Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlottetown. He always has good points to make and I appreciate him as a colleague in Parliament.
First of all, I want to thank all the parties for the fine balance they have struck in this debate. All members of Parliament strongly support our troops and the work they do, but also the importance of having a public debate without giving our enemies an advantage or disadvantaging our allies. It is the public's right to know, the public's right to see a debate of ideas on something that is very important to them. I congratulate all the parties for dealing with a very difficult debate in a very sensitive manner.
I visited our troops in Afghanistan to make sure they had everything they need. I am very supportive of the excellent work they are doing. Having been there, I can attest to the great support and appreciation that the Afghan people I met have for us and for our efforts there.
In my riding a couple of Yukoners left for Afghanistan recently. I visited their families or wrote to them. They are very proud of their sons, as they should be, although they are worried about their sons being in harm's way. They feel it is something of value to help people, and they are very proud of that.
Having being over there, I am very proud of the aid the allies are providing, schools and other type of aid to very poor people. Canada is offering an instrumental service there and around the world. Canada is well known for doing very important work for people who have less than we have.
Let us imagine for a minute that a family is on a hike on a Sunday in November. It is getting dark. It is cold and some snow flurries start to fall. The family is lost. They find a rundown wood shack with nothing in it, except for a bag of rice or dried beans and not much else. Darkness falls and the family has to spend the night in the shack. They did not tell people when they would be back so no one will be looking for them for quite some time. Think of the awful prospects of that family, the young children and the wife and husband with no heat, no matches and no sustenance. What an awful situation.
Many people in Afghanistan face that type of life, not just for two days, but for their entire lives. It is one of the poorest countries in the world. When it gets cold and it snows, people are scrounging around for some type of heat, a wood fire on the dirt floor, but outside there is no wood. It is either desert or above the treeline. People have to scrounge for the very little fuel there is. Compared to what we have, as we could see when we were there, it really is a horrible life. Many people there are thinking more about survival than about politics.
So, for that family that is lost on their hike, imagine if a couple of men with guns burst open the door of the shack. The kids, the wife and the husband are there and the men threaten them, telling them that the wife cannot leave the shack alone and the kids cannot go to school. Would the family agree? I think they would pretty well promise anything in a situation like that because it is not their biggest concern.
These poor people were overrun by Taliban with submachine guns and other weapons telling them what to do and they were not going to get that politically involved. How could they have any say at all or control? They were subjected to a totalitarian, religious, ideological government dictating over people's rights and freedoms.
That could have gone on for a long time, but the Taliban made a mistake. They attacked the United States, North America and many people in the western world. When they attacked the World Trade Center, it was not simply a United States building. Canadians and representatives from countries around the world died. No one wants to be attacked, so the people of the free world fought back. Perhaps we in the western world should be ashamed that we did not lobby against that regime harder and earlier.
The former bureau chief in Kabul, a journalist and the wife of the Afghan Ambassador to Canada explained that under the Taliban, women were not allowed to work. They were not allowed to attend school or pursue an education. They were not allowed to receive medical care from a male doctor. They basically were non-citizens without rights or representation, which is totally foreign to Canadian values. No wonder NATO and the UN were supportive of this mission.
As many members have said, a lot of things have to come into play to solve the problem. It is not just arms. We have to provide a living for these people and it costs a lot of money. I will get into that later.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi said that the solution is not violence or war. Competing interests will assume that the side with the most arms is the one that will solve the problem. That is not the permanent solution we are looking for.
I have a lot more to say, but I will save it for the next time I speak to the issue.
Regarding rotation, when Canadian geese fly north, the lead position of the flight in the V is very strenuous and taxing, so the members of the flock take turns in the position up front for the common good. They take a battering up front. Canada has taken that position long enough. It is our turn to move back in the flock to recover. That is the theory and the philosophy of NATO, which of course we support. Many members of the House have spoken in favour of that rotation.
Finally, I want to put on the record the questions that we have asked of the government and we are still waiting for answers to finalize the details of what we are looking for.
When exactly will the government notify NATO of the end date in 2011? Why did it change that date from February to July 2011? Why has it chosen 1,000 as the exact number of additional troops? Could we have the analysis behind that? What is the timeframe for meeting the conditions with respect to new troops and equipment? When will we be able to say that the conditions have not been met? On the detainees, what is Canada doing to ensure that we are in compliance with our international obligations?
I hope that with everyone working in cooperation to find a solution that we can finalize the details of the solution for the people of Afghanistan. Teachers who tried to teach girls were murdered. People had no vote and no personal freedoms because they had to follow a religious ideology with which they may not have agreed. People are very poor but they have a marvellous nation and could be free and move forward like other people in the world who have much better lives.