That is a very good question, refer to the international community. We want to be sure to deliver the goods there, and to do that, you are absolutely right, we have to take a coordinated, comprehensive approach.
To start with, there can be no development or economic progress without security. So when you say that we have 2,500 troops there, some of them are working with the people who are responsible for development, with diplomats, to ensure their security and security on the ground. So by working for security overall, some soldiers are specifically assigned. As well, if we look at the Provincial Reconstruction Team, there are people from the armed forces who are there to do development.
You asked whether our mission is properly balanced and whether, as a government, we should be doing more development. Ms. Oda said a moment ago, and she will correct me if I am mistaken: from when the intervention began to 2011, Canada will be investing over $1.2 billion. Those are large sums of money for reconstruction.
As I was saying, we work together, but that is the reality on the ground. We want to have a balanced mission, in which it is not just the Department of National Defence providing the leadership. The evidence of this is that I have here with me Mr. Brodeur, the coordinator of the mission in Afghanistan, who works for the Department of Foreign Affairs. Our department, and all my other colleagues, are making sure that we have a comprehensive and balanced vision of the mission in Afghanistan.
But we have to understand that there can be no development mission if there is no security. Our Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar has personnel from the Canadian Forces, from CIDA and from my department. So that is a very specific example of coordination.