Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you also to my colleague for her question.
Your last question pertained to the future mission in Afghanistan. Of course, plans are to hand control of the country back to the Afghan government and to the people. However, the transfer cannot be carried out right now, because of the conflicts raging on the ground, particularly in the southern region of the country. Building capacity and achieving democracy and development is a considerable task for Canada and for the other mission participants.
All of the work that's being done by the 37 countries involved in the NATO mission and the 60 other countries that are doing development work there has not achieved the necessary results.
In the London compact they go through a number of very important signposts that will tell us when that exit can occur, and quite frankly, I would suggest to you that in just five years, the results that have been achieved already are extraordinary when one compares to where Afghanistan was just a few short years ago: five million more kids in school; micro credit available to women; women voting, participating in democracy. How's this for a country making progress?
Women make up 27% of their elected parliamentarians. That's more than in Canada. And they're having great efforts towards infrastructure building--roads, highways, schools, hospitals--that will allow their economy to start that slow recovery.
One of the big issues that remains to be dealt with, as you know, is the poppy and heroin problem. We haven't been able to eradicate or completely deal with that issue just yet. So I would suggest it would be nothing short of negligent for us to pull back at this critical time.
We just spoke about fragile states or failed states. You can't leave before the work is done. You can't leave until the security will sustain all of the important development and governance and infrastructure building that is under way in that country.
It's difficult for me to speak about CIDA's priorities. I believe the Minister of International Cooperation, Ms. Josée Verner, will be appearing shortly before the committee. I think it would be best if she answered that question.
As far as China is concerned, clearly there are human rights priorities in China that Canada can make a contribution to. I met with the Chinese foreign minister in New York last week, and we raised a number of issues, including our concern for a Canadian citizen, Mr. Celil, who is in jail in China. We have concerns about their justice system. We have concerns about the way in which their democracy functions, if we can call it that.
As far as the investment of actual resources in Canada to that end is concerned, that is something we're re-examining. But I would suggest there is still a contribution that Canada can make on that front.
I'll leave it at that, Mr. Chair.