Across the board, from a trooper to the Chief of the Defence Staff, anybody who has been to Afghanistan has seen the impact we have on the ground. They understand the importance. If we don't solve Afghanistan today, it is something that could potentially come back to our shores as it did in 9/11.
To a man, the members of foreign affairs, CIDA, the RCMP, and the Correctional Service of Canada who come to work with us each and every day as part of that whole of government team see the impact we're having. We see it from the locals and we see it from the members in the Afghan ministry. Officers on our strategic advisory team in Kabul who work to help build capacity in those ministries return to Canada; they come back, and we put them on our plans staff so that we can take those hard things they've learned there and turn it around. They see it in spades. We are very positive about what we're doing because we see the results.
I have visited Afghanistan seven times in the last 18 months. In my last job I was the executive officer to the Chief of the Defence Staff. Over a period of time we'd make a visit every six weeks to two months; I would go in and I could see the tangible differences. If you're there every day, sometimes it may appear to be slow; when you go back periodically, you can see those changes. The amount of progress you see on the ground is incredible.
On my first visit to the Zhari-Panjwai, 18 months ago there was nothing. The villages were empty.There were no lights on. Today there are 30,000 or 40,000 people there. The markets are going. The electricity's there. The highway's paved. The commerce is going. Farmers are back in their vineyards. All the fields are being irrigated. We're just seeing a complete resurgence of the population.
Those displaced people who have moved back in represent the kind of progress our soldiers see, and they in turn are encouraged by their efforts and they know the impact they're having.