Afghanistan in the Speech from the Throne

The Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century (CCS21) has sent an interesting article by Dr. Jack Granatstein to all members of the organization, including me. I reproduce it here with the permission of, and full credit to CCS21.

The Governor-General wore the Canadian Forces Decoration on her breast, a dozen Afghanistan veterans sat at the front of the Senate Chamber (with its huge, splendid Great War paintings above them), and the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, stood behind the seated Prime Minister. The first words in the speech were praise for the men and women serving in the military: “Their commitment and courage in the name of justice, equality and freedom—whose benefits are not accorded to all peoples in the world—are worthy of our utmost respect.” It might almost have been a wartime opening of Parliament.

Indeed, the first substantive section of the Speech from the Throne was in a section called “Strengthening Canada’s Sovereignty and Place in the World.” This nation, the government proclaimed, “is built on a common heritage of values, which Canadians have fought and died to defend. It is a country that continues to attract newcomers seeking refuge and opportunity, who see Canada as a place where they can work hard, raise families and live in freedom. Our Government is resolved to uphold this heritage…”

Not least in Afghanistan, without doubt the most contentious issue on the nation’s international agenda. With 2000 troops in the field, with a very large aid budget committed there into the coming decade, Canada is up to its waist in the Kandahar poppy fields. The Canadian Forces are committed to their present combat role until February 2009, a role that offends Jack Layton and the New Democratic Party and that certainly upsets large numbers—but not a majority—of Canadians. The Prime Minister had promised Parliament a vote on the future of the commitment, but then in a brilliant tactical move, he created an eminent persons panel to study that future commitment and put Hon. John Manley, a former Liberal Cabinet minister, in charge of it. The panel is expected to report in February 2008. That decision took much of the force out of the present Afghan debate and gave the government an easy answer to all questions in Parliament: Wait until the panel reports.

But Mr. Harper, as Canadians have come to understand, is not without his shrewd strategems. The Speech from the Throne observed that “Nowhere is Canada making a difference more clearly than in Afghanistan. Canada has joined the United Nations-sanctioned mission in Afghanistan because it is noble and necessary.” Since most Canadians all-too-easily assume that Canada went to Afghanistan only because of American pressure, it is always useful to remind them that the mission was supported by the UN. And, the Speech continued, “Canadians understand that development and security go hand in hand. Without security, there can be no humanitarian aid, no reconstruction and no democratic development. Progress will be slow, but our efforts are bearing fruit.” Security and aid go hand in hand, a truism if ever there was one. But too many Canadians fail to understand this, and so repetition here makes a point that needs constant reiteration.

Then the Harper government’s Speech cut to the chase: “The Canadian Forces mission has been approved by Parliament until February 2009, and our Government has made clear to Canadians and our allies that any future military deployments must also be supported by a majority of parliamentarians. In the coming session, members will be asked to vote on the future of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. This decision should honour the dedication and sacrifice of Canada’s development workers, diplomats and men and women in uniform. It should ensure that progress in Afghanistan is not lost and that our international commitments and reputation are upheld.” The progress made—and contrary to much popular blathering, measurable, genuine progress has been made—must not be lost.

The Conservative government “does not believe that Canada should simply abandon the people of Afghanistan after February 2009. Canada should build on its accomplishments and shift to accelerate the training of the Afghan army and police so that the Afghan government can defend its own sovereignty. This will not be completed by February 2009, but our Government believes this objective should be achievable by 2011,” the end of the period covered by the Afghanistan Compact signed in January 2006 that laid out the international community’s reconstruction efforts there.

There is an element of carrots and sticks here. Canada has been trying without much success to get its NATO partners to commit more troops to the troubled southern regions of Afghanistan, and it has been searching for a role that will reduce casualties for its troops. The Throne Speech suggests strongly that Canada will fulfill its present commitments until February 2009, but then, it makes clear, the role will change—implicitly whether or not NATO members step in to fill the Canadian Forces’ place in combat. After that date, Canada will devote itself to training the Aghanistan National Army and Police for two years more. That task might be in Kandahar province or, more likely, not. It might involve a few warrants and junior officers training recruits in a sheltered base, but it also might be—and quite possibly will be—a good-sized commitment of soldiers to train officers and men and to mentor them in the field in action. Such a role will certainly contain within it the prospect of casualties. And if, as the Speech noted, there can be no development without security, so too can there be no successful training of the ANA and Police without security. A commitment of combat-ready troops will continue to be necessary until 2011—and perhaps even longer than that.

What Mr Harper has done with his appointment of the eminent persons panel and his re-jigging of the Afghan debate to a new focus on 2011 is very shrewd. He has removed the prospect of an immediate parliamentary debate and pushed off a possible defeat on the Afghan deployment in the House of Commons at least until the coming February. There might well have been a general election by that date and, if so, a decision to pull out or remain in Afghanistan will be made in a very different political atmosphere. Nothing has been decided, and nothing will be at least until the Manley panel reports, but the term of the commitment nonetheless has been moved forward two years. The NDP and the Bloc Québécois will fume, and the Liberals (who, we need constant reminding, put Canada into Kandahar) will squirm, but Harper has outfoxed them again.

“There's been no attempt to put the Liberals into an impossible position,” Industry minister Jim Prentice piously observed of the Manley panel. “The Liberals, led by Mr. Dion, find impossible positions all by themselves. It's an attempt to have a responsible debate, a non-partisan debate about an extremely important issue to the country.” So confused has the Liberal position been on Afghanistan that Prentice’s comment seems completely reasonable and scarcely partisan at all.

(Historian J.L. Granatstein writes on behalf of the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century (www.ccs21.org). Free use may be made of this column if credit is given to CCS21.)

I agree with Dr. Granatstein that the Throne Speech seized the initiative on the Afghan mission back from the opposition. My concern is that Harper's team will celebrate their tactical victory against their immediate political opponent, and continue to neglect the ongoing strategic battle for the hearts and minds of Canadians on the issue of Afghanistan.

A few good lines in one speech won't win that one, I'm afraid.

Update: A couple of notes about the defence aspects of the speech itself (full text here):

• "New arctic patrol ships and expanded aerial surveillance will guard Canada's Far North and the Northwest Passage." Anyone else wondering what exactly that aerial surveillance might entail? Enquiring minds want to know.


• "As part of asserting sovereignty in the Arctic, our government will complete comprehensive mapping of Canada's Arctic seabed. Never before has this part of Canada's ocean floor been fully mapped." Any word on acoustic sensors on that same seabed, ladies and gents? Fixed tripwires should never be one's only defence, but they can be quite useful nonetheless.


• "Further, recognizing the important role that the Reserves play in this modernization, our government will work with the provinces and territories to bring forward a comprehensive plan to modernize reservist reinstatement policies." While we here at The Torch are all for making sure reservists have jobs when they come back from an extended absence due to duty reasons, the devil is in the details. The Australian model might be useful in heading off potential disincentives to hiring reservists if holding their job becomes compulsory.


• "Nowhere is Canada making a difference more clearly than in Afghanistan. Canada has joined the United Nations-sanctioned mission in Afghanistan because it is noble and necessary. Canadians understand that development and security go hand in hand. Without security, there can be no humanitarian aid, no reconstruction and no democratic development. Progress will be slow, but our efforts are bearing fruit. There is no better measure of this progress than the four million Afghan boys and two million girls who can dream of a better future because they now go to school." Actually, most Canadians don't seem to understand that development and security enjoy a symbiotic relationship. I'm glad the government is finally taking a high-profile opportunity to remind them of that.


• "Canada should build on its accomplishments and shift to accelerate the training of the Afghan army and police so that the Afghan government can defend its own sovereignty. This will not be completed by February 2009, but our government believes this objective should be achievable by 2011, the end of the period covered by the Afghanistan Compact." I'm also quite pleased that the government has decided to make public commitments to time-sensitive goals - it's hard to illustrate progress with no sense of scale, or yardstick with which to measure it. My only concern in all of this is that when we run into obstacles, as we inevitably will, the opposition will jump all over the news as an excuse to say we're losing and should cut out losses and leave. I'd suggest that goals are just that: a point of aim, not a guarantee of result. There's a great deal of truth to the old saw that "When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either." And I would also suggest that a party like, say, the federal NDP might do well to avoid such a line of attack. Because as I see it, they've been seeking electoral power for decades now, and haven't gotten so much as a sniff - and they aren't folding up their tents and leaving the Canadian electoral scene as a result of that abject failure, are they? Some fights you take on because you can win, but some you take on because they're simply worth fighting - Afghanistan is probably a bit of both.