Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his question.
I believe I mentioned that. When the minister rereads my speech tomorrow, he will see that I recognize that there has to be security. Security will be provided by the military. Our soldiers will not take off all their gear and go to work on reconstruction projects as civilians. I believe that everyone recognizes that if we are in Afghanistan, we are going to have to provide security. This is very clear to me, and the minister knows that better than anyone.
It is extremely important that we abide by this motion and provide assistance for development and better governance. I mentioned various points. We must help the Afghan people rebuild and get their country back. I do not mean that they do not have a country. They have been there for centuries. It is very important that we help them, but it is the Afghan people who will make the decisions, with NGOs and various countries that provide assistance. They must decide how they are going to rebuild with our help.
It is very important for us that the minister and his colleagues report to us and tell us, for example, how the money is being spent. I have heard a lot of criticism this week. People have asked: how many roads are there? How many schools are there? It is the government's duty to provide figures. It can keep sensitive defence matters to itself, but there are things we should know about and the public should know about, for example: we are making progress here; this is what we are doing there; this is how far we have come. And we need the whole truth. In my opinion, it is essential to tell people these things as a way of earning their trust.
This morning when I was reading the newspaper, I was dumbfounded to see that two days before the vote, suddenly they were talking about the budget. Who provided them with the documents? Who made sure this was disclosed to undermine, yet again, our vote, our motion and our participation? There are extraordinary things that happen at opportune moments when it comes to information.
To come back to the minister's question, we have to make sure that people are protected if we want them to make progress. That goes without saying. We also have to remember in the future when there are similar conflicts—and we hope there will not be—that we will have this same mentality, this same desire to help and that we have to stay the course and not get involved simply for various ideological reasons.