What’s the plan?
Posted Nov 16, 2010 05:23:20 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – The Harper government will disclose details today of its plan to extend Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan.
Sources say the plan will involve keeping up to 950 military personnel “in and around” Kabul to help train Afghan security forces.
The precise makeup of the new non-combat mission will be decided after further consultation with Canada’s allies.
The training mission will extend the presence of Canadian soldiers in the war-torn country until 2014.
That’s three years beyond the July 2011 date approved by Parliament for ending the current combat mission.
The details are to be disclosed at a news conference with Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda.
The news conference was scheduled after the government was pummelled in the House of Commons yesterday for being vague and for refusing to seek parliament’s approval for the extension.
Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae called on the government to present details of the plan before Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets with his fellow NATO leaders later this week in Portugal.
And N-D-P Leader Jack Layton demanded a debate — and a vote in the Commons — on extending the mission.
But Cannon argues a vote is unnecessary because the extension won’t involve combat.
He compared the extension to the decision to deploy non-combat troops to Haiti without parliamentary approval.
