I was very impressed when the present Prime Minister came into power in early 2006 and went to Afghanistan, as really his first trip abroad, and spoke very strongly about why Canada was there, why it was in our national interest to be there. That was a speech by a Canadian political leader that I had been waiting for for a long time.
Unfortunately, the issue began to be rather divisive in Canada as the war went on, and there was a substantial lack of that kind of speech from the Prime Minister and from government ministers as the war went on. Public support went down. There was a lack of explanation from our politicians as to why we were there.
I have always believed that if the Prime Minister had made that 2006 speech again, in 2007 and 2008 and 2009 and 2010, then the public support would have held up for that commitment in Afghanistan.
It requires leadership. We need our politicians to tell the truth to the Canadian people about why we do the things we do. Sometimes truth is hard. Sometimes it's probably enough simply to say that we must do our share of the dirty jobs, but you need to explain to Canadians. I think there's a well of idealism in the Canadian people. They want to believe that we do good in the world, but sometimes doing good is difficult and it requires real explanations from our political leaders.
I think it's absolutely critical, and I can understand the minority government situation and all the difficulties involved, but it's absolutely critical that we have leaders who will speak the truth to the people. That's a requirement of the job, it seems to me.