Mr. Speaker, the naïveté of the leader of the NDP never ceases to amaze.
Let us be clear. Aid workers cannot operate in places like Kandahar province in the face of suicide bombs and the attacks of the Taliban, who seek to burn down schools where girls are being educated and who are quite willing to kill aid workers, without establishing security first. That is what our soldiers are there to do.
They are there to establish the necessary conditions of security precisely so that we can proceed with civil reconstruction and with the aid work that we are there to do. That is why this government has increased our total commitment in aid to Afghanistan to a billion dollars.