Mr. Speaker, in my two visits to Afghanistan, which were a year apart, I saw significant progress. I talked to literally hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, some of whom had been there more than once. As I said in my comments, anybody who suggests that there has been no progress has not been there, has not listened to those who have, or has another agenda.
In fact, we have made tremendous progress in training the Afghan national army. We visited with some of the army when we were there with the Minister of National Defence this past Christmas. I think we have six kandaks in training right now. Some of them are online. More and more, they are taking the lead in missions. They are doing the planning, with Canadian assistance and supervision, but the Afghan national army is taking the lead on those missions more and more.
That is what this is about. It is about giving them back their own country, which they can manage themselves with the training and capacity that we have instilled in them. We are doing a great job of that.
A lot more needs to be done. There is no question about that. There are a lot of challenges, but we are getting the job done, thanks to the brave Canadian men and women.