Election day is Tuesday. I’m going to be voting for my Green Party candidate, Jen Hunter. As a long-time Green, that shouldn’t be too surprising, but I am happy about a number of planks in the Green Party platform. My favourites are:

Fixing Our Electoral System

In case you hadn’t heard, our electoral system is broken. It needs to be fixed. Duh.

Afghanistan

I’m not a fan of Canada’s current mission in Afghanistan. I do believe that Canada should be doing its best to promote the expansion of human rights, but I’m concerned about the way the mission is being run. I’d like to see more civilian oversight, a broader humanitarian mission, and a wider coalition of forces in the country. As such, I approve of the Green Party’s proposal that Canada should push for a UN mandated mission, and operate within that framework.

Removing Corporate Subsidies

Corporations are odd beasts. At their best, they reward innovation and generate wealth for their employees, investors, and suppliers. At their worst, they gerrymander government policy, squander economic resources, stifle innovation, and mistreat their employees. The Green Party policy reflects my belief that economic entities should not receive long-term subsidies from the government, nor should they receive large one-time perks. Yes, I’m looking at you, Fort McMurry.

Fair Trade

Imagine the crappiest job that you’ve ever had. Now imagine that job with a fraction of the pay, a 60 hour work week, and physically dangerous conditions. Toss in some physical and sexual abuse to make things a rollicking good time. Don’t forget that you’re enjoying these conditions so fat bastards people in the first world can buy a t-shirt for less than $10. Or save ten cents on a coffee.

Certified fair trade is a mechanism that exports human rights to countries that make our stuff. First world countries pay a little more for goods, and the premium is rolled into educational programs, local infrastructure, and health initiatives in countries where the government is either unwilling or unable to provide for those needs.¹ The Green Party wants to include those principles in our international trade agreements, and government procurement.

Yeah, there’s other stuff: decent healthcare policy, doing something about Darfur, and, yes, even environmental policy. But those are the things that caught my imagination. I don’t particularly care about income splitting. Nor do I care about nixing nuclear weapons.

Vote how you will. I’m voting for tomorrow.²

1. It’s a little more complex than this. In some cases, it also involves agreeing on prices before the start of a growing season, third-party verification that labour and environmental standards are being adhered to, etc. TransFair has a fairly opaque website, but they’re the most trustworthy certification body that I know of. (back)
2. Or possible next Wednesday, we’ll see. (back)

I’ve been reading the Manley Report on Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.

The report has a number of themes that I found striking: I’ll limit this post to the mission’s lack of measurable progress.

Measurable Progress

The indications of progress included in the report are:

• The Afghan economy as grown at 10% annually.
• The number of children attending schools is currently at six million (although we aren’t told what that number was back in August ‘01, I assume it’s higher now).
• Afghanistan lingers near the bottom of the UN Human Development Index (174 out of 178, as of 2007).
• Per-capita income has doubled since 2001.
• 6.6 million Afghans don’t have enough food.
• 87% of Afghan women are illiterate, as are 57% of men.
• Five million Afghan refugees have returned home (presumably from other countries).

The report states that “living conditions in Afghanistan have seen measurable, even significant improvement,” (p. 3) it offers no measurements other than these. As far as I can tell, no source is offered for any of these statistics (other than the HDI, natch).

Most of these statistics aren’t progressive. They don’t compare progress against time. These statistics aren’t directly attributable to Canadian involvement.

So how do we know it’s all worth it? I assume that we’re doing good over there, but there’s no way of telling if we can do a better job, or even if our government officials are doing their jobs.

Canada is part of the Afghanistan Compact, which is a series of timelines and targets agreed upon by the Afghan government and donor countries. The report stats that “its targets have proved more formal than real, and performance assessments have been flimsy” (p. 19). And reading the terms (p. 78), one can understand that description: aside from target benchmarks for number of teachers, soldiers, and households with electricity, there is little or nothing that can be used to gauge our efforts.

In the recommendations, Manley et al. state that:

4. The Government should systematically assess the effectiveness of Canadian contributions and the extent to which the benchmarks and timelines of the Afghanistan Compact have been met. Future commitments should be based on those assessments.

5. The Government should provide the public with franker and more frequent reporting on events in Afghanistan, offering more assessments of Canada’s role and giving greater emphasis to the diplomatic and reconstruction efforts as well as those of the military.

I would hope that the Government goes further, offering regular quantitative reports on Canada’s non-military effect in Afghanistan. As it is, the only definite progress we can point to is a body count and a bill for close to seven billion dollars.

Lack of Coherent Leadership

The report states that there is no civilian leader

I’ve been reading the Manley Report on Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.

Something I’ve wondered about (since 2002ish) is why our troops are there. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be, I’m just curious what the mandate is. What are the goals the Canadian government wishes to achieve? The question isn’t as facetious as it sounds. We can’t decide if the mission is complete until we know what we’re supposed to accomplish while we’re there.

Manley et al. never provide an “official” (ie, government endorsed) answer to this question. Instead, they provide us with the following reasons:

1. It “concerns” global and Canadian security (p. 3, p. 20)
2. we need to maintain Canada’s international reputation (p. 3)
3. we need to help “impoverished and vulnerable” people (p. 3, p. 8 )
4. a lot of Canadians have already died there (p. 3)
5. to engage the international community in future peace keeping/making efforts (p. 8, p. 22)
6. the UN mandated a mission (p. 21)
7. NATO mandated a mission (p. 21)
8. we are there at the behest of the Afghan government (p. ???)

The cynic in me suspects that Canadian involvement in this mission was okayed for diplomatic reasons (ie, appeasing Washington) before a public justification was formulated. Interestingly the reasons provided on the DnD website are much more specific than the those listed by Manley et al.

For the past few years I’ve resisted posting about Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan. With the release of the Manley Report¹ that situation has changed. Here we have a report by a (supposedly ) disinterested panel that has had time and resources to explore the issue thoroughly.

The post will provide background, as described by the report.

Here’s the background: In 2001 western forces invaded Afghanistan, toppling the repressive Taliban government. The UN and NATO pass resolutions condoning the action. Since then, the Afghan Compact has been signed (in 2006), and a fairly diverse grouping of nations has, at the request of the Afghan government, been supporting the fledgling Afghan military’s efforts to establish something approaching a national government.

In the seven years since 2001, the Afghan economy as grown at 10% annually. The number of children attending schools is currently at six million (although we aren’t told what that number was back in August ‘01, I assume it’s higher now). Afghanistan lingers near the bottom of the UN Human Development Index. Although the report states that “living conditions in Afghanistan have seen measurable, even significant improvement,” (p. 3) it offers no measurements other than these.

Canada currently has 2500ish troops in Afghanistan and nearly 50 civilians in the country (representing CIDA, the RCMP, Correctional Services, and Foreign Affairs)². Our current number of casualties is close to 80 Canadians. We have the highest number of per-capita casualties of the international force.

1. More correctly named “REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT PANEL ON CANADA’S FUTURE ROLE IN AFGHANISTAN, according to their website. (back)
2. The report does not state how many civilians represent the various government departments, so I’m reading between the lines, using information provided on pages 23 and 28 of the report. (back)