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October 16, 2007 Thomas Walkom's Toronto Star column on Sunday underlined a frequently misrepresented fact about Canada's role in Afghanistan. "By appointing his new advisory panel on Afghanistan," he wrote, "Prime Minister Stephen Harper has inadvertently underlined what this war is about. It is not about Afghanistan. It is about the U.S." Walkom explains that, "None of the five on it is an expert on that country (although one, former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley has twice visited there.) Yet four – Manley, former New York consul-general Pam Wallin, former Washington ambassador Derek Burney and former CN Rail chief Paul Tellier – have been intimately involved with the problems of Canada-U.S. relations, and in particular with the campaign to convince Americans that Canada is not soft on terror." Manley, in particular, is both pro-war and heavily pro-SPP. As Walkom notes in his column, "In their book, The Unexpected War, (Janice) Stein and (Eugene) Lang quote Manley recalling how he berated others in Jean Chrétien's cabinet. 'I was saying, `Excuse me ... have you been reading the papers lately?' while some other ministers were saying, `Let's not be sucked in by the Americans,' I thought these people were nuts and I still do.'" In Too Close for Comfort, Maude Barlow writes that, "As co-chair of the Task Force on the Future of North America, John Manley called on the leaders of Canada, the United States and Mexico to 'think big and show some vision...be the architects of the future, rather than the custodians of the past." She notes that Manley wrote in the diplomatic magazine Embassy, "I think we've had 11 years of incrementalism, and during that time we have seen the EU expand its borders, eliminate borders among member countries, and launch a common currency. We're going to have to provide a vision that is more bold than incrementalism." Manley was also particularly hawkish on the Arar file, telling the O'Connor inquiry into the deportation of the Canadian citizen that the sharing of sensitive intelligence information with the United States is justifiable regardless of whether the Americans later use it in ways that violate Canadian notions of human rights. Fortunately Justice O'Connor disagreed with Manley in his final report on the incident, recommending more checks and balances on the kinds of information shared with foreign governments, including the U.S. That doesn't mesh well with Security and Prosperity Partnership demands for the even more streamlined sharing of security information, terrorist watchlists and other information stored in criminal databases across the continent. "Identify recommendations within 21 months (March 2007) to address significant legal restrictions to the sharing of investigative information," and, "explore the feasibility of a process within 12 months (June 2006) that can make risk management decisions (board/no board) about travellers destined to or transiting through North America," are both SPP initiatives, although the latter, which sounds suspiciously like some kind of data mining experiment, is described as "delayed" in the 2006 Report to Leaders. But back to Manley's position on Harper's new Afghanistan panel. The Ottawa Citizen reported on March 25, 2006, that, "In a July 2005 interview...(then Defence Minister Bill) Graham...acknowledged that mending fences with the Bush administration played a role in the government's decision to take on the Kandahar mission. The U.S. was still angry over Canada's refusal to join its invasion of Iraq and it didn't help that the Martin government had declined to participate in the Pentagon's controversial missile defence system." Moreover, The Walrus magazine (March 2006) stated, "In the entwined corridors between (the ministries of) Defence, Foreign Affairs, and International Trade, and through shuttle diplomacy between Ottawa and Washington, the thinking may be that we will finally resolve the softwood-lumber issue and keep our border open to trade by lessening America's burden in Afghanistan." Walkom concludes his column with, "Now, as he tries to finesse the political unpopularity of the Afghan war, the Prime Minister is doing his best to ensure that official discussion remains tightly focused on what he sees as our real interest there – our relationship with Washington."
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