Hansard Quotes of the Day

Among the many fakeries and falsehoods foisted on the House yesterday by the Cons in their bid to maintain the most secretive and unaccountable government evah, usual frontrunners Laurie Goldie Hawn and Cheryl Gallant got beat out by Gary Goodyear, Minister of Creationism, Science, and Technology.
Here he is explaining why the motion to release documents the government had already supplied to Christie Blatchford and friendly Afghan committee witnesses but not to the Afghan committee members or Richard Colvin, who wrote some of them, would be a very. very. bad. thing.

"Madam Speaker, perhaps I will just make a comment. The fact is that we are debating a motion here that is asking the government to release information that could in fact entail something as simple as a soldier's name, middle name, address and perhaps phone number. It is information that the Taliban are hoping they can get their hands on, not just to attack that soldier but also potentially to put the family of the soldier at risk."

And that, boys and girls, is why the dates and the word torture must be blacked out on Richard Colvin's three year old reports.

Second prize goes to Goldie, who characterized a Canadian soldier's reports of extrajudicial killings and torture as :

"one Taliban got hit with a shoe"

and for the following rhetorical flight of irrelevancy :

"When it comes to the big ticket items of national unity and doing the right thing on the international stage, Liberals and Conservatives have always spoken with the same voice. That is the voice of freedom, it is the voice of courage, it is the voice of doing the right thing for Canadian men and women here and abroad, people like the people of Holland in 1944-45..."

Gallant takes third place for her accusation on two separate occasions that personal info about soldiers would be twittered straight from the Afghan committee to the Taliban, a point seconded by Jim Abbott who is himself on the committee.

Honourable mention - Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Abandoning Canadians Overseas, for : "We are at war."

Steve and Airshow MacKay had no new material - just the same accusations that not supporting the Cons' contempt for parliament is the same thing as attacking the troops.
High point : a brilliant speech by Paul Dewar.

The motion to release to the Afghan committee documents related to the care and detention of Afghan prisoners passed by 145 to 143. Steve has no intention of honouring that vote.
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Who here believes in parliamentary democracy?

Come on - hands up.
Yes, quite a few of us actually.
Yet judging from the vote in the House today on a motion demanding the release of uncensored government documents to the Special Committee on Afghanistan charged with oversight of the 'mission', almost half of our elected MPs do not. The motion passed by a mere 2 votes - 145 to 143. I find that quite astonishing.

The docs, already made available to journos and committee witnesses sympathetic to the Cons but not released to the committee, would not be disclosed to you, me, and the national press. The docs could remain in camera. Yet even that amount of parliamentary oversight is too much for the almost half of the people we elected to represent us who apparently do not much care for the concept of parliamentary privilege.

So I have to ask - what do they think they doing there?
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Cons to privatize Afghan war after 2011?

David Pugliese :

"Canada is sending two surveillance aircraft to Afghanistan in a move some defence analysts see as laying the groundwork for a military mission in Kandahar beyond the announced 2011 pullout date.

Although the federal government has not made any details public, the U.S. army issued a news release on Monday that an American company had been awarded a $12-million contract to modify two aircraft being provided by Canada.
Work on the surveillance planes would be done in the U.S. and in Afghanistan and would be completed by June 15, 2011.

Stephen Priestley, a researcher with the Canadian-American Strategic Review, said what Canada is doing with the King Air planes is similar to programs undertaken by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

He noted that if Canada uses private contractors to fly the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, it could say it was contributing to Afghan security in a non-military way.

“It might be argued that ISR flights are not directly related to combat,” Priestley added.
“Seen in that light, performing ISR over Kandahar would not be regarded as an extension of the CF’s combat mission.” "

Thanks to the US Army for the heads up.
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Ok, John, seeing as you put it that way...

Rising to a question in the House yesterday as to why the Cons refused to act on first-hand accounts of detainee abuse in Afghan jails from troops, John Baird responded by asking why the leader of the opposition does not trust the word of "General Walter Natynczyk, a decorated war hero, someone who has served our country in uniform for decades"?

OK, John, seeing as you put it that way, we'll go with the general's account then.

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Harper Says Global Recovery Must Precede Environment

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he will use Canada’s co-chairmanship of next year’s Group of 20 countries meeting to urge members to put economic recovery before efforts to protect the environment.

"Without the wealth that comes from growth, the environmental threats, the developmental challenges and the peace and security issues facing the world will be exponentially more difficult to deal with," Harper said in an address to South Korea’s National Assembly.

Fuck the planet! Go, tarsands, go! he did not need to add, as he left for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

This must be what CannedWest Ian MacDonald meant yesterday when he referred to Harper as "magisterial" and described how he "has assumed the mantle as well as the office."
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Greenpeace occupies Parliament roofs

On the opening day of COP15, Greenpeace activists scale Parliament buildings and hang two 12 x 7 meter banners : "Harper/Ignatieff - Climate inaction costs lives."

Media mostly goes with the security angle : How dey do dat? and "Since 9/11 ..."

Greenpeace covers their own story here.

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Peter MacKay vs the evidence

Paul Koring :

"In one well-documented case in the summer of 2006, Canadian soldiers captured and handed over a detainee who was so severely beaten by Afghan police that the Canadians intervened and took the detainee back. Canadian medics then treated the man's injuries. The incident is documented in the field notes of Canadian troops, recounted in a sworn affidavit by a senior officer and confirmed in cross-examination by a general."

Peter MacKay :
"There has never been a single, solitary, proven allegation of abuse of a detainee, a Taliban prisoner, transferred by Canadian Forces.” Dec. 2 in the House of Commons

“Mr. Speaker, there has not been a single, solitary, proven allegation of a prisoner being abused that was transferred from the Canadian Forces.” Nov. 23 in the House of Commons

“We do want to hear from individuals who can bring forward credible, proven allegations, not just recitations of what was heard, what was passed on, what was read in reports, or what was disclosed by Taliban prisoners themselves. That is what the evidence is so far. We have not seen a single scintilla of proof.” Nov. 23 in the House of Commons

“There has never been a single proven allegation of abuse involving a prisoner transferred by the Canadian Forces, not one.” Nov. 23 in the House of Commons

What next, Pete? You were sadly misinformed by your generals? Your base doesn't give a shit about the Geneva conventions? What? I'm guessing Pete will go with blaming the generals.
MacKay's spokesweasel Dan Dugas lays the groundwork :

The minister's spokesman said Sunday that Mr. MacKay was standing by his repeated denials.
“He has said what he has said based on the advice of generals and senior officials in the department."

... all of which would carry slightly more weight had we not already heard from foreign affairs and defence officials via Murray Brewster that they had been instructed by "senior officials in the Privy Council Office (and reinforced in follow-up conferences between Ottawa and Kabul, as well Ottawa and Kandahar) to "hold back information in their reports to Ottawa about the handling of the prisoners" that didn't promote "a happy face".
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Canada is to climate what Japan is to whaling

Interview with George Monbiot.

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Airshow MacKay's 'catch and release yokel program'

Then, Nov 23 :

"Concerns about the treatment of Afghan prisoners prompted Canadian soldiers to halt the transfer of detainees three times over the course of the last year, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
MacKay said the suspensions followed the refusal by Afghan authorities to abide by an agreement that guaranteed access to prisons where the detainees were being held.
"Most recently the reason that the transfers stopped was that the Afghan officials were not living up to ... expectations," MacKay said."

Sounds like Airshow MacKay is staking out the high moral ground here, until Today :

"Afghanistan's intelligence service refused to accept Canadian-captured prisoners over the summer because the military was providing "insufficient evidence" of wrongdoing, The Canadian Press has learned.

And so with little or no evidence to hold suspects, the spy agency has been releasing them - to the dismay of the Canadian military."

CBC :

"Canada's top two commanders in Afghanistan in spring 2006 told investigators the government pressured them to transfer detainees to Afghan authorities faster than they felt was appropriate, CBC News has learned.

[Brig.-Gen. David] Fraser and [Lt.-Col. Tom] Putt said the military's interest in detainees ended as soon as the prisoners were transferred. The military didn't monitor their condition — that was not its jurisdiction, Fraser said.
And the government's position was that monitoring detainees was an Afghan problem.

Putt's testimony also suggests Canadian troops frequently weren't capturing high-value Taliban targets — an assertion [Richard] Colvin first raised two weeks ago

"I mean, we were basically capturing a local yokel, " Putt said. "Detaining the local yokels and handing them off."

What a surprise : Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of all alliance forces in Afghanistan, says Violence in Afghanistan has increased 300% since 2007. even as President Obama was making his major surge speech:

"And we must make it clear to every man, woman and child around the world who lives under the dark cloud of tyranny that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights and tend for the light of freedom and justice and opportunity and respect for the dignity of all peoples. That is who we are; that is the source, the moral source of America's author."

"And just as America can't afford to abandon this war, surely it can't afford to abandon the Afghan people, who without the American military would be left to the savage whims of their hated enemy, the Afghan people. Indeed, it remains America's solemn duty as the leader of the free world to bring freedom and security to the Afghan people by hunting down and eliminating the Afghan people. Nor can America forget its own national security, and the dire threat posed by the Afghan people to our war against the Afghan people."

Correction : The second paragraph above was mistakenly attibuted to President Obama earlier today. It has since come to our attention it was actually written by Fafblog.
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We can't stop here! This is bat country!

Today in the House, Paul Dewar moved for an independent "Public Inquiry into the transfer of detainees in Canadian custody to Afghan authorities from 2001 to 2009."
It passed 146 to 129, not that this means we'll actually get one.

Here, via Hansard, Con MP Cheryl Gallant presents the Cons' closing argument for why we should not pursue an independent inquiry, unsullied by partisan political gamesmanship :

"Mr. Speaker, on the weekend I had an opportunity to speak to a soldier from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa who had served several rotations in Afghanistan.

He urged me not to go forth with an inquiry on this issue. He said that every time the Afghan deployment is debated in Parliament, it puts the lives of our soldiers in theatre at greater risk. He recounted that when the motion to withdraw from Afghanistan or to end the combat mission in 2011 was before Parliament, they were in a operation where they heard the insurgents on the radio saying to each other that they should kill as many Canadian soldiers as possible because we were debating this in the House of Commons and that when Canadians saw the caskets of soldiers coming off the plane it increased public pressure. They wanted the MPs to vote to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

I asked him if they listened to Al Jazeera while they were fighting at the front, so to speak, and he said, “No, ma'am. We heard this chatter on our coms”.

So they had heard Taliban talking to one another, urging each other to kill as many Canadian soldiers as possible. He credits the leader of the NDP directly for the death of his best friend as a consequence of that."

Mrs. Gallant's musings can frequently be heard from her perch on the Parliamentary Committee of National Defence.
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h/t Scott
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