OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared to dampen expectations Friday that all of Canada's demands on Afghanistan will be met during next week's NATO leaders summit in Romania.
While he remains confident the military alliance will come through with 1,000 reinforcements and extra equipment, Harper suggested it all might take more time to accomplish than the two-day meeting among 26 leaders.
"I anticipate in the weeks to come there will be additional commitments made in Afghanistan by some of our allies," he said while visiting northern Quebec.
"I don't think we will necessarily finish that process at Bucharest but we will finish it in the very near future."
It was widely expected that French President Nicolas Sarkozy would use the gathering of NATO leaders on April 2-4 to announce that his country was sending additional troops. Instead, he largely made his intentions known during a visit this week to Britain, prompting an immediate uproar back home.
It's not clear whether French troops would go to eastern or southern Afghanistan, but there is a strong suggestion they'll likely deploy to a province south of Kabul. Such a move would free American troops to bolster the Canadian positions in Kandahar.
The House of Commons recently voted to extend Canada's military mission in war-torn region, as long as NATO provided 1,000 more troops and the Defence Department came up with battlefield helicopters and unmanned surveillance planes.
The general expectation had been the matter would be settled during the meeting in Bucharest, the ancient capital of the former East Bloc country.
Federal Liberals, who helped Conservatives pass the extension motion over NDP and Bloc Quebecois opposition, have said they wanted an answer about reinforcements at the summit.
The lengthening of the mission to July 2011 was approved prior to the summit in order to strengthen Harper's hand with major allies who've thus far been reluctant to commit troops to the restive southern region.
Last week, Defence Minister Peter MacKay confirmed that Washington had assured Ottawa that it would backstop the Canadian demand for extra troops if no European member of NATO came forward.
Harper said Friday he had a "high level of certainty" Canada would get what it wanted.
"It's all moving along very well," he told reporters.
The Defence Department has already put in requests for unmanned reconnaissance drones.
It has also asked the U.S. Army if Canada can slip ahead of an American order in the Boeing production line and obtain quick delivery of six CH-47-D Chinook helicopters.
In Halifax on Friday, MacKay said a deal wasn't completed yet.
"We're very close," he said, responding to questions at an announcement on the 2011 Canada Games.
"I just want to put on the record, the time frame that was initially envisioned was February '09, but we hope to have those helicopters in theatre well in advance of that deadline."
The February 2009 deadline was set down in the Manley commission report, which Harper used as a starting point for the government's motion.
The five-member independent panel, which reported in late January, said Canada's involvement in Kandahar should cease within a year unless the allies committed extra troops and equipment.
