Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good evening, Ambassador. Thank you, Your Excellency, for being here today.
You have appeared before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development a number of times, and I am happy to have an opportunity to hear you speak at greater length about the situation in Afghanistan.
I am going to raise something that is not often discussed. In the reports that we have received, very little is said about the Afghan people. They are discussed in general terms. This afternoon I went to see an exhibit of photographs and a presentation of documents sponsored by Oxfam, which has a pilot project in a number of regions, obviously outside Kandahar. The exhibit deals directly with poverty. When we say that we want to provide women and children with an opportunity to go to school, I think we are referring to the Afghan people. What I found interesting in the Oxfam presentation was that this organization takes into account the capacity of these groups to find a way out of their situation. They are provided with the means, and the organization works along with them to assess their situation and help them to find their own way out of it.
We don't often hear about this in the areas that are of concern to us. Beyond the general and generous programs to build schools, etc., what can you tell us about the Afghan people and the poorest among them? Are they given any type of special consideration? In my opinion, security is one thing, but if we don't help the people to acquire new skills and develop the ones that they already have, there will always be this gap between the ones who are at the top and who see things in a general way and the rest of the population who are trying to eke out a living.
And speaking of security, the Canadian mission has been criticized for putting security ahead of humanitarian programs to help the Afghan people. What do you have to say about that? In your opinion, how has international aid helped the Afghan government and the poorest among the Afghan people?