IGNATIEFF BACKS OPIUM LICENSING

OTTAWA -- Canada should spearhead an international effort to license
opium production in Afghanistan for peaceful pharmaceutical uses to
combat the country's chronic economic dependence on the illegal
narcotic, deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said Thursday.

Ignatieff endorsed the proposal of the controversial London-based
think-tank, the Senlis Council, which has called for a pilot project
to study the licensing of the Afghan opium crop -- the backbone of the
world's illicit heroin trade and the cornerstone of Afghanistan's
impoverished economy.

The council, which has issued a series of scathing reports on the
world's failures in the war-torn country, has argued processing
facilities should be set up in Afghanistan to convert the opium from
Afghan poppies into codeine and morphine to meet a shortage of pain
medicines in the developing world.

Essentially legalizing Afghanistan's No. 1 criminal activity would
revitalize the country's economy, the council says.

Ignatieff said he has spoken to Senlis representatives at length about
this proposal, which they unveiled last summer, and he is convinced of
its merits.

"I've stress tested their proposal. I don't buy anything until I knock
it around. But I believe these guys. The Senlis Council has
demonstrated there is a market for such medicine," Ignatieff said in a
keynote speech at the annual gathering of the Conference of Defence
Associations Institute.

Ignatieff made the pitch to a military audience of hundreds attending
Canada's largest security and military symposium. Ignatieff's address
was also a partisan attack on what he said are the Conservative
government's failings in Afghanistan.

"Canada can lead by providing political leadership ... on a new
strategy to provide technical assistance and infrastructure funding to
help make the Senlis pilot project succeed," Ignatieff said. "Because
of all we've sacrificed, we have the right to speak."

Ignatieff said the Liberals are immensely proud of Canada's military
contribution to the mission in Kandahar, which they initiated almost
two years ago, but accused the current Conservative government of
botching the mission by shortchanging development.

Ignatieff also agreed with the Senlis Council's contention that a
poppy eradication program in southern Afghanistan is bound to fail,
and will turn the country's peasant farmers against the foreign
soldiers on its soil.

Poppy eradication teams came under attack in the southern Afghan
province of Helmand again this week.

The Afghan government and the United Nations drug agency have
dismissed the Senlis proposal as unworkable.

Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of the defence staff, has also criticized
the Senlis Council as lacking credibility.