Mr. Speaker, I too listened very carefully to the comments of my colleague from Saint-Jean. We sit on the defence committee together and often have very pertinent questions to ask the witnesses who appear at committee.
In fact, it was my colleague from Saint-Jean who presented a motion to the standing committee that we have the monthly briefings from the Department of National Defence on the mission in Afghanistan. I share with him the frustration, although he has expressed it much more colourfully in committee than I have, with the lack of information that we receive.
Often what we get is information that can be picked up on the DND website. I think members of Parliament deserve more thoughtful and informative presentations than we receive on an issue so important as this war in Afghanistan.
My specific question for the member for Saint-Jean deals with the increased number of American forces that will now be reinforcing the Canadian contingent in Kandahar province. I have raised concerns at committee about the 13,000 American troops that operate outside the ISAF mandate, the 13,000 Americans who are operating in Afghanistan and more specifically in southern Afghanistan through Operation Enduring Freedom.
I would like to hear from the member for Saint-Jean his opinion of those two missions that operate concurrently, although not together, and whether he shares my concerns about the situation in Kandahar escalating when there will be probably more aerial bombings and more loss of civilian live. How does that feed into the growing insurgency in southern Afghanistan?