the 1.5% who have not experienced that are the ones that Canada has turned over to Afghan authorities.
We know that groups, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have made very strong statements about the need for a public inquiry given the unanswered questions and given the impossibility of getting the correct information that has not been completely redacted and has been rendered almost useless as a result.
We know the importance of having this public inquiry. It is so Canadians can have the details and parliamentarians can have the details to make appropriate decisions about the war in Afghanistan.