Mr. Speaker, on April 14 I raised the issue of the 1,000 extra troops that were needed with regard to our mission in Afghanistan.
First of all, I want to salute all our troops in Afghanistan, particularly Captain Mark Davidson of Richmond Hill, whom I met when I was there recently, and I want to say that they are all making a difference for Afghan society.
On April 14 I raised the issue of the 1,000 extra troops. As the House knows, the CDS had indicated at the foreign affairs committee that we needed that and knew that two years ago. The government announced it only after the Manley report in January of this year. Obviously we are concerned about transparency and accountability in terms of the government not coming forward and being honest with Canadians.
On March 13 of this year, with the support of my party, the House passed a motion on the continuation of the mission. However, the mission would change. It would not simply be military. It also would be about the training of the Afghan national police and the Afghan national army.
My question has been answered in part by the fact that I know about the additional troops now. I know about the French and the Americans. What we do not know about are the helicopters and the medium lift. I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence about that. What is the current status, besides the Polish lending a few helicopters? Where are we on that?
I also want to know from the government when it is going to announce that our mission in Kandahar will end in 2011. That is what I want to know from the government. When is it going to notify NATO that our mission in fact will end in 2011?
Again, the track record of the government has not been particularly good in notifying NATO, as we know. This is important. We know that the emphasis now needs to be on development and diplomacy, particularly in the FATA region of Pakistan.
The parliamentary secretary and I were in Afghanistan a few weeks ago, as I mentioned, and we saw the provincial reconstruction teams. We saw that things are happening. However, in terms of an Afghan solution, ultimately this is an Afghan situation. We need to train the police and the army in order for them to take the brunt of their own security. We certainly expressed that to President Karzai at the time and to the defence minister.
I am asking the parliamentary secretary to give us an update, essentially on the helicopter situation, on the medium lift and the drones, and also to indicate when the government is going to notify NATO that we will be leaving Kandahar. That notification was part of the resolution of March 13.
Again, our troops are doing an outstanding job, but it is a NATO mission. We have a lot of caveats. We have the Bulgarians who basically can only man the watchtowers. They cannot fight. We have the Germans, who do not go out at night.
Canadians are taking the brunt of this fighting, along with the British and the Americans. We need to put more diplomatic pressure on not only Afghanistan's neighbours, but also on our NATO allies, to ensure that they are in fact stepping up to the plate. Without that, we are going to continue to see the unfortunate loss of life that we have seen.
Every Canadian is affected by the death of another Canadian who is on the front line over there doing his or her best, not only for Afghanistan, but indeed for this country.
The issue is not about the troops. It is about when the government is going to notify NATO and where we are on the medium lift, which all of us in the House agree is badly needed. Our troops are the best equipped on the ground and certainly I discovered that in April 2006 when I was there. I know the parliamentary secretary would agree.
That was really the thrust of this question back in April. Obviously we want to have those benchmarks. Certainly the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan will be looking at those benchmarks as well.