Mr. Minister, not to belabour the point, but the fact is that you knew at that time that the Taliban were going to be more resurgent than before. You didn't put that before the House. Whether or not I knew isn't the issue. The issue is whether Canadians knew. Maybe the people in cabinet knew. Did Canadians know? The Minister of Defence, before you went across the country making speeches as to the issues we might face in Afghanistan...but no information came from you.
Let me just move on to the next question, which is with respect to the Taliban. In fact, we find out, of course, from the public statements that General Hillier recently made, that he has spoken openly of the Afghan government's ongoing negotiations with the Taliban, Taliban leadership included. Recently when you were asked about this, sir, you admitted that you didn't know about the state of negotiations and implied that you didn't need to know because--and I'm quoting your own words here--about the Afghans you said, “It is their insurgency.”
Mr. O'Connor, as a former general, you know how deeply we're invested in Afghanistan. The fact that you would say you did not know it was their insurgency--and in fact, General Hillier was much more open in terms of sharing the information that the Afghans are talking to the Taliban leadership, most of whom are moderates according to General Hillier--disturbs me, because you are the steward of this mission, along with the Prime Minister.
We want to know several things. How thorough and how extensive are the negotiations that the Afghan government is conducting with the Taliban? Who are they conducting negotiations with? Are they conducting negotiations with the same people who were trying to kill yesterday or might try to kill tomorrow?
The other more important question is that the definition of Taliban is evolving. We don't know how many Taliban fighters we're facing in Kandahar or in the country at large. I would like to know how you would define Taliban in today's world in Afghanistan, and how many Taliban fighters are we facing with our 2,000 troops.