August 16, 2005: Canada assumes command of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Kandahar city.  Detainees are transferred to U.S. authorities.
 

December 18, 2005: General Rick Hillier signs a detainee transfer agreement with the government of Afghanistan while Canadians are in a federal election.
 

February 6, 2006: Peter MacKay is sworn in as foreign affairs minister and Gordon O’Connor is sworn in as defence minister.
 

March 2006: Task Force Afghanistan releases Theatre Standing Order (TSO) 321A, titled Detention of Afghan Nationals and Other Persons. This TSO outlines and defines the Canadian Forces’ role in the detention of prisoners before they are handed over to Afghan authorities.
 

March 2006: The U.S. State Department reports that local authorities “continued to routinely torture and abuse detainees. Torture and abuse consisted of pulling out fingernails and toenails, burning with hot oil, beatings, sexual humiliation, and sodomy.”
 

April 2006: Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin arrives in Afghanistan.
 

Spring 2006: Canada’s Conservative government begins transferring detainees to Afghan authorities. 130 detainees were handed over under this agreement over the next 14 months.
 

May 2006: Mr. Colvin begins writing memos to senior Canadian officials documenting abuse of detainees when he “became aware of the scope and severity of these problems.”
 

May 13, 2006: Regarding detainee transfers, Prime Minister Stephen Harper tells the Globe and Mail, “They are handing them over in accord with the treaty that we have signed with the government of Afghanistan to respect all of Canada’s obligations under the Geneva Convention… We expect the Afghan government to live up to those obligations, and we have every reason to believe that they will.”
 

May 26, 2006: A report from the Kandahar PRT warned of lengthy delays in notifying International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) officials of detainee transfers. In some cases, detainees were being lost altogether.
 

May 31, 2006: Minister Gordon O’Connor tells the House of Commons, “The Red Cross or the Red Crescent is responsible to supervise their treatment once the prisoners are in the hands of the Afghan authorities.  If there is something wrong with their treatment, the Red Cross of Red Crescent would inform us and we would take action.”  He maintains this position until March of 2007.
 

June 2, 2006: The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission says that a third of prisoners handed over by Canadians are abused and tortured.  Government officials respond that the Red Cross ensures prisoners are properly treated and can be accessed at any time by Red Cross, and that written records for all detainees are made available to them.
 

The same day, Mr. Colvin sends a memo on behalf of the PRT about concerns with the overall treatment of detainees in Afghan prisons.

August 28, 2006: Mr. Colvin sends an informal report to Canadian Expeditionary Force Command (CEFCOM) officials dealing with procedural concerns and recommendations surrounding notification of detainee transfers. This message was soon followed by two more in-depth formal reports in late September addressing the same concerns.
 

September 19, 2006: A report from the Canadian Embassy in Kabul highlights growing concerns from International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) officials about the withholding of information about detainees by the Canadian Forces. According to Richard Colvin, “a highly credible source” also warned Canadian officials that their international legal obligations did not cease once detainees were handed over to Afghan authorities.
 

September 26, 2006: Ministers O’Connor, MacKay and Day meet with the head of the ICRC, Jakob Kellenberger. Red Cross sources in Geneva have said that the meeting was called so the ICRC could directly inform senior Canadian officials of its growing frustration about delays surrounding the notification of detainee transfers.

September 28, 2006: A second report from the Canadian Embassy in less than ten days conveyed further concerns from ISAF about Canada’s detainee practices. ISAF also asks Canada to more promptly inform the ICRC of detainee transfers.

December 4, 2006: A report from Kabul passes along the concerns of NATO allies that detainees may “vanish from sight” after being transferred to Afghan authorities, and that there is a risk that they “are tortured.”
 

End of December 2006: The Canadian Embassy writes in its human rights report for 2006 that “torture” is common in Afghan jails. The word “torture” appears repeatedly. This report was drafted in large part by Catherine Bloodworth, a Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) political officer who handled files relating to human rights, justice and counter-narcotics.
 

After the release of the report, David Mulroney requested that embassy officials be “very careful” when writing future reports. According to Mr. Colvin, officials understood this to mean that they should avoid use of the word “torture.”

February 6, 2007: Allegations of abuse of three Afghans in Canadian custody surface.  Days later, the Military Police Complaints Commission (MPCC) launches investigations into the treatment of the three Afghan detainees, and a second investigation is launched into whether the handover agreement violates international law and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
 

Early March 2007: Mr. Colvin warns Ottawa in-person that the “NDS tortures people and if we don’t want our detainees tortured, we shouldn’t give them to the NDS.”

According to Mr. Colvin, during a significant portion of his comments to this group, the CEFCOM note-taker for this meeting stops writing and puts down her pen. This meeting was attended by officials from multiple agencies, which likely includes the Privy Council Office, the Department of National Defence (DND), and DFAIT.

March 2, 2007: The three Afghan detainees whose case is being investigated by the MPCC cannot be found after investigators spent a month trying to locate them, in breach of the transfer agreement. 
 

March 8, 2007: Ten months after O’Connor’s first assurances about the Red Cross to Parliament, the Red Cross confirms it is not party to any agreement to monitor detainees, is not monitoring the implementation of it, and would never divulge to Ottawa any abuses it might identity in Afghan prisons.  Government officials now confirm that the Red Cross is not required to notify Canada of abuse.
 

March 16, 2007: DND says the MPCC has no jurisdiction to look into detainee transfers.  The MPCC alerts the government that it will have to hold public hearings if DND refuses to cooperate.
 

March 19, 2007: Minister O’Connor apologizes to House of Commons when he says he was wrong about the Red Cross’ role in monitoring Canadian detainees.  Opposition parties call for his resignation.
 

April 23, 2007: The Globe and Mail reports that 30 transferred Canadian detainees were “beaten, whipped, starved, frozen, choked and subjected to electric shocks during interrogations.”
 

Mr. Colvin said that following the appearance of newspaper reports, David Mulroney, the Prime Minister’s advisor on Afghanistan, instructs Mr. Colvin to keep quiet and refrain from putting torture allegations on paper.
 

A Toronto Star report from November 22, 2009 says that as soon as the detainee abuse scandal erupted in 2007, NATO officials were “scripted and fed” precise wording by PM Harper’s office to deny the reports.
 

April 24, 2007: PM Harper refuses to dismiss Minister O’Connor, despite pressure from opposition parties, and tells the House of Commons, “We are not at the moment told of the problems that have been reported in the papers today. Obviously, if there are such problems, we will act.”
 

Mr. Colvin begins to send reports recommending a new transfer arrangement.
 

April 25, 2007: The Globe and Mail reports that government was informed “extra judicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial are all too common” for detainees, but had censored this information in documents released to the media.
 

Caving in to mounting political pressure, the Harper government announces a new detainee arrangement that provides Canadian government officials with full access to Afghan jails for monitoring.
 

Minister O’Connor is quoted as saying “Canadian government officials will establish continuous liaison with the prison authorities for the purpose of verifying the state of detainees.”
 

Late April: After reports recommending a new detainee arrangement were sent up the chain of command from the embassy, Mr. Colvin’s boss at DFAIT, Colleen Swords tells him by phone that he should, in the future, use the phone to report about such matters, rather than in writing. This is the only time that Mr. Colvin and Ms. Swords are in contact during his time in Afghanistan.
 

April 27, 2007: Canadian official Linda Garwood-Filbert tells CTV News and the Globe and Mail, “There hasn’t been any significant work done with the prisons… It’s out of sight, out of mind. We’re just happy they went to jail.” Regarding allegations of torture at Afghan prisons, she says, “I’m not naive enough to think those circumstances don’t happen.”
 

April 29, 2007: On CTV’s Question Period, Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan says, “We have yet to see one specific allegation of torture… We’d be happy to have it investigated and chased down, but the Liberals continue to repeat the baseless accusations made by those who wish to undermine our forces there.”
 

April 30, 2007: Ambassador Lalani removes a portion of a report relating to detainee concerns written by Mr. Colvin, who goes on to file both this final report and his draft of the report, due to importance of the concerns relating to detainees and credibility of his source for the information.
 

After this, all reports sent from the embassy were sent to a smaller distribution list of officials at DFAIT, concentrating the information in the hands of only a select group of officials.
 

May 3, 2007: The new transfer agreement is signed allowing Canada to visit Afghan prisons.  Colvin says little monitoring occurs due to lack of resources, which means “detainees continued to be tortured after they were transferred.”  He also says “the paper trail on detainees was reduced” and “reports on detainees began sometimes to be censored with crucial information removed.”
 

May 3 to August 27, 2007: Mr.  Colvin sends nine separate reports which touch on issues surrounding detainee transfers. All of these reports should have made it to senior officials within the Canadian Forces and the Military Police, following established channels.
 

May 3 to October 2007: After the new transfer agreement is signed, for five months, DFAIT fails to appoint a dedicated official to inspect prisons and monitor the status of Canadian-transferred detainees.
 

June 4, 2007: A PRT team in Kandahar reports that a Canadian-transferred detainee in Sarpoza prison has been “beaten with electrical cables while blindfolded” by NDS officials.
 

June 5-6, 2007: Canadian embassy officials are unable to find four Canadian-transferred detainees who were supposed to be held at Sederat NDS prison in Kabul.

By October, four months later, only one of the four detainees had been found; this detainee had injuries consistent with someone who had had their nails pulled out through acts of torture. Mr. Colvin, citing “good sources”, believes that the remaining three detainees were sent to NDS “black sites”, where government officials are not able to visit or monitor the treatment of detainees.
 

August 14, 2007: Peter MacKay replaces Gordon O’Connor as defence minister.
 

September 22, 2007: The Globe and Mail reports that Canada can’t account for at least 50 transferred detainees.  Canadian officials blame shoddy Afghan record keeping.
 

October 2007: Mr. Colvin leaves Afghanistan, after 17 memos over a 17 month period documenting instances of torture.
 

A dedicated monitor is finally sent to Kandahar, five months after the new transfer agreement was signed.
 

November 5, 2007: The Gosselin report confirms a case of torture.  Canadian forces halt detainee transfers a day later, 17 months after first becoming aware of the high risk of torture.
 

November 19, 2007: The Prime Minister confirms for the first time to CBC News that the government has learned of evidence of abuse, and that it is being investigated.
 

January 2, 2008: David Connor, the senior Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) official in Afghanistan for much of 2007, tells a Federal Court while under cross-examination that CSC has no particular mandate to monitor Canadian-transferred detainees in Afghan prisons. This is despite the fact that CSC is the lead Canadian agency for prison visits, doing so nearly three times as often as DFAIT.  Mr. Connor also admits that CSC did not, in the course of over 40 visits, investigate the length of time that detainees were kept in NDS prison before they were charged.
 

January 21, 2008: Canadian official Kerry Buck says during testimony, “It is not our role to determine the credibility of the allegations, to determine the veracity of the allegations.  We don’t investigate those allegations.”
 

January 23 2008: The stoppage of transfers is reported to the public for the first time.  Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier did not reveal the new policy when asked about it in the House of Commons a week after the new policy was put in place.
 

January 24, 2008: The Prime Minister’s spokesperson says Canadian Forces did not tell them that  government transfers had been suspended; she retracts her comments a day later.
 

January 28, 2008: MPCC Chair Peter Tinsley informs the Minister of National Defence that some officials are refusing to provide necessary information requested by the Commission.
 

March 12, 2008: Mr. Tinsley writes a letter outlining a decision to hold a public interest hearing on the detainee issue; this hearing has the power to compel witnesses and individuals to produce specific evidence and documents.
 

March 14, 2008: The House of Commons votes to extend the Afghanistan mission by two years.
 

April 11, 2008: The government asks the Federal Court of Canada to prohibit the MPCC from holding the public interest hearing struck by Mr. Tinsley.
 

March 30, 2009: The Harper government tries to indefinitely delay the MPCC hearings.  A month later, their application is denied by a federal court.
 

April 2009: The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission reports that of 400 Afghan prisoners interviewed, 98.5 percent of them were tortured, 243 of whom were harmed in 2006-2007.
 

April 2009: Mr. Colvin is subpoenaed by the MPCC to testify. This is subpoena was renewed in July after MPCC hearings were delayed by government interventions.

April 28, 2009: Justice Anne Mactavish of the Federal Court of Canada denies the government’s attempt to seek a court order blocking certain evidence from being accessed by the MPCC.
 

July 28, 2009: Federal government lawyers threaten witnesses not to participate in the MPCC hearings.

October 5, 2009: Mr. Colvin states in an affidavit to the MPCC that he repeatedly sounded alarms to his superiors and the military about handing captives over to Afghan control, almost a full year before the government public claimed it had no credible reports of detainee abuse.

October 14, 2009: The MPCC shuts down hearings after federal government blocks witness testimony and fails to produce documents.

October 15, 2009: Minister Mackay denies having seen reports sent to his office in either his capacity as minister of National Defence or previously as minister of Foreign Affairs.

November 18, 2009: Mr. Colvin testifies at the House of Commons Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan.

November 19, 2009: Opposition parties call for a public inquiry into detainee torture. Minister MacKay calls Mr. Colvin’s testimony “hearsay” and Taliban lies.

November 27, 2009: Caving to mounting pressure, Minister MacKay reverses his earlier comments about Mr. Colvin’s testimony, now admitting government knew of concerns early in 2006.  He now maintains that the transfer agreement was not changed only because reports of abuse became public: “The decision to change the transfer arrangement would have been as a result of a lot of sources of information including those from Mr. (David) Mulroney, those from other individuals on the ground, Elyssa Goldberg, those who were involved in the actual PRT, those who went to Afghan prisons to observe the situation… That began almost immediately after we took office… Obviously there were concerns about the state of prisons… There were concerns about allegations. There were concerns about information found in reports… We acted on those concerns over two and a half years ago.”

December 8, 2009:  At the Afghanistan Committee, Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk denied any Canadian involvement in the beating of a detainee by Afghan forces, after allegedly being transferred by Canadian soldiers.
 

December 9, 2009: In a morning press conference, Gen. Natynczyk retracts his testimony to the Afghanistan Committee, claiming that new information has come to light that contradicts his previous statements, as he has learned that Canadian soldiers had transferred a detainee who was subsequently abused by Afghan forces.

December 10, 2009: The House of Commons passes a Liberal motion that forces the Harper government to release unedited documents so that Parliament can examine whether Afghan prisoners handed over by Canadian forces to Afghan authorities were tortured, and what the government knew about this issue.

December 15, 2009: Conservative MPs boycott the Afghanistan Committee, effectively shutting down the hearing.

December 16, 2009: Mr. Colvin sends a 16-page note to supplement his testimony of November 18 before the House committee, and to respond to testimony which followed from various government officials.

December 30, 2009: Prime Minister Harper prorogues Parliament, shutting down the Afghanistan Committee until it can be reconstituted in late March.

January 25, 2010: Lawyers for Mr. Colvin send a letter to the MPCC and Mr. Colvin’s deputy minister at DFAIT inquiring about repayment for legal fees incurred over the previous few months.  Under pressure, two days later DFAIT approves additional funds to repay the remainder of Mr. Colvin’s outstanding legal fees.
 

January 28, 2010: The Vice Chief of Defence Staff (VCDS) begins an official Board of Inquiry investigation into the 14 June 2006 incident involving a Canadian detainee being beaten by Afghan authorities.

March 1, 2010: Board of Inquiry report is to be delivered to the VCDS.