Madam Chair, to answer my colleague directly, it was the Liberal government that dispatched our troops to Afghanistan in the first instance. When we did so, we were perfectly clear about the notion of the three Ds: defence, development and diplomacy.
In the 21st century, we have begun to understand that as we prosecute a war on Afghanistan territory, it is not to be prosecuted in isolation. It is fundamental to ensure that we have institutional strength there and that government officers understand how to run government departments, collect revenues, receive foreign aid and ensure it is coherent between bilateral and multilateral donors. We need to get some semblance of a free market up and off the ground to receive direct investment.
This is not to be taken in isolation. No one is trying to justify a war being prosecuted on Afghan soil by claiming that it is for institutional strengthening by itself. On the contrary, these three are intertwined. They are indispensable, each to the other. It is much more about helping to get that nation state on its feet.
However, I am proudest of all of the fact that while we were in government I worked very hard with our former CIDA minister, who is now a minister in the Ontario cabinet, to ensure that $5.2 million of Canadian support from CIDA was invested in the Afghan judicial system.
I spent many years of my life building capacity in developing countries like Afghanistan to ensure that they could come up to speed in the 21st century with the rest of the world and participate fulsomely and fully in the world. That is the process that we are trying to accomplish here.
I just do not understand, in anticipation of The Hague, where it is we are going, which is why we keep calling for a special envoy to be able to bring those three D approaches to this mission in Afghanistan.