Madam Chair, I listened with interest to the reasoning of my hon. colleague in his intervention. We are both on the Afghanistan committee and, as such, we quite often interface with each other's ideas on how to get this mission moving forward. Today, Mr. Mulroney gave a review of Canada's commitment in the past, what is happening now and where we are going.
The member alluded to the fact that the Bloc wanted an international conference. It is happening in the Hague. Whether the Bloc called for it is not the issue. The issue is that the American government and our NATO allies called for it.
The member alluded to two points that I need to address. He talked about the German commitment up north and our commitment in the south and how the German commitment up north was peaceful while down south there was mild insurgency.
If we look at the situation geographically, the insurgency was led by the Taliban and the Taliban's home is in the south. The Taliban in the south are working from across the border in Pakistan. The Taliban are not working in the north because they do not have sanctuaries to cross the border into the northern state. Henceforth, it is natural that the northern state would not face the same kind of insurgency attacks, et cetera. Therefore, to compare the two regions and say that our forces in the south are not doing enough is quite misleading.
The second point he made was on how we win hearts. We have said that development is the key element and, as he knows, we are putting a lot of money into development. I hope, through his intervention, that he will recognize the achievements Canada has made in development.