Mr. Speaker, it is very clear from the parliamentary secretary's answer that the government was only kidding when it talked about February 2009. It intends to bring this House to a vote for beyond February 2009. It has no interest in getting other NATO members to do the heavy lifting.
This is not a Canadian mission. This is a NATO mission. We alone cannot be doing the heavy lifting along with the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands. It is clear that the government believes that somehow we are totally responsible for what is going on in Afghanistan rather than saying we are overstretched as it is and that we need to bring in the rotation. It has been done before.
Again, we are looking at other options in Afghanistan. It is ludicrous, in fact completely unfathomable for me and the Liberal Party to accept the notion that somehow the Conservatives agreed to February 2009, which is what they brought in, and the House supported the motion, and in the end they now say that we need to be there longer--