Mr. Speaker, unlike the Alliance members who stand behind our troops when it is politically expedient for them to do so, I have done so day after day after day since becoming defence minister. I have said from the beginning that Afghanistan is a difficult and risky mission, at the same time that the Canadian Alliance members denigrated this as a second tier mission. They have never retracted that insulting suggestion vis-à-vis our troops.
We are proud of our mission. We are getting ready for it and Canadians will be proud of it.