House of Commons Hansard #108 of the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was hours.

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7:20 p.m.

Liberal

Bryon Wilfert Liberal Richmond Hill, ON

Mr. Speaker, I heard the parliamentary secretary address a couple of the issues. The one issue he has not addressed to notify NATO that by July of 2011, Canada will begin to leave the Kandahar region, that there will be a redeployment and that what will happen is the Afghans will in fact, by the end of 2011, take control in terms of their own security. It is very important that the House and the Canadian public know now that this notification to NATO will take place and that it will be formally submitted.

We have the NATO meetings coming up in Brussels next Thursday and Friday. It will be an opportunity for the Minister of Defence to do so at that time. That again is consistent with the resolution.

There is no question the Afghans are getting better in terms of the kind of training that is going on, but they have a long way to go, given 30 years of being ravaged by war, in terms of the types of techniques, et cetera, that are needed.

However, again, the fundamental question now is to deal with the notification.

7:20 p.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague knows well that a lot of things are going on at NATO. As he said, we were in Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago. Our position was put very clearly in the resolution before the House, and we support that resolution. We support the Manley report.

What was really encouraging, a couple of weeks ago in Afghanistan, was seeing the whole of government approach actually mature to the point where the Canadian Forces could be spending more time now doing more of the development, governance, mentoring and so on. That has been going on since day one of the mission.

People have the impression that everything changed as of the last resolution, that everything changed as of the Manley report. That is just not true. That kind of work has been going on from the start. It has been the Canadian Forces primarily leading it, but it has also been development, reconstruction and governance. The whole of government approach is starting to take much better effect and we are getting more support from the civilian side of the operation. That will only continue and accelerate the progress.

I do not know where we will be in 2011 with respect to the Afghanistan National Security Forces, but they are our exit plan, to get them up and running.

7:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted.

Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7:25 p.m.)