Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Liberal member opposite about his opinions on how as a NATO coalition, a UN sanctioned mission in Afghanistan, we can deal with the challenges in Kandahar province, along some of the border area with Pakistan and with some of the other provinces in southern Afghanistan that border the state of Pakistan.
As the member might know, the Durand line was a line that Sir Mortimer Durand, in the late nineteenth century, set on a map to demarcate the line between Afghanistan and British India, which now has become the Pakistani-Afghani border. This line was an effort on the part of the governments of the day to try to impose nation-state constructs on what then was essentially a tribal area and is at present a tribal area.
What ideas or solutions does the member opposite suggest that could be implemented to ensure that the nation-state constructs of Afghanistan and Pakistan have sovereignty over this area? Does he believe that we can arrive at that end or does he believe that we cannot? In other words, does he believe that it may not be possible for the nation-states of Pakistan and Afghanistan to effect their sovereignty over what is essentially the Pashtun tribal area?