Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure this evening to tell you that my constituency includes CFB Longue-Pointe. Longue-Pointe is Canada's largest supply depot. Except for ammunition, everything that goes from here to Afghanistan goes through my riding, including bolts and, unfortunately, coffins.
Of course we support the soldiers. However, when I met with these soldiers and other employees at the base, I told them that my way of protecting them was to ensure that their mission and objectives were justified, and their equipment and training adequate.
I am told that a soldier must be a diplomat in the morning, a humanitarian aid worker at noon and Rambo in the afternoon, throwing open the doors and firing away. Something is wrong with this picture, and I told the troops so. I think that being a soldier is already tough enough without taking on all three roles at once. Nevertheless, I will ask General Hillier to convince me they should.
We intend to protect soldiers by ensuring that their mission has been properly assessed and that we can evaluate it according to its true goals and outcomes.
There is one subject that never comes up. We talk about security in Afghanistan, but we never talk about its neighbour, Pakistan. The mission to Kandahar is especially dangerous because it is near the border with Pakistan, home to various tribes that have quietly been supporting the Taliban and the Mujahedeen for decades. I think we should talk about this. We cannot resolve security issues in Afghanistan if we do not do something about aid for the Taliban and other combatants coming out of Pakistan. And that—