Foreign Affairs committee  In my presentation, I was explicit in saying that whatever Canadian country strategy we have, it has to accord or line up with the Afghanistan Compact. It also has to support Afghanistan's national development strategy, a very comprehensive—if flawed—document. That thing was put

Foreign Affairs committee  Merci. I think what's crucial, as I suggested in the presentation--in fact I don't think I suggested, I think I was pretty blunt about it--is that Canada needs to have a public strategy: Canada's Afghanistan strategy. It needs to be laid out very clearly what our objectives are

Foreign Affairs committee  The mechanisms to actually manage it are on the ground now. When the Afghanistan Compact was signed and the interim ANDS was presented, a whole governing structure was put in place in the government of Afghanistan. It ends with a joint coordinating and monitoring board that is co

Foreign Affairs committee  Only on the military side, though. On the rest, it's UNAMA and the big multilateral organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund--that whole alphabet soup that's involved there. Is there political will? Well, you're the folks who can answer that.

Foreign Affairs committee  My answer, as succinctly as I can put it, is that it would be an absolute tragedy to abandon Afghanistan. Chaos would ensue.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think we have to be clear here on the structure of the Afghan mission. The Afghan mission is a UN-led mission. The United Nations assistance mission in Afghanistan are the people who are supposed to be coordinating the governance and development pillars.

Foreign Affairs committee  NATO is in charge in the security pillar, so it's not NATO running development and governance.

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, that's very hard for me to judge. I believe there is a political will in Afghanistan. It was expressed during two elections. It's expressed in opinion poll after opinion poll. And it's expressed by the really good people who are working in the Government of Afghanistan at e

Foreign Affairs committee  No, I'm not. What we need to do is understand what we're doing when we do a signature aid project and ensure Afghan capacity is being developed.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. The real long-term solution begins with the educational system, begins with the kids, then moves on to the universities. But you still have to fill that gap, between now and 20 years from now, when those graduates are coming out the other end of the pipeline. Most importantl

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't know. It's a symptom of three successive governments that have proven real shaky at communicating to the Canadian people what we're doing in Afghanistan. John Manley pointed it out, so I'm not out on too long of a limb here.

Foreign Affairs committee  We need to get a grip on how we're talking about Afghanistan, and a public strategy would go a long way to doing that.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, and it's a big issue. At the end of 2001, when the Taliban fell, there was virtually no functioning apparatus of government as we would take it for granted. There was nobody in the ministries. In fact, there were a few guys in the ministries who actually kept going to work

Foreign Affairs committee  We need a leader, and we need a strategy that addresses everything from soup to nuts, from A to Z in the civil service of Afghanistan--everything.

Foreign Affairs committee  No. MRRD is a very effective ministry for two reasons. They've had two good ministers in a row, Haneef Atmar and Ehsan Zia. Those guys were pros, and they somehow have not been tainted by everything going on around them. There are ministries there, such as the Ministry of the I