Liberals ready to unveil amendments to Afghan motion

The Opposition Liberals say they are united in their position on the mission in Afghanistan and ready to propose amendments to a Tory motion calling for Canada to stay in the country until 2011.

Liberal MPs and senators worked late into the evening Monday to finalize a proposed Liberal amendment to the Conservative motion introduced Friday. The Liberals are expected to unveil their proposal Tuesday.

"It's in line with everything we have said and it will be very clear, very exhaustive about what we want to see about this mission," Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said after the meeting.

"We have the conviction that we are proposing the right thing for Afghanistan, for Canada and for NATO."

The Tories on Friday introduced a confidence motion to extend Canada's combat role in Afghanistan for two years to February 2011, raising the prospect of an election if opposition parties do not vote in its favour.

Dion has rejected the government motion, calling for an end to combat operations by 2009, as scheduled. He said the Conservative motion opens the door to a "never-ending mission," and that troops must be prepared to exit entirely by 2011.

"Our position is that in 2011, the mission is over," Dion said earlier Monday.

The Liberal leader told his caucus Monday that the party will demand more transparency from Conservatives regarding the mission, according to Liberal sources.

He wants the government to submit quarterly progress reports to Parliament, and will ask for cabinet ministers to make monthly appearances before a new Commons committee on Afghanistan.

The amendment will also call for the appointment of a special envoy dedicated to ensuring the fair treatment of Afghan detainees, sources said.

Although the Liberals have been divided over the Afghan mission in the past, sources said Dion's amendments were met with wide approval on Monday night.

"You don't have to do a search-and-destroy, you can rebuild and reconstruct and if you're fired upon, you fire back," said Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis.

Government House leader Peter Van Loan said Monday that while Conservatives hoped for an end to the mission within the next four years, he could not say for certain whether troops would be withdrawn by 2011.

"Obviously our intent is to achieve that. We're not going to tie the hands of a future Parliament. They will be able to review that."

But privately, Conservatives indicated they would agree to affix a 2011 end date to the mission, the CBC's James Cudmore reported.

A vote in the House on the Conservatives' Afghan motion is scheduled for late March.

Roughly 2,500 Canadian troops are serving in the violent Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan as part of a NATO-led mission. Seventy-eight Canadian soldiers and one Canadian diplomat have been killed since the mission started in 2002.