Mr. Speaker, I know I do not have much time so I will tell one short anecdote. I was there at Christmas 2006. On Christmas Eve, looking out from a place called Masum Ghar across the countryside, I was smoking a cigar and having a coffee with the chief of the defence staff. It was a dark night. Bombs were going off in the distance. It was not a very pretty picture.
I was at exactly the same spot this past Christmas with the Minister of National Defence, having a cigar and a cup of coffee, looking out over exactly the same landscape. It looked like a scene from the Canadian Prairies with villages in the distance with the lights on. The villagers were there and the lights were on. They were there the year before, but the lights just were not on. The lights are on and people are home because Canadians are there. The Afghans know that. I think more Canadians should understand that too.