Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, Minister, I want to thank you for being here.
I had the opportunity to go to Afghanistan last week, at the invitation of NATO. It wasn't the first time, during my NATO visits, that I learned information that, rightly or wrongly, is not necessarily disclosed by the Canadian government. I'd like to raise two questions which, I think, are new in the debate. Before going to Afghanistan and receiving the briefings I had, I was not aware of these two problems.
First, I met General Richards, who is currently in charge of the NATO forces for the north and east. This summer, he'll be in charge of the south, that is of the provinces of Kandahar and Hellman. Canadian soldiers' current mission in Kandahar province is undeniably a tough one, because hunting the Taliban is a major challenge. Perhaps it's not for no reason that we've lost so many people. We know there's very violent fighting there. During General Richards' briefing, I learned that, when NATO takes control of the south, the idea will be to change Canadian soldiers' mission so that they do a little less Taliban hunting and get involved instead in an operation to conquer the hearts and minds of the inhabitants. That would be quite a major change, I think, and I imagine that, when it takes control of the south, NATO will ask the Canadians what they think of it and tell them that it thinks they're too focused on hunting the Taliban and that they now have to focus on conquering hearts and minds, which means being much more present in the communities, working on building schools, health services, infrastructure and so on.
I'd like to know whether any negotiations are underway to make a fairly significant change to the present mission of Canadian Forces in Kandahar.