Mr. Speaker, in reply to the question from the member of the opposition, I must tell members that progress is being made. As we heard today, and as I spoke about, the people of Afghanistan are seeing an actual difference.
I will quote from what was reported just this weekend. Women in Afghanistan were celebrating International Women's Day and, as they said, every year “is better than last year and the year before last year”. As was said, “Every day the women's life becomes a little better”.
We are making progress. We are seeing more children going to school and more infants surviving their birth and living to beyond five years of age.
We know that progress is being made and we also know that this month there will be 2,000 additional American troops to support our Canadian efforts in Afghanistan, and we have been talking about offers of assistance from various countries, not only with the Minister of National Defence but our Minister of Foreign Affairs and myself as well. We have countries coming forward and helping with Canada's efforts in Afghanistan.
As far as the schools are concerned, let me tell members that we have hundreds of schools being built and millions of children going to school. We have children who want to come to school but are not able to because we need to ensure that they are safe and secure.