RON MACLEAN
Welcome to House of Commons Night in Canada. I'm Ron MacLean here with Don Cherry at the end of a frantic week in the House. There's almost too much going on, but first and foremost is we have yet to hear from Speaker Milliken on the Contempt of Parliament motion, and yet the government delivered about 2500 pages of detainee-related documents to the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan. How does that all add up?
DON CHERRY
Best I can do is tell you a joke.
RON MACLEAN
You're kidding!
DON CHERRY
What's the difference between Ann Coulter and George Galloway?
RON MACLEAN
OK, what?
DON CHERRY
One was stopped at the border.
RON MACLEAN
I don't get it.
DON CHERRY
Sometimes I think my best work is wasted on you.
RON MACLEAN
So tell me how that relates to the Afghan prisoner thing.
DON CHERRY
Because it's a lot of hot air. First, the government drags Frank Iacobucci through this like some kind of Mr. Clean, hoping he'll sweep the whole thing under the "national security" rug. Then, when Derek Lee and his buddies proceed with their motions anyway, the government drops two and a half thousand pages on the Committee.
RON MACLEAN
I hear with quite a few redactions...
DON CHERRY
Yeah, well it's gonna take a while to figure out what's in there, but it doesn't change Speaker Milliken's predicament.
RON MACLEAN
So why is the government bothering with all this?
DON CHERRY
Playing for time! Trying to run out the clock. We know how well that worked in the men's Gold Medal final.
RON MACLEAN
I don't think that's exactly fair. I wouldn't describe the third period as trying to run out the clock.
DON CHERRY
I know, I know. All I'm saying is, stalling isn't going to give the government the game. In my opinion, they're already dead toast in the water.
RON MACLEAN
...an interesting image...
DON CHERRY
But I wanna say, I'm doing my part as a citizen and loyal CBC staffer.
RON MACLEAN
I've never heard you use that kind of language.
DON CHERRY
Yeah, well, the CBC put out a call for citizens to help read through the 2500 pages of documents, and I'm gonna step up.
RON MACLEAN
You've been trolling through 2500 redacted pages of government documents?!
DON CHERRY
You say it like there's something wrong with it.
RON MACLEAN
I'm just astounded.
DON CHERRY
Like I say, some of my best work...
RON MACLEAN
So, tell us, what have you discovered?
DON CHERRY
OK, I'm only doing a small part of this, but that's what the CBC wanted, ordinary citizens doing a part of the reading to see what's there...
RON MACLEAN
So?
DON CHERRY
OK, so, I've got a couple examples you guys can bring up on the screen. Here's two pages from the "Blanchette" document dump.
RON MACLEAN
They look surprisingly similar.
DON CHERRY
Yeah well, there's nuances that can be found if you're willing to spend the time.
RON MACLEAN
"NUANCES?"
DON CHERRY
It's French for "clouds".
RON MACLEAN
There's something not quite right about that.
DON CHERRY
Like I said, my best work....
RON MACLEAN
So tell the viewers what you're talking about.
DON CHERRY
So what you're seeing here in this first one I'd say, is at some point in 2007, H Company from the Second Battalion, the Royal Canadian Regiment, takes a prisoner who is handed off to the Military Police in the field, who then transfer him to the "holding facility" at Kandahar Airfield.
RON MACLEAN
What's wrong....?
DON CHERRY
Nothing. Lemme finish...
RON MACLEAN
OK...
DON CHERRY
After which a Detainee Review Panel decides there's no reason to hold the prisoner, and sends him home in a taxi.
RON MACLEAN
Not exactly a smoking gun, Don.
DON CHERRY
It all depends what you're looking for. In a way, I agree with you. What we have here, apart from names and specific dates, is evidence that after taking a prisoner, who was not harmed, a Review Panel was convened at Kandahar Airfield, determined that the prisoner should not be held, and released him after arranging a taxi home.
RON MACLEAN
Yeah, so....?
DON CHERRY
So the next example is, a prisoner is taken that the Commander decides to release, but it takes the brass so long to figure out what to do that they take the guy in for the night and then release him to his employer the next day.
RON MACLEAN
It sounds pretty civilized, Don. I've been in worse bars.
DON CHERRY
Exactly my point! So that's exactly how prisoners should be handled according to the Third Geneva Convention.
RON MACLEAN
Which means...?
DON CHERRY
As of at least 2007, the Canadian Forces in the field understood Geneva 3 to be the law governing their handling of prisoners, not just Common Article 3 that people have been mumbling about in the AFGH Committee, but the whole thing.
RON MACLEAN
You never cease to surprise me...
DON CHERRY
And so, folks, according to Article 12, if Canadian Forces decided a prisoner should be held, a transfer to any Afghan jurisdiction is illegal, because none of them meets the standard of Geneva 3.
RON MACLEAN
But Canada had an agreement with Afghan government that that would be the standard if prisoners were transferred.
DON CHERRY
...and if you believe the Afghan government could honour that agreement, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that's an unbeatable real estate opportunity. Here's Article 12....
RON MACLEAN
Which you just happen to have with you...
DON CHERRY
Doesn't everybody? Sorry about the beer stains..., but I'll read it out:
Article 12. Prisoners of war are in the hands of the enemy Power, but not of the individuals or military units who have captured them. Irrespective of the individual responsibilities that may exist, the Detaining Power is responsible for the treatment given them.
Prisoners of war may only be transferred by the Detaining Power to a Power which is a party to the Convention and after the Detaining Power has satisfied itself of the willingness and ability of such transferee Power to apply the Convention. When prisoners of war are transferred under such circumstances, responsibility for the application of the Convention rests on the Power accepting them while they are in its custody.
So the onus is on the Detaining Power - Canada - to know that transferred prisoners would be treated properly.
RON MACLEAN
Don, nobody has a higher opinion of you than I do, but you'd think some famous lawyer would have pointed that out by now. I think I read there was a document already up on the Canadian Forces website explaining all the law.
DON CHERRY
Absolutely! But if you actually look at it, there's a lot of fancy stick-work, a lot of razzle-dazzle, but nobody's crashing the net laying out the truth.
RON MACLEAN
So why would anybody be pussyfooting around the issue?
DON CHERRY
Because all of NATO is on the hook for violations of Article 12 of the Third Geneva Convention, transfers of prisoners into jurisdictions where the Convention can't be applied.
RON MACLEAN
I dunno, Don, seems a little extreme.
DON CHERRY
It's more than a little extreme, but the Bulletin of the Secretary-General of the United Nations of August 12, 1999...
RON MACLEAN
...which you just happen to have with you...
DON CHERRY
There's more to the game of parliamentary democracy than just showing up at the rink. Perparation is a lot of it, so I'll just get in one brief quote from Section 8:
"The United Nations force shall treat with humanity and
respect for their dignity detained members of the armed forces
and other persons who no longer take part in military
operations by reason of detention. Without prejudice to their
legal status, they shall be treated in accordance with the
relevant provisions of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949,
as may be applicable to them mutatis mutandis."
RON MACLEAN
OK, that seems pretty clear, except what does "mutatis mutandis" mean?
DON CHERRY
I was hoping you knew. So we're back to needing a lawyer, this time an international lawyer who knows something about International Humanitarian Law.
RON MACLEAN
OK, so on that no-doubt controversial note, that's it for document trolling here at House of Commons Night in Canada. Next week should be very interesting.
DON CHERRY
How're you going with the constitutional lawyer?
RON MACLEAN
He said he's got a moose at National Defence working on it.
DON CHERRY
A moose?
RON MACLEAN
I'm only saying what he told me.
DON CHERRY
Are you sure this lawyer knows what he's doing?
RON MACLEAN
Well, we could afford him. He went for the Leafs tickets.
DON CHERRY
You know, I think we ended up in this sorry situation because the CBC didn't get the Olympics.
RON MACLEAN
We'll never know.
