Mr. Speaker, let me say how pleased I am to have this opportunity to discuss this Liberal motion. It gives us an opportunity to talk about some concrete facts, not the way they have been distorted over the past several months or year and even today.
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Sydney—Victoria.
Of the five points in the motion brought forward by the member for Bourassa, the defence critic, there are two points I will focus on. I wish to read them both, so that members and Canadians from coast to coast to coast can appreciate what I am about to say. The first is:
(1) whereas all Members of this House, whatever their disagreements may be about the mission in Afghanistan, support the courageous men and women of the Canadian Forces;
The other is:
(3) whereas it is incumbent upon Canada to provide adequate notice to the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of our intentions beyond that date;
On the first point, there is no question that each and every member in this honourable chamber and each and every Canadian support our military, not only our men and women who serve in missions abroad, for example in Afghanistan or other missions that they are engaged in today, but the men and women who do very important work here in Canada as well.
When a member from whichever party asks a question, whether it be in committee or in this honourable House or outside, that any member would have the audacity to take the position that the member asking the question does not support our military is shameful and uncalled for. I would go as far as to say it is unpatriotic. We are asking them to make sure that in whatever is being undertaken, whether it is procurement of equipment, whether it is upholding our three D policy of defence, development and diplomacy, we are indeed doing the right thing.
I sit on the defence committee. The committee invites various representatives to brief us on an ongoing basis to keep us up to date on what is happening, to make sure that the policy the government has laid out is being carried out.
I would say to each and every member that even during question period when questions are asked, and I have heard it from my constituents and from Canadians in general, it is not wise to put up what have been described as Bush tactics. President Bush got away with it for six or seven years by using those tactics, but thank God the American people finally woke up and realized that that was not going to play out any more.
Nevertheless, on the second point in terms of our NATO commitment to Afghanistan, today the leader of the Liberal Party put it in perspective when he talked about clarity, and who better to talk about clarity than the person who brought clarity to this country and peace and harmony through his legislation. Today what he is asking and what I am asking and what I think the member for Bourassa is asking for is clarity.
It has been frustrating to ask questions over and over again of the new Conservative government, the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence. The rebuttals have been so ambiguous that we are being asked by our constituents to get a straight answer.
For example, recently the Minister of National Defence was on Question Period on television. When he was asked a question, he talked about 2010. The military experts who have come before our committee know better than we do, and they have said repeatedly that this is not a four, five, seven or 10 year mission. This mission is going to be anywhere between 20 years to 25 years. Nobody is questioning that.
Let me go back to May 2006. Today Canadians are asking what the compelling reason was to bring forward and debate for six hours a motion to extend the mission for an additional two years when the mission as we will recall had just commenced. We were two months into that mission. It is the same as someone who buys a car, drives it for a month, and before it is even broken in, says that he is going to trade it in because it is no good when he has not even put 500 kilometres on it yet.
The mission started. We had not even arrived there. We had not even set up yet and all of a sudden for no apparent reason, and we have not been told the reason to this very day, there was a proposal in the House to extend the mission for an additional two years. Fine, but I have a problem with that.
The minister and the committee went to Slovenia to the NATO meeting. The minister went there and literally begged the NATO partners and all the allies to lift the so-called caveats. This is what is most upsetting because we committed our men and women to an extension to 2009 without setting the terms of engagement before that commitment. It was a bad deal. Had we known then what the terms of engagement were, who knows, maybe we would have committed our men and women for the additional two years, but there were no terms.
After we made the commitment, all of a sudden we discovered there were these so-called caveats where other nations that are involved cannot move their troops. They say that the Canadians can take care of the hot spots, no problem. When we ask them for support they say, “There are these caveats. We cannot really go down. We cannot really participate”.
Earlier today the parliamentary secretary referred to conflicts in the past. The Conservative whip talked about the second world war and how we all engaged in the second world war. My father did as well. Many members' fathers and mothers participated in those major conflicts, but they engaged in those conflicts together. It was one collective effort. They did not stand up and say, “I am going to go fight over here”, or “I am going to stay over there”. That was not the strategy then. This is very upsetting to me.
On the other hand, the Prime Minister today in question period referred to it in answer to a question. He said that the people of Afghanistan want us to be there. Of course they want us to be there. In Cyprus they want us to be there. In Bosnia-Herzegovina they want us to be there. In Kosovo they want us to be there. In Darfur they want us to be there. They want Canadians to be in every trouble spot because we have an excellent reputation. But we cannot be everywhere. They also want the international community to do its fair share.
The Prime Minister said in answer to another question, “NATO is not asking us for a decision today”. That is a very good answer. NATO did not ask for a decision in May 2006. The big question Canadians have is who put that initiative forward. We are ordering equipment today for our military, tanks and helicopters for example, that are not to be delivered until 2009-10. Canadians are asking for clarity.
On the development side people have come before our committee. Today people talked about young men and women going to school. When I hear that it pleases me very much. We also heard President Karzai in an interview with Peter Mansbridge on television during his visit say in his own words that this year 200,000 fewer students are attending school. That is not coming from any politician. That is coming right from President Karzai.
Development is not really where it should be. We must shut down that poppy growing area. We also found out in committee that President Karzai has apparently been negotiating with the Taliban. The Conservative Party says, “We are not going to deal with these terrorists. We are not going to deal with the Taliban”. President Karzai is dealing with them at the cost of Canadian blood, and I do not accept that. We have to get that straight.
The Taliban has new equipment, ground to air missiles, we have been told in committee. Where is the Taliban finding the funds to buy this equipment? I believe that if we cut the head, the body will fall. We have to cut off the Taliban's ability to secure funds because it is through these funds that they are buying the equipment that is killing our men and women. We have to concentrate on that.