Afghanistan committee  I'm pretty sure the Minister of Defence would have been familiar with the agreement we were about to enter into. After all, his Chief of the Defence Staff signed the agreement on behalf of Canada. Our ministers are always carefully briefed about issues at that level of importance.

Afghanistan committee  Yes, in general, that's their methodology, and it's been successful over many, many decades. If I could go back to a question, I think there was a suggestion by Mr. Dewar that Mr. Colvin's reports had been censored or edited by Mr. Lalani. I just want to say that I also edited Mr.

Afghanistan committee  Our agreement was based on considerations of what we would need in terms of ensuring international standards for the treatment of detainees as we were about to begin our deployment to Kandahar. Up until that time, the number of detainees in Canadian custody was minimal, and we, as a government, were familiar with decades of work done by the ICRC.

Afghanistan committee  The position we were in is that we were prepared—and it was part of my mandate—to increase the resources of our embassy over time, and we were prepared to establish more elaborate mechanisms, including monitoring mechanisms, as the need arose. So our job was to monitor very carefully the situation and ascertain whether or not we could improve the measures we had in place.

Afghanistan committee  Well, indeed, Mr. Colvin's reports were an integral part of providing information that Ottawa needed to put in a more rigorous system of monitoring--

Afghanistan committee  Oh, absolutely. Part of my job as ambassador was to ensure that not only were those messages conveyed, but from our point of view, if we thought it was necessary to assist Ottawa in actually implementing concrete measures to do that.... It wasn't good enough to keep reporting; it was important that we actively participated in the development of plans to address the issue at hand.

Afghanistan committee  I am confident that as we got more information, as we learned more about the system and some of the obstacles and challenges we faced, we kept improving our game, so to speak. All of those considerations, including Mr. Colvin's advice and reporting, helped us develop this very rigorous system that we now have in place.

Afghanistan committee  Yes.

Afghanistan committee  Mr. Bachand, our reports for several years indicated there was a high likelihood that torture was going on in Afghanistan detention facilities. However, we were confident that, based on information we had, no Canadian transfer detainees had been abused or mistreated. Our view was that, nevertheless, we had to do everything we could to improve the capacity of the Afghan government to ensure those standards were met.

Afghanistan committee  I'd be happy to. On the detainee issue, as I mentioned, much of our efforts were directed at improving the notification system. This required constant effort to ensure that, as soon as possible, ICRC authorities learned that a detainee had been transferred so they could oversee matters at the detention facilities.

Afghanistan committee  Mr. Abbott, I've served six assignments abroad. I've been an ambassador three times; I have 28 years in the foreign service. I'm a lawyer by profession, specializing in international law, including international humanitarian law. I have served in countries where the human rights situation leaves something to be desired, so I have some point of reference in discussions of human rights and international humanitarian law.

Afghanistan committee  Thank you, Mr. Dosanjh. First of all, we never transferred any detainees that were captured by Canadian armed forces if there was any suggestion that there was a substantial risk of torture. We never did. We were confident that there was not; otherwise, we would not have transferred.

Afghanistan committee  So we met and we exceeded our international obligations. Let me just add.... This comes from our discussions with people in the field, human rights organizations, and international organizations involved. Canada's standards and the regime we put in place exceeded our obligations and were over and above those put in place by other countries.

Afghanistan committee  We have done extensive work in the legal area in terms of pinpointing and making sure that our military staff, our civilian staff, are well aware of obligations under human rights instruments as well as international humanitarian law instruments. As I mentioned in my statement, we also have developed standard operating procedures, adjustments, to take into account how to upgrade and improve our response--

Afghanistan committee  No, it was not government policy. It was not the policy of our department of defence. It was not the policy.