Thank you.
As we close the meeting, let me just say that it's a great disadvantage being a chair, because you can't participate, but one privilege that the chair does have, in closing, is to add his few comments.
Perhaps I may just ask a brief question. Mr. Maloney, you said, and I'll quote you, that Canadians want success and want it now. I beg to differ with you in these types of situations. I think Canadians are a realistic people, first of all, and quite intelligent. When they go into a theatre like this, or a mission like this, or a conflict like this, they want to deal with facts, and not innuendoes. Maybe the media sometimes doesn't put the proper picture out.
As far as I can recall, I don't think there was ever a mission or a conflict, or any type of military theatre, where a nation, or NATO, or whoever undertook the mission has said, we're going in on such a date and we're coming out on such a date. If somebody can tell me that there was one.... Even though 300 Spartans went in to fight, they didn't know when it was going to start and when it was going to finish. These are the conflicts that are unfolding, I believe, today.
What is puzzling here is this. You refer to three engagements that the Canadian military has engaged in. You used Cyprus, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. Cyprus was a very different mission completely--if you disagree, please let me know. Bosnia, again, was a very different mission in comparison to Afghanistan. Today we're looking at a mission where NATO has an obligation. When we were going into these missions in years past and now under the NATO banner, there was always a plan; it wasn't a plan that unfolded overnight or in a week.
So the question I have is this. We committed our men and women to the Afghanistan mission. We knew, because we were in Brussels with this committee some time ago and spoke to our representatives there.... When the Canadian government committed to this mission, surely NATO had a plan following two years. Please elaborate if you can, because I'd like to know. In our previous missions, we had an obligation under NATO to go in for, let's say, a year or two, or whatever, and then the other NATO members were to come in and fill that slot. Is that not the case here, or has the NATO mandate changed?