First, I would like to thank you for your presentation which I found extremely interesting. I would also like to start by stating the position of my political party, the Bloc Québécois.
We are in favour of military intervention in Afghanistan, but we think that if it is not combined with reconstruction and humanitarian aid efforts, General Richards is right when he says that the war cannot be won in military terms only.
I am not opposed to the fact that there are armed forces there—in fact quite the opposite is true. The issue of security is omnipresent in Afghanistan. In fact, I and some of my colleagues have just returned from Afghanistan—you must have seen that in the newspapers this week—and we spent most of our time confined to the camp there. We only left it once or twice to see the military aspect of our work there only.
Let us consider for a moment all of the armed forces present in Afghanistan at this time: there are 2,500 soldiers, six people involved in Foreign Affairs and six others working with CIDA. We would like to see a balanced mission. Clearly, without that, we are going to miss the boat in Afghanistan. If the Afghans cannot see an improvement in their quality of life, we think that we will lose this war. That is why we are stressing that the mandate of our mission in Afghanistan must be rebalanced.
I would also like you to talk about the jirgas, as distinct from the Parliament. Mr. Karzaï is often given the nickname of the mayor of Kabul, because he is having a great deal of difficulty imposing his authority outside of Kabul. My personal impression is that the further away one gets from Kabul, the more the authority of Parliament is weakened, and the further one goes south, for example, where the Canadians are located at the moment, the more the jirgas play a significant role. Unfortunately, when I see photos of the jirgas, I do not see any women sitting with the group of Afghan elders. So I would like to hear your views on that.
Moreover, I think it is wrong to say that women are making tremendous progress. We often hear that there are 68 women in the Afghan Parliament and 186 men. We might be inclined to say that that is excellent, because women account for more than 25 per cent of the members of Parliament. However, how much real authority does Parliament have over the country as a whole? That is the fundamental question. Even if there were 100 or 150 women in Parliament... My impression is that Parliament's authority does not extend beyond Kabul. I would like to hear your opinion on this.
I share Ms. Amiri's views regarding the ideological aspect of the Taliban, but we should also remember that in the last World War, the Nazi regime was viewed somewhat as the Taliban is today—it was an ideological regime that wanted to invade and control. And yet, at certain times there were some openings, some channels of communication that made it possible to see how far they had gone.
I can assure you of one thing at the outset: from what I saw in Afghanistan, the Canadian armed forces will not agree to opening the door to the Taliban to let them come back to Kabul with the oppressive regime of the past that was so opposed to women, and so on. I do not think they will go that far, but I do think that it is important to open a door, and I think President Karzaï has done just that. I would like you to tell me how you react to the fact that President Karzaï opened the door to the Taliban.
Finally, I would like you to talk about Ms. Safia Siddiqi, who is the Minister responsible for the Status of Women. I read this morning that she will be arriving in Canada. What is this woman doing to promote the status of women in Afghanistan? She is working within the Afghan Parliament, but I am wondering whether my reservations regarding the Afghan Parliament should apply to her as well? Is she unable to garner any respect for her authority outside Kabul, as is the case with President Karzaï?