Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for his hard work in this very important international commitment that Canada has brought forward. He brings home a very important point.
He is talking about development. The truth is for construction and development to occur, we need defence. We have heard calls from some factions that Canada should withdraw all its military troops from Afghanistan. This would be a tragedy.
I personally have had Afghans in my own community of Oshawa come forward and say to me, “God bless you. Please stay. Please continue your good job in Afghanistan”. They know the difference that we are making there.
To make that difference, our community workers and the community workers that we are training, that we are putting out there for the Afghan people, need to be protected.
I thank the parliamentary secretary for that very important question so I could make that distinction.