I have to start at the national level first. What we see on TV everyday is because, of course, our national press are oriented to us and what we do, and it's important to them, and Canadians want to know what we're doing. But you have to understand what's happening in the whole of Afghanistan. I may have the number wrong, and maybe the chief or the DM can correct me, but I think there are about 34 provinces in Afghanistan. Of those 34 provinces, the insurgency is a great challenge in maybe six or seven. In the remaining provinces you have, in Afghan terms, relative stability. That's why you don't hear of many incidents in the north or the west of Afghanistan. Even in parts of the east of Afghanistan you don't hear of regular incidents. Once in a while you'll hear about a suicide bomber in Kabul, etc., but in the rest of the country, except for about six or seven provinces, you have relative stability.
The challenge right now is primarily in the south, and the two most challenging provinces are Kandahar and Helmand, where the British are, and to varying degrees, the provinces that surround them into the east. That's where the focus of NATO and the NATO commander is right now in trying to suppress the insurgency in those provinces. In the provinces where it's relatively quiet, the various NATO nations and the government and even NGOs get on doing what they have to do to improve the quality of life for people.
In the provinces in the south and in our province, Kandahar, we have a great challenge. We are trying to suppress the insurgency and, at the same time, trying to make people's lives better.
Also, even if you look at development in the province of Kandahar, we're not alone there, as I mentioned earlier in one of my answers. The United States aid program has many projects operating in the Kandahar province; the Afghanistan government has projects going on; and we—the Canadian government in various forms--have projects going on there. But in some of the areas they're greatly challenged.
Recently, as you all know, tragically, we lost six soldiers trying to build a four-kilometre road because the Taliban don't want us to build this road. It will connect one community with another community, and they'll be into the main highways and will have a better life. In our area particularly, and the British area in Helmand, development is very, very difficult.
But even that being said, we are progressing and developing. We are building roads and we've built schools. I've named a number of things we've done so far. We are about to launch a relatively large number of projects over the next few months in the Kandahar area because we're bringing in another company. One of the Van Doos companies will be coming into the Kandahar area by the end of November. It is going to be dedicated to protecting the PRT. Right now, because there's so much insurgency going on, a lot of the protection for the PRT has to go from time to time to deal with the insurgency.
When the Van Doos company gets there and goes into Kandahar and protects the PRT, they will be dedicated to protecting the PRT, and that will allow the battle group and the tank squadron that is streaming in at the same time to deal with the insurgency. This means that we will have more ability to protect our development. We'll be able to do more. Not only is it a matter of money and will, but we will actually have more protection to carry on development.