Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Lévis—Bellechasse is forgiven. He is a fine fellow and I cannot hold a little mistake like that against him.
His question is valid, but we have another two years before us. The military operation will not end tomorrow morning. We will see what happens in 2009. For now, we support this motion because we have often tried to persuade the government that it is going in the wrong direction, that there has been an escalation of military activity and that everyone agrees that is not what we should be doing. Despite that, the signal that the government has been sending is that they are plowing ahead.
We have therefore decided that it is time to act. We are telling the public that it will end in February 2009 and we will withdraw from combat operations. That is what the motion says. It does not say that we will stop development and reconstruction. It does not say that we can not go elsewhere in Afghanistan. The motion before us leaves open many options, but in our view, it means an end to a strictly military approach.
I do not believe that this will have an effect on the Taliban because other avenues are proposed, such as international conferences or the presence of a senior UN representative. We want to resolve the problem in the most peaceful way possible instead of relying on a military solution.