Foreign Affairs committee  That is just as important in Canada as it is in Afghanistan.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity. One of the things we concluded as a panel, and which I think we have seen in response to this report, is that the Canadian public is hungry for answers and discussion or debate, and even when we disagree, to at least have intelligent, info

Foreign Affairs committee  I think there are implications. And we saw, as other countries debated whether they would stay or go, that it doesn't help for those who are fighting for democracy and freedom on the ground. It does make it a little difficult. We can't solve all of the world's problems, but we

Foreign Affairs committee  That's one of the things we discovered, with our mentality of what we think is important and we want to impose--we want to make sure there are women's rights and we want to make sure there's a judicial system. And they would look back at us and say, “That's great, but first we ne

Foreign Affairs committee  I have a couple of points. You can't separate the equipment from the mission. It is our intention and it was our fervent belief, I think, on the part of the panel members that it is our responsibility as a country to look after our troops and those we ask to make this kind of s

Foreign Affairs committee  Right, but they are very much involved with development.

Foreign Affairs committee  What we said also in the report was that we'd like to see NATO much better coordinated, and then the delivery of all of the things we're talking about would, I think, come faster and be a little bit more efficient.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, it would be absolutely fair to say that we did not meet anybody who thought it would be in any way acceptable to see a return of the Taliban regime. We drove past a stadium in Kabul where hundreds of women had been lined up and shot, merely because they were women. This is s

Foreign Affairs committee  Some of the people who said that mostly eloquently were our soldiers, our troops. People phoned me at home before we even left on our trip--soldiers who had done one, two, or even three tours voluntarily because they believed in the mission--that is, the larger mission of improvi

Foreign Affairs committee  And nobody is more motivated than the Afghans themselves. We heard this from a huge variety of political people--governors, leaders, and tribal council members. They believe they are and will soon be capable of taking the lead, and they want that role. Many of them apologized t

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't think you can just put dates on those things. I was trying to impart that they are motivated to make this happen as quickly as possible, but they are dependent on us, and we are dependent on our NATO partners and allies. That's why we have asked our NATO partners to step

Foreign Affairs committee  I just want to emphasize that point, because we heard from Afghans themselves that while we are spending huge sums of money on the aid and development front, many people weren't aware of it. It wasn't visible to them. While they have generous feelings towards Canadians and believ