Mr. Speaker, I will not be supporting this motion before the House.
I was listening to the member for Toronto—Danforth give his opinion on the motion before the House. While the New Democrats may disagree with this mission and how this mission is being executed and they may wish to propose new approaches to the mission in Afghanistan, there is no doubt about what the approach should not be, and that is for the proposed unilateral withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan.
The Canadian military needs to be in Afghanistan because we have national interests to be served there. If we were to withdraw our troops completely from Afghanistan, if the Dutch, the Americans, the British, and all the other multinational forces over there were to completely withdraw from Afghanistan, tomorrow the Karzai government would fall. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan would cease to exist, the government would fall and the Taliban would be back in power tomorrow. That would be the consequence of a unilateral withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan.
Let me remind everyone why we are there. We are there because prior to 2001 the Taliban government acted as a breeding ground for all sorts of radical elements that later launched attacks on targets throughout economies and societies in North America and Europe. That is the reason we are there.
A complete withdrawal is not good foreign policy and not something that we should be supporting in this House.