Mr. Chair, I appreciate the parliamentary secretary's contribution tonight.
When we look at the case of Afghanistan, clearly the problems did not begin just in 2001. The problems were around before that. He mentioned the health concerns and the contributions of the world in the past to deal with some of those issues, like polio, where a lot of progress has been made. In fact, progress has been made in areas under Taliban control.
I want to refer to the UN reports about the success in fighting polio in the past. The 1999 report underlines various things such as the concerns for human rights, conflict, what should be done about opium and the progress of women. On the progress of fighting polio, 3.5 million children of the age of five and under have been treated, and that is good. We have made progress in these areas and we continue to do that.
I am underlining this because these attempts have been made before. The result in the end was not stability. The result was that we still had a problem in the country. When I refer to the 1999 report, all the progress that had been made was been lost because the world community did not stay engaged to ensure stability.
Therefore, notwithstanding our lauding of our projects, at the end of the day, and he intimated this at the end of his comments, it matters not that Canada can do good work right now. More important, it matters that the work remains. To do that, does the my colleague not believe that Canada should go to the next step and provide that diplomatic muscle to ensure stability?
When it goes to The Hague on Tuesday, what will Canada do to ensure that the good work done to date, the good work done in the past and the work contemplated for the future will remain so we will not find ourselves 10 years from now talking about trying to rebuild and help the people of Afghanistan yet again?