Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Davenport.
This motion occurs in a context and that context was, in some measure, set by the Manley report. I know John Manley and regard him as a friend. I know the other members of the committee less well but I have nothing but the highest respect for each member on that panel and nothing but the highest respect for the work they did. Their report, in some respects, set the context for the original government motion, then the fuller reply motion set forward by the Liberal Party, and the ultimate adoption by this House of what primarily was the Liberal Party response crafted, in part, by the member for Toronto Centre.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, most of the focus of the debate, both here and in the media, had to do with additional soldiers, helicopters and things of that nature. Much less debate was focused on increasing Canada's contribution to reconstruction and redevelopment and much less on systematically addressing the effectiveness of Canada's contribution toward setting benchmarks for success. Many government members have taken this opportunity to say that there have been a number of successes and, in some measure, they are correct.
The final recommendation in the Manley report was that there be more frank and frequent reporting on events in Afghanistan. If this mission is to enjoy knowledgeable support by the people of Canada, and that support now going forward to 2011, and if Canadians are to be effectively informed, this recommendation needs to be taken very seriously.
Regrettably, in the initial drafting of the government's motion, the last three recommendations were only given lip service or ignored altogether. It took the Liberal Party, with some effort, to redraft the motion in an acceptable form and to bring forward this more frank and frequent reporting of events in Afghanistan by recommending a special committee.
One might ask why we need a special committee. As some government members have already said, we have the foreign affairs committee and the defence committee, and we have already had 30-odd hours of debate in the House, et cetera. They have given the illusion that the government's motion was adequate.
One of the recommendations of the Manley panel, which was subsequently adopted by the Liberal Party and the government, was that there needed to be a special committee of this House. The special committee would be simply that. It would be a special committee to continuously monitor our mission in Afghanistan. It would be set up for that purpose and that purpose only. Unlike all of the other committees that have been mentioned and that have other agenda items on their daily order papers, this committee would be a special committee on the Afghanistan mission.
It was rather regrettable that the government did not pick that up in its initial drafting of its motion. However, thank goodness, with the assistance of the Liberal Party, the House has now recommended that there be a special committee to deal with the issue of Afghanistan and Afghanistan alone and that it has regular meetings with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of International Cooperation and other special persons as are necessary from time to time.
The special committee would bring a regular focus on Afghanistan and it would give members of Parliament the opportunity to ask, in a committee atmosphere, significant and important questions, questions that Canadians want answered.
We set up this special committee, not for the government, not for the opposition and not for various partisan politics, but for the benefit and information of Canadians. If the committee is able to achieve that, then we will all have much better and more informed support for the mission as it goes forward into the year 2011. However, for better or for worse, we are in Afghanistan in a military fashion until 2011. Hopefully, we will have the ministers come on a regular basis before the committee.
The other part of the motion deals with authorizing travel. It is pretty easy to be opinionated here when we are half a world away from the conflict. Certainly there are those of us who think we can run a war from this side of the world but I think it is extremely important for members travel, to see the lay of the land and to inform themselves as to what should or should not be done.
The other part of the recommendation is that the committee make frequent recommendations with respect to the conduct and the progress of our efforts in Afghanistan. Again, if we want support for this mission, this is the way to go. We visit the place and develop a level of expertise. We need consistent membership on the parliamentary committee and the committee should spend a significant amount of time informing itself by hearing from the ministers and other special persons. It needs to develop a body of expertise that will help with respect to the support of the mission.
The motion goes on to say:
And it is the opinion of this House that the special Parliamentary Committee on Afghanistan should review the use of operational and national security exceptions....
I think it was Churchill who once famously said that truth is the first casualty of war. It may well have been someone else, but there is a large element of wisdom in that observation. This is the information age. This is an age where people expect to be informed. People expect to have information literally at their fingertips, something in Wikipedia, on Google or wherever, where they can make themselves informed and have informed opinions.
Gone are the days when government thinks it can control the information flow. Hopefully this parliamentary committee, in some small measure, will be able to inform Canadians to generate factual based information so that Canadians can inform themselves on the success and sometimes the failures of this mission. We want to see that kind of thing happening in the year 2008.
I respectfully submit that as we go forward we will actually not know what technologies will be available in 2009, 2010 and 2011 with respect to how Canadians receive information and how they form their opinions, but we can reasonably assume that Canadians will want more information rather than less information. I think this special committee will help with respect to providing information.
It is somewhat ironic that a government, which ran on transparency and accountability, needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the year 2008 to form a special parliamentary committee that it has already agreed to by its support for its own motion.
As I say, it is somewhat ironic that an opposition party, the official opposition party, has to use up one of its opposition days to get the government of the day to support this motion.
Thank you for your time, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to any questions from my colleagues.