Mr. Speaker, originally when we went there, we saw the tour of duty being about a year. It was very clear at the time. The Chief of Defence Staff, who was just being appointed, assured us that before we agreed to the mission that we would have the capacity to do other missions around the world as well, such as Darfur.
All members in the House are getting calls from members of their constituencies saying that we need to take a leadership role in Darfur. Obviously we cannot because we are stuck in Afghanistan, which is not a very satisfactory situation.
The fact is the Kandahar region is the hottest spot in Afghanistan. That is why the government now is agreeing to get extra help from other countries going there. We are not going to stay in the highest casualty spot forever. It takes away from our ability to do the kind of reconstruction and the kind of diplomacy we want to do. It also takes away from our capacity to do other missions.