Mr. Speaker, of course it is no secret. The Minister of National Defence acknowledged that combat in this House on Friday.
The idea that the government has been clear, which is what the member said just now, is exactly what the Prime Minister said in 2010. In January and June, he said that the government could not have been more clear that the military mission would end and all of our soldiers would be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2011.
That is the kind of language that the Conservatives use when they try to assure Canadians that they are being perfectly clear. Every time the Prime Minister or the government says that they are being clear, we need to watch out, because sometime down the road we will find out that the exact opposite might happen.
That is the point of this question. We were given assurances as far back as 2003 that the primary objective of our mission in Afghanistan was to provide training and that it was expected that the Afghan national army would take over all operations in 2005. Here we are in 2011, and the government wants us there until 2014.