POSITIVELY GROUNDED

CFB VALCARTIER, Que. -- Seventeen soldiers who tested positive for illicit
drug use won't be bound for the war on terror in Afghanistan, the Canadian
Forces said yesterday. "The reason why we didn't want to deploy them is for
security reasons," said Capt. Mario Couture, a military spokesman. "We
can't afford to have people under the influence of illicit substances while
they're conducting patrols."

A Canadian soldier was recently killed in a suicide bomb attack. A total of
19 soldiers in a unit headed to Afghanistan have tested positive. The other
two were not scheduled to go to the strife-torn area, Couture said.

Twenty-nine soldiers were tested for drugs.

The tests followed searches of the base, near Quebec City, by military
police and drug-detecting dogs earlier this week after they received a tip.
The military couldn't immediately say which drugs had been detected and
were awaiting results on tests of drugs seized.

A small quantity of drugs was found during the search of several offices
and lockers belonging to the 3rd Battalion of the Royal 22nd Regiment at
Valcartier, said the National Investigation Service, the investigative arm
of the military police.

The 3rd Battalion, which comprises 600 soldiers, will be shipping soldiers
to Afghanistan until mid-month and some have already arrived. None of those
is under suspicion, Couture said.

"Nobody that was targeted or nobody that was looked into had deployed, so
the problem was not transferred to Afghanistan."

The 19 could face reprimands or discharge from the Forces, the military
said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Paul Martin backpedalled yesterday on a
commitment to deploy 500 more Canadian soldiers to Afghanistan this summer.
Martin said he could ask soldiers to stay longer than their six-month
mission in a bid to keep Canadian soldiers in Kabul past August - a break
of deployment rules.

"The government of Canada has said that up to 500, not more, could remain
or could be rotated back if the jobs they were required to perform would
not stretch them too thin," Martin said yesterday. "It may be less, it will
not be more."

During a meeting on Wednesday, Martin committed to keeping 500 soldiers in
Kabul when the 2,000 Canadian Forces members now serving in the
International Security Assistance Force pull out this summer.