Canada: Liberals and Conservatives join forces to extend intervention in Afghan war

Under conditions where the Canadian public is overwhelmingly opposed to Canada’s leading role in the Afghan war, the country’s two principal parties claim to have set aside their differences in the name of the “national interest”—in other words, to jointly pursue a policy opposed by the populace. The House of Commons is slated to vote on the joint Liberal-Conservative motion authorizing the CAF mission’s extension on March 13.

“I agree with the Prime Minister that what we have now is neither a Conservative motion nor a Liberal motion. It is a Canadian motion,” declared Liberal leader Stéphane Dion after the war motion was tabled in the House of Commons. Harper had made similar comments several days before.

The new motion would extend the Canadian army’s counter-insurgency mission in Kandahar province from February 2009 until July 2011. As a condition for the extension, the popularly-elected lower house of Canada’s parliament will demand that Canada’s NATO allies deploy at least an additional 1,000 soldiers to fight alongside the CAF force in Kandahar and assist Canada in equipping the CAF force with helicopters and drone airplanes. These conditions follow the recommendations of a Conservative-appointed “wise-persons” committee tasked with considering Canada’s future role in Afghanistan. Headed by former Deputy Liberal Prime Minster John Manley, the committee issued a report, which has come to be popularly known as the Manley Report, that was strongly supportive of extending the CAF intervention in southern Afghanistan indefinitely.

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