Canada’s world reputation is in trouble

Here are the facts:

According to the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Canada must ensure that prisoners of war it detains are not subject to torture or other human rights violations. This also applies to detainees transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian forces.

Over the past year, Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor repeatedly said that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was responsible for monitoring the status of detainees and informing Canadian authorities. That was FALSE.

In fact, the Minister recently had to apologize for misleading the House of Commons after the ICRC confirmed that it did not report to Canadian authorities on the faith of these detainees. The Defence Minister then said that the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) was now monitoring the status of detainees. That was also FALSE.

The head of the AIHRC recently said that his organization does not have the resources or the access to Afghan prisons to appropriately monitor prisoners. So on April 25, testifying before the Commons’ Foreign Affairs committee, Minister O’Connor announced that “within the last few days we basically have made an agreement with the government in the Kandahar province so that we can have access to our detainees.”

That was news to Canada’s chief of defence staff, General Rick Hillier who said: "That's not our area of expertise," and "It wouldn't be soldiers." It was also news to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, who himself stated: "Having just heard about it myself, do I think it's a good idea? Sure.” Thing is, what the Defence Minister said was once again FALSE.

The next day in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Harper said that Canada was trying to ink a formal deal in writing with Afghanistan, thus contradicting what his own minister said the previous day. Later, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said that officials from Correctional Services Canada (CSC) had made 15 visits to Afghan prisons, and that they “saw the people who were detained.” Turns out, that was also FALSE.

Minister Day’s own spokesperson later confirmed that the CSC officials do not monitor the treatment of detainees.

This series of events clearly demonstrates that Stephen Harper’s minority government is desperately trying to cover its gross incompetence on this file by improvising and making it up as they go along. But this improvisation by the Conservatives is causing irreparable harm to Canada’s reputation on the international stage and endangering Canadian troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

The Hon.Lucienne Robillard is the Liberal Member of Parliament for Westmount—Ville Marie and the Deputy House Leader.