Mr. Speaker, I by welcoming the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot to this august chamber. I hope she has as much satisfaction in serving her constituency as I have had in my first 20 months in the House.
As time goes by, she will notice there are many opinions floating around this chamber and, as she knows, opinions are, at the very heart, subjective. They are our own feelings about different issues. However, from time to time, all of us make statements that allege certain facts. She made one of those, and I think she may be incorrect and I want to challenge her on that.
She had suggested that in Canada's role in Afghanistan, in trying to rebuild and reconstruct a fledgling democracy in Afghanistan, somehow Canada had failed to turn the Afghan people into allies of ours.
In fact, a recent poll last week indicated that a huge majority of the Afghan people were not only very aware of the role Canada plays in Afghanistan, but in fact support Canada's role there and want our armed forces to remain engaged in providing security and protection to the people of Afghanistan.
In light of that poll, which was done by a very prestigious Canadian polling organization, could she explain how she then would allege that the Afghan people were not allies of Canada? From my view, it is very clear—