Gordon O'Connor

[Agriculture, November 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, farmers in Ontario have begun a campaign called “Farmers Feed Cities”. They want to increase awareness that agriculture contributes to the health and well-being of Ontarians and the province's economy by providing safe and healthy food.

Agriculture is a key component of Ontario's economy as it provides jobs for more than 650,000 people. Trade in agricultural products contributes approximately $30 billion to the province. The industry also helps to feed the 12 million plus people living in the province.

However, Ontario agriculture continues to suffer an income crisis due to international subsidies, border closures, corporate concentration, rising costs and commodity dumping.

Farmers continue to negotiate terms of new risk management and production insurance programs for Ontario, however, if the implementation of the proposed programs is to become a reality, the federal government will become a necessary partner. I encourage the federal government to work with the province to find solutions to the problems that face farmers today.

Agriculture is a fundamental component of our society which we cannot afford to lose. Remember, “If you ate today, thank a farmer”.

[Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, again in comment I could not find one word wrong in what the member said. He has praised our troops in Afghanistan and the fine work that they are doing. On this side of the House we agree.

[Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I agree wholeheartedly with the member that one of the good byproducts of basically invading Afghanistan and getting rid of the Taliban government was to allow many young girls and women the freedom that they had not experienced for many years.

[Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, November 15th, 2005]

Madam Chair, I want to follow up on those answers.

First, we are talking about protection, not firepower. We are not talking about putting tank guns on these things. We are talking about protection. We are talking about protection against RPGs, 50 calibre or 20 millimetre armour piercing rounds. It does not matter whether a vehicle is carrying eight people or soldiers, the bandits in that country have all these weapons. We should be putting the best armour that is available in Canada, and right here in this city, on these vehicles. I just do not understand why that is not being done.

On the other argument about the armoured patrol vehicles being on time being worth two and a half times as much as performance, I will agree that being on time is important. A schedule has been set out to be on time and the schedule extends on for many months because the vehicles are not sitting in a parking where they can be picked up. They have to be manufactured.

But cost has been set even above performance. Performance is what counts in the vehicle. Performance is whether it goes across the proper areas and terrain and whether it has enough protection and power. Yet it is the lowest qualifying matter for the evaluation. It just does not make any sense.

[Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, November 15th, 2005]

Madam Chair, I would like to get back to equipment, because the member alluded to it earlier and in his speech, and there were comments from the other hon. member about the forces being well equipped.

I think we are confusing two forces. There are the forces in Kabul, who are there in a peacekeeping role, and recently they got new armoured jeeps to protect them. As we can recall, a year or two ago, two of our soldiers were killed in unarmoured jeeps. Those jeeps have been replaced.

The rush for equipment right now is not for the Kabul role. The rush for equipment is for the new Kandahar aggressive role, where we are going to hunt down the Taliban. That is why more equipment is needed: because they are not adequately equipped for that role.

I want to deal specifically with two of the sixteen projects that are going through, one of which is the armoured protection for the LAV IIIs. The government is ordering 77 kits, but it is ordering 77 kits of level 1 protection, which is 10 year old protection.

The company that produces level 1 also produces level 3, which is lighter and more effective and gives those forces more protection. Yet the government decided to give them 10 year old armoured protection instead of the most modern and the most risk-free armoured protection. I wonder why that decision was made.

My second question to do with equipment has to do with the armoured patrol vehicles. The government is ordering somewhere in the area of 50 armoured patrol vehicles. At the moment, as I understand it, there are three possible competitors. The evaluation criteria are as follows: 50% is awarded for delivery on schedule; 30% is awarded to the best cost; and 20% to the best performance.

We are talking about armoured vehicles that are going into combat and we are setting delivery and schedule as two and a half times as valuable as the performance of the vehicle. That just seems bizarre.

Perhaps the member could explain to me these two procurements and why the government is doing it that way.

[Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, November 15th, 2005]

Madam Chair, is it true that the forces in Afghanistan still require equipment, that there are 16 requirements going through right now for equipment for the forces in Kandahar and in Kabul? There are still some forces in Kabul.

In addition, there were four aircraft requirements going through until today. At least three of them claimed to be connected to the Kandahar requirement. This includes armour protection, artillery, weapons for the troops, armour protection for trucks. There are even armoured patrol vehicles in there.

If the forces have all the equipment they need, why does the government need to ram through billions of dollars of new equipment for these people?

[Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, November 15th, 2005]

Artillery. Do you want me to name the 16?

[Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, November 15th, 2005]

Madam Chair, I appreciated the comments from the minister. They raise two questions for me, and they might be intertwined.

Listening to his words, I am not certain whether we have an open-ended commitment or whether we have a commitment where we are going to have a headquarters there for 9 months and a battle group there for 12 months, and then are we going to pull it out and close down the commitment? The extent of the commitment is not clear to me.

The second question is perhaps related and perhaps not. It is my understanding that the French and German NATO partners have basically refused to get involved in counter-insurgency and that this could affect the rotation. This could affect the command relationship in the Kandahar area. Will this have any effect on the extent of our commitment?

[Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I must point out to the member that at the moment we are not the government. We hope to be, but at the moment we are not.

If prisoners were transferred from our forces to higher forces, to American forces or NATO forces, as I said before, we would expect them to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and we stand by the Geneva Convention.

I would imagine that we also keep track of the prisoners that we capture, that is, we know whom we captured by name, et cetera, and that there would be a way for us to check on where these prisoners are and how they are treated. Also the Red Cross can be sent in to check on prisoners in war zones.

We would enforce the Geneva Convention basically is what we would do. At the moment, we trust our American allies and we trust our NATO allies to follow the Geneva Convention, unless we have evidence otherwise.

[Canada's military mission in Afghanistan, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, first I will talk about the mechanics of prisoners of war. Typically, different levels of organization, such as battalions, brigades, divisions, have capabilities to hold prisoners of war. At the battalion level, or the battle group level, which is the level of commitment we are making right now, it is a very minimal holding area. The prisoners are brought back, held for a time and then they have to be passed to some higher organization that has a police battalion or a police company to look after the prisoners.

The size of force we are sending to Afghanistan does not typically have any large prisoner holding capability. That does not mean that a nation of our size could not build one if we wanted to. We could artificially create an area and then send the prisoners back to wherever we are going to send them.

I understand when we are under American command, that when we transfer the prisoners to the higher level American forces, we do so on the understanding that they will be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. We have faith that the Americans will treat our prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention. If we had evidence to the contrary, we would then perhaps change our attitude, but at the moment that is our understanding.

Our forces are being transferred to NATO. I do not know what the NATO arrangements or the NATO structure will be. I do not know if the NATO forces have a larger prisoner holding area or not, but if we capture prisoners in the new venture we are going into, we will be passing them on to NATO forces, as long as we have a guarantee that the Geneva Convention is followed.