Mr. Chair, I am happy to discuss the main estimates for the Department of National Defence and speak about a group of people that I respect and admire greatly.
I will be sharing the last five minutes of my time with the hon. members for Kitchener—Conestoga and Edmonton—Leduc.
Much of today's discussion will revolve around dollar figures, funding levels, programs and initiatives, but these figures are meaningless without understanding how they support the serious, dangerous and courageous work being done by the Canadian Forces every day.
For 46 years, in and out of uniform, I have got to know our service men and women. They are extraordinary at what they do. They are passionate and committed about what they do. They are consummate professionals. They are the very embodiment of what Canada is and what it wishes to be: a force for good in the world.
Our Canadian Forces are deployed in 16 diverse and dangerous missions around the world and for this they need their country's support.
However, let me speak about Afghanistan. Most of our roughly 2,800 troops there are in Kandahar, the heart of southern Afghanistan, the heart of the fight and a turbulent area that is in need of our help, a place that, had our thin khaki line not been present, would have fallen to the Taliban years ago.
Every cent of Canadian tax dollars are being put to good use and making progress in Afghanistan. The lives of Afghans are getting better after decades of war. Villages that did not know what electricity, roads, fresh water and irrigation were now have them. Villages once threatened by disease are now free from it. However, it is a long and laborious process, with no shortcuts to rebuilding a war-ravaged society that ranked near the bottom of the UN development index, especially when it is still plagued by heinous insurgency, one that kills Afghans and Canadians without remorse and throws acid in the faces of little girls simply because they wanted to go to school.
I have talked to hundreds of soldiers, I have shaken their hands as they have arrived from or departed to Afghanistan. I have visited them in theatre a number of times, as have others. I have seen first-hand how passionate they are about their mission, following through on what we in the House of Commons asked them to do two years ago.
They talk of their accomplishments alongside compatriots, DFAIT, CIDA, Correctional Service Canada and the RCMP, all working together to improve the lives of Afghans. The soldiers on the provincial reconstruction team have taken me along as they have worked on projects, like helping build and supply schools. I have met Afghan soldiers and police officers being trained by our operational mentor and liaison teams. I have seen Afghans' enthusiasm for learning and applying new skills and their progress to now leading operations, to deliver security to their own countrymen in their own country. The latest quarterly report on Afghanistan shows that since I was last there at Christmas another Afghan national army kandak, or battalion, in Kandahar has become able to operate with almost complete autonomy.
The men and women of the Canadian Forces and their families are remarkable people, who are members of our communities and dynamic society. They are on the front line carrying out a mandate given to them by the House in support of the UN and alongside our 45 NATO allies and partners to help the people and government of Afghanistan rebuild their country. There is a long way to go, but there is absolutely no question that we are seeing the signs of success.
As mandated by the House, our Canadian Forces will leave their combat mission in 2011, but there is a lot of work to be done in the next year and a half. We need to stay focused. We need to remember that the mission is not only about Canada's role, as significant and as important as our role may be. The United States continues to dramatically increase its presence in Afghanistan, with an urgency driven by the understanding that the international community does not have forever to get things right.
This is not just about additional military forces, as necessary as they are for security. The United States is spending billions each month training Afghan security forces and on governance, reconstruction and development, However, the U.S., with all its will and resources, cannot accomplish this alone.
The new government of the United Kingdom has recommitted itself to this international effort. Our other major allies, such as Germany, Poland and Australia and smaller partners such as New Zealand, Denmark and Estonia, are all committed to this challenging but vital task.
I wish we had more time to talk about the mission, its purpose and the progress being made, but in Ottawa we are distracted from the complex and compelling situation in Afghanistan by the debate about prisoners. I have been deeply troubled by allegations, innuendo and unsubstantiated accusations, allegations that cast aspersions on the character of those who conduct themselves with dignity and the highest ethical standards every day and who serve their country with pride at the risk of their own lives.
The narrative has been driven by hindsight, suggesting that five years ago there were clear warnings when in fact the overwhelming body of testimony demonstrated this was simply not the case. As Gavin Buchan, the political director of the PRT in 2006 and 2007, has said, “Burying an observation in paragraph 12 of a report and without making a recommendation is no way to raise a flag”. He goes on to say:
I saw nothing in the record through March 2007 that indicated Canadian-transferred detainees were being abused, nothing that changed the baseline understanding from 2005, when the original arrangement was put in place...
The facts surrounding this debate are straightforward and I will lay them out again. I will begin by quoting Mr. Paul Chapin in the Ottawa Citizen on May 8:
Regrettably for the inquisitors, no evidence has yet been uncovered: no mutilated bodies, maimed survivors, photographs, first-hand accounts, or authoritative reports documenting specific cases with names, dates and places. Not a single individual appearing before the committee has yet provided any such evidence, beginning with the first one.
In late 2005, Canada signed an arrangement with the government of Afghanistan to allow the transfer to Afghan authorities of individuals detained by Canadian troops. The hon. Bill Graham, former minister of foreign affairs and minister of national defence, told a special committee recently that the government of the day, given what it knew at the time, genuinely believed that the arrangement contained the highest level of protection for any possible prisoners.
When allegations surfaced in April 2007, the Government of Canada immediately raised the issue with the highest Afghan authorities and negotiated a supplementary prisoner transfer arrangement. This arrangement set up additional monitoring provisions to help Afghans meet their obligations as the sovereign government responsible for the treatment of prisoners.
These provisions gave Canada itself the ability to monitor Canadian-transferred prisoners in Afghan detention facilities. Combined with the capacity-building work of Correctional Service Canada, this new approach gave our whole-of-government team greater confidence through verification that transferred prisoners would be treated humanely.
Under the new arrangement, we have consistently been monitoring the condition of CF-transferred prisoners, building the capacity of the Afghan correctional system and justice system in responding to all credible allegations of mistreatment. We have made 230 visits so far. Prisoners are only transferred to Afghan authorities when the Canadian commander on the ground is satisfied that the conditions are right and that Canada's international obligations are met.
This fully meets Canada's obligations under international law. It accords with the practice of NATO and our allies, and is consistent with Afghanistan's responsibilities as a sovereign country.
Simple facts have been presented again and again by reputable men and women, most recently by three recent heads of mission: David Sproule, Arif Lalani and Ron Hoffman; by retired Major General Tim Grant, a former commander of Joint Task Force Afghanistan, and by Gavin Buchan, a former political director of the Kandahar PRT; and before them, by three of our most respected and decorated senior officers: General Rick Hillier, Lieutenant General Michel Gauthier and Major General David Fraser; and by dedicated public servants such as Linda Garwood-Filbert, who worked for two years as the Correctional Service coordinator for Afghan prison reform, who visited prisons and other correctional facilities nearly 50 times over the course of a single year in 2007.
Let me add that these visits were undertaken at great personal risk. Afghan prisons are constantly targeted by insurgents for terrorist attacks. She travelled hundreds of kilometres along potentially IED-laced roads in convoys protected by Canadian soldiers both ways, all this to ensure that our transfer arrangement was implemented, and that the human rights and dignity of prisoners were respected.
These facts have been reiterated and restated by a dozen witnesses, all of whom have felt that their integrity was impugned by the accusations they have faced. These highly respected individuals and others have stressed the commitment of all Canadian officials, military and civilian, to Canada's international obligations in their own code of ethical behaviour. That includes rigorous adherence to international law and to the provisions of the Geneva conventions.
Despite all this, the debate continues. Allegations and accusations continue to be made on the flimsiest of grounds.
We have responsibilities as parliamentarians to understand and to question, but I believe we also have a duty to promote the valuable contributions that members of the Canadian Forces are making in our name so far away, a duty to recall that sometimes they come home physically or mentally changed, and that on so many occasions, 146 to date for Canadian Forces personnel, they do not come home at all.
This government has worked hard and made careful investments to give them the tools they need to carry out their challenging responsibilities: Chinook helicopters, Leopard 2 tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles, M777 Howitzers and C17 strategic airlifters.
The government has also made provision for extensive pre-deployment training, from individual soldiering skills at home to Exercise Maple Guardian, a large-scale, month-long training scenario designed to replicate situations our soldiers might encounter in Afghanistan.
We have arranged for their personal needs, making sure they get time out of theatre during their tour for rest and relaxation, and making sure they have the support they need and their families need once they come home.
The Canadian Forces could not do it without this kind of equipment, training and care. The main estimates for consideration today include a request for $822 million for our mission in Afghanistan, so our troops can be safe and operationally effective.
I ask members to remember them throughout this debate, consider the good they have done for both the people in need as well as Canada's image and reputation, and give them the support they need to continue to perform their selfless work overseas and at home.
