Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be able to participate in this debate on our mission in Afghanistan, and to speak about the men, women and families of the Canadian Forces that I am so proud of.
I would like to start by reminding everyone that this government committed to remaining in Afghanistan until February 2009. We have not made any commitments beyond that. However, announcing a definite withdrawal date for our troops today would hurt the mission and the work we are doing to rebuild the country.
We brought a motion forward to the House of Commons to extend the current Afghan mission to February 2009. The government has been clear that if it were to seek a further extension it would come to Parliament to do that, and that remains our position.
When the time comes to make a decision, the government will consider many factors. We will do just that, but this motion today from the opposition is in fact a reckless motion that encourages our foes and could lead to more intensive action against our troops.
I would like to pick up on a few of the things that I have heard today. The leader of the official opposition said that this motion is about the good of Afghanistan and the good of Canada's troops. In fact, this motion puts exactly that good in jeopardy.
What this motion in fact would do is empower the Taliban and tell the people of Afghanistan that we will not be there for them in their most basic need: physical security.
We heard a member of the NDP quote Winston Churchill saying that it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war, and I do not disagree. Churchill said many other insightful things. He also said that an appeaser is one who feeds an alligator hoping that it will eat him last. The Taliban is an alligator.
Winston Churchill was also the leader who had the courage and determination to take on the alligator of Naziism, without time limit, until the mission was accomplished. What he certainly did not do was invite the enemy into the cabinet war rooms or telegraph allied strategy and timelines.
My colleague, the Chief Government Whip, was criticized for reminding the House about some of that history. The Liberals countered with talk about caveats. There are no caveats to evil. There is simply evil.
There is only one way to deal with evil. That way is not the Pollyannaish approach to foreign policy and defence espoused by the NDP, which suggests that the Taliban may not really be evil at heart and we just do not understand them. That is right up there with the utterly idiotic soft power approach to foreign policy engaged in by former Liberal minister of foreign affairs Lloyd Axworthy.
It was that misguided ideology of soft power that resulted in the decade of darkness and decimation that the Canadian Forces underwent at the hands of the party opposite. This government is turning that situation around for the benefit of the people of Canada, the people of Afghanistan, our allies, and the brave men and women of the Canadian Forces.
I do not doubt the sincerity of all members of the House. What I do question is their grasp of some of the realities of military and foreign affairs.
We have talked about many things today that are indeed important, such as reconstruction, development and so on. However, the essence of this motion is about the defence portion of this mission.
I know there are members of the House who are well read on the subject of warfare through authors such as Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz. I am pretty sure the hon. member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore is one of them. There are many quotes by the member that show he is well read in that area and that he cannot possibly support this motion in his heart.
One of the things that we do not do in warfare is telegraph our intentions to the enemy. No matter what the opposition wants to believe, that does empower the enemy and it does put our men and women at greater risk.
Clearly, there is planning happening. We have heard various dates tossed around. Planning is a constant in any military organization. In any government organization, planning is a constant. Any organization that fails to plan is in fact planning to fail.
The NDP also talked about meaningful peace building, reconstruction and development and suggested that somehow this is not what is happening. That is what is happening.
It is slower than we would like and it is painful, but it is happening, bearing in mind that we are in one of the toughest areas in the entire country, which has 34 provinces, in 28 of which, relatively speaking, we have peace, security, development and so on.
Canada has drawn the tough job of doing that in Kandahar. We do that job because, frankly, our people are the best and our equipment is the best. Development is happening and it is happening only because of the defence component of the mission that Canada is contributing to so strongly.
Let me remind hon. members that everything that every member of the Canadian Forces does every single day is about peace. Members can call it what they want, but the ultimate aim of everything they do is peace.
Like the Chief Government Whip, I was also privileged to spend Christmas outside the wire in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan. One of the most meaningful experiences of my life was sitting up on Christmas Eve with Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier at a place called Ma'sum Ghar, out where the Taliban roam, smoking a cigar and talking about war and peace and people in politics.
There is no question that General Hillier and everybody there would rather have been at home with their families at Christmas. There is no question that everybody knew why they were there. They knew it was important and they were getting on with the job.
We spent about 30 hours outside the wire, travelling the roads in convoy in LAV IIIs and Nyalas. We saw markets open. We saw children playing. We saw women going about their business. Markets are not like the Byward Market here, but for those Afghanis, that was a sense of normalcy. It was a bit of real life. It was only happening because our people were there.
I spent a lot of time at the garrison in Edmonton. I spent a lot of time meeting flights coming back with wounded or just with people rotating back from the mission in Afghanistan. I have talked to families. I have talked to families who have lost people over there. They get it. They understand why the military part of the mission is so essential.
People talk about the emphasis on military versus reconstruction and so on, and they use simplistic numbers, saying there are 1,200 members of the battle group and only 350 members or whatever in the PRT. It is not as simple as a one for one for one split. There are jobs to be done and the jobs are getting done, but none of those jobs will get done without the basic defence and basic security part of the mission. We are making progress.
Canada also has a responsibility. At the United Nations, the former Liberal prime minister talked about the responsibility to protect and we agree with that. Countries like Canada do have a responsibility to protect other nations and other peoples that cannot protect themselves. They have a responsibility to join with other nations, as we have done in the 37 nation alliance that is in Afghanistan right now.
I will just point out to members that one of those 37 nations is in fact Croatia. It was not that long ago that we were helping Croatia out of a difficult situation. Maybe if we get this right, along with our allies, just maybe in five years or 10 years Afghanistan will be a member of an alliance that is helping another country to keep from becoming a failed state.
No one can guarantee success in any mission. No one can guarantee that any mission is going to be done by any date. We did not do that in 1914 or 1939 or in 1950 in Korea. We joined together with other peace-loving countries, other western liberal democracies, to get a job done for the benefit of people in another country who could not get the job done for themselves.
Canada has always taken on these responsibilities and I am proud of that as a Canadian. That does not mean it is easy. Doing the right thing is never easy, but it is still the right thing to do.
Our personnel are playing an important role in Afghanistan. They are helping to ensure that the country becomes secure so that reconstruction and economic development can take place. The government is committed to remaining in southern Afghanistan until February 2009. We have not made any commitments beyond that date and it is premature to do so.
As I have said, there are any number of plans out there on any number of shelves. It does not mean that the plans are going to be carried out, but we do have to plan.
I believe that to announce a departure date for our troops today would be detrimental to the mission. It would be detrimental to the welfare of our Canadian Forces men and women. It would certainly be detrimental to the benefit of the Afghan people we are trying to help.
Alex Morrison, president of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, put it strongly when he said that “placing a definite withdrawal date would place the lives of our soldiers in danger”. At the appropriate time the government will decide whether to renew our military contribution to the multinational mission, whether to change it or whether to withdraw altogether, but it will come back to the House.
That is the essence of the motion: we cannot empower the enemy by saying that as of this date we are just going to close up shop from a very difficult mission and turn it over.
We are not going to do that. Canada will not abandon its responsibilities to Canadians and to people in countries around the world who are counting on us to live up to our responsibility to protect.
This motion puts Canadians and Afghans at risk and should be defeated.