Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments. Certainly I believe that not one of us would be in this House if we did not have compassion, if we did not believe in human rights, and if we did not believe that we all share a quality of life in Canada that more people in this world should be so privileged to have.
No one has a monopoly, and I do not dispute that, but what I say is that when we are in government we must understand what our principles and values are but we also must assess the reality. The reality is that the circumstances in Afghanistan are circumstances never before faced in this world on the global front. We have a degree of insurgency. We have tactics being used. We have open victimization of civilians, of children, of schoolchildren.
This is why we believe that we have to base our assessment of the situation on reality. We have to assess it through those who are working day after day on the ground, those who can assess the security available for development to happen. More importantly, we have to base it on those who can assess the safety with which children can continue to go to school and women can continue to go to market on their own and continue to take jobs. We have to assess on the ground the safety and security by which supplies will go along roads to build those schools and to take the food aid to those villages that require food aid.
That is why we work together with the Canadian military, our development workers, the international partners, and the UNICEFs, the agencies of the United Nations who are there working with us in Kandahar. They are dependent on the assessment, the protection and the security that our military is providing right now.
As far as the motion is concerned, we have a motion before this House and, as I said, we welcome all debate and all viewpoints. But as I said in my conclusion, I urge all members to vote in favour of the motion before them now.