PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—Canada’s military will stay in Afghanistan until 2014 in a non-combat role training Afghan security forces, National Defence Minister Peter MacKay said on Tuesday.
Some 950 military trainers and support personnel will stay on past the July 2011 pullout to provide behind-the-wire military training. They will not provide mentoring in the field, said MacKay.
The Liberals, who originally proposed the idea of a post-2011 training mission, support the plan although they had been calling for a broader discussion on the mission. The NDP has criticized the government for continuing the mission past 2011 without a vote in the House, saying the government campaigned on a promise to put all military deployments before the House for a vote.
The government says that only applied to combat missions and not non-combat missions, citing the mission to Haiti following the devastating earthquake there in January as an example of a non-combat deployment that was not voted on.
The Liberals are supporting the government’s announcement after calling for details of the proposed mission.
“It’s been like drawing teeth from this government, but after five months of silence and then a change of heart by the government—it’s important to note the prime minister’s change of heart on this—they’ve come forward and come out with a mission for Canada between 2011, 2014 that involves training, that involves being in Kabul, that involves getting the Afghan army ready to defend the country, and that’s a mission we can support,” Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said Tuesday.
Ignatieff took aim at the Bloc Quebecois and NDP position demanding Canada pull out of Afghanistan entirely.
“Why are we taking this decision? Because the only reason Canada is there is to help Afghanistan defend itself. What is not credible about the Bloc and the NDP is they say we don’t want to abandon Afghanistan. We want to make sure that Afghanistan is secure and safe. But they’re not willing to do anything that the Afghans actually want which is to train their army to be able to defend the country. And we think this is a tough decision but it’s the right decision as a matter of principle.”
NDP leader Jack Layton said Tuesday that it is unreasonable to expect Canadian soldiers to stay out of combat when all of Afghanistan is a war zone.
“I just simply take the advice of people in the know like former General Hillier who says that you can’t train people without being exposed to some elements of combat and danger.”
