Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of questions for my colleague.
If we were interested in saving lives and putting the responsibility to protect something as more than a tome and series of words, but breathing life into it, we would be in the Congo. Every month 30,000 people are being slaughtered, gang raped and mutilated. The mass murder of civilians occurs month in and month out, and the government has done nothing.
Perhaps we would be in Zimbabwe wherein living conditions have plummeted. That country now has the lowest lifespan in the world. The average woman lives to a mere 34 years and a man 37 years. What has the Canadian government done? Nothing. It has ignored Zimbabwe completely, while people are dying of preventable causes.
If Canada were interested in terrorism, al-Qaeda has not been in Afghanistan for years. We find the al-Qaeda in the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, North Africa and Algeria.
Why does the member's government not start to make a full court press with other international partners to deal with the underlying issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the support for repressive regimes in the Middle East, and why is the influence of the Taliban increasing, not decreasing?