Thank you for your question.
I would point out that we are in Afghanistan in response to a United Nations resolution and at the request of a democratically elected government, the Afghan government. There is neither a Canadian invasion nor an invasion by the international community in Afghanistan. That is why we all signed an agreement, a compact, in January 2006. We are therefore in Afghanistan at the request of the properly elected government.
With regard to the advisory group of experts appointed by the Prime Minister, that is an independent group. As you know, the chair of the group is John Manley, who cannot be considered to be a Conservative. We do hope that the work of the group and the debate that will follow in Parliament will be high calibre and that it will be as non-partisan as possible, because the mission is one of great importance.
Earlier, you were talking about the options available to the task force. Our government has been very clear and very transparent. The four options are quite simple. First, there is continuing to train Afghan police and soldiers so that Canada can start to withdraw its troops. That is an option we are considering. We are going to wait for the task force's recommendations at the end of January, and the debate will be held. As you know, we have a minority government, and we will have to listen to the opposition. We have listened on a number of bills. We will therefore be listening to members of Parliament to reach a consensus on the situation.
There is a second option, which is to focus our efforts on reconstruction and ask another country to take over in the Kandahar region.
We have also asked the task force to examine another option, focusing efforts on reconstruction and security, but in a region of the country other than Kandahar.
The last option is to withdraw all Canadian forces with the exception of a small force to provide protection for humanitarian workers and diplomats.
We have a group of experts available to us who were recently in Afghanistan. They met with people and they are holding consultations with various interested groups. They are very independent and they are managing their own agenda. We expect to receive a report within the time allowed, by the end of January.
You have been on this committee for a fairly long time; you have useful experience. I am therefore also eager to hear you, when the report is tabled in the House, on the future options available to Canada.