Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague with whom I sit on the defence committee.
Korea and World War II were quite different conflicts from what is going on in Afghanistan. The similarity between all three is the fact that people were having their freedoms and their human rights taken away from them. Canada, along with allies from around the world, stepped in to end the tyranny of the Nazis in World War II. We stepped in to end the occupation of South Korea by the communist North Koreans. We are working together with 39 allies in Afghanistan to do the same thing.
Obviously the conflicts were and are all relatively different in size but the principle remains the same: it is to free people. It is people with the capacity and responsibility to stand up to tyranny and oppression to get together and to free a people who deserve to be free.
If we had not done what we did in World War II, who knows where we would be today. If we had not done what we did in Korea, South Korea would be a communist country instead of one of the most prosperous economies in the world.
There are similarities and differences between all three missions but it comes down to one simple thing: free people with the capacity to act and the national will to do the right thing in cooperation with like-minded allies who value freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Canada will always do that because it is the right thing to do.