Mr. Speaker, I wish the parliamentary secretary had listened a little more closely to what I was saying, because I did recognize very clearly in my remarks that we have to train our armed forces to prepare for war. That is a key aspect of their training.
I am a little concerned that my colleague described peacemaking activities as the lowest common denominator of military activities. I find that is quite offensive and I think most Canadians would find that quite offensive.
Many Canadians have died doing the dangerous work of peacekeeping around the world. When Canadians participate in those kinds of missions, they have literally put themselves between warring combatants to hold the peace. There is no more dangerous work than that. Lives of Canadians were lost doing that kind of work. I think it is rather offensive to call that the lowest common denominator of military work. It is not an appropriate comment.
Canada has a proud tradition of military work. There is no armed force in the world that is better at it, that has more expertise in it, than the Canadian armed forces. Most Canadians are proud of our Canadian Forces and their work in peacekeeping over the years. I hope, as I am sure most Canadians hope, that we can resume that kind of role for our armed forces internationally.
There is nothing tougher than putting oneself between people at war, between people who have decided to kill each other to solve problems that may have arisen between them. We should not be dismissive of our peacekeeping missions for one second, even in the heat of a debate on an important issue like the war in Afghanistan.
I do not believe that we are talking about anecdotal evidence. The Manley report is one of the pieces of evidence that I quoted from which indicated how badly the effort in Afghanistan is going. That is hardly anecdotal evidence for the problems of the mission in Afghanistan. Mr. Manley may have reached different conclusions than I have, but certainly the evidence that he and his team have presented is worth considering. The quote I read about how badly the mission has gone, how badly the security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated in the last two years, was directly from the Manley report. I hardly think that is anecdotal evidence.
It is a reason to build a strong case for this being the wrong mission for Canada and the effort is not being successful.