Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for this very interesting and essential question.
Over the past few years, when speaking about the Egyptian revolution or Tunisia or Libya for instance, we have all too often made the mistake of saying that, once the toothpaste is out of the tube, everything is resolved and we do not have to concern ourselves with it anymore. Unfortunately, Canada has been completely absent in the post-revolutionary and post-war periods in these countries, and we see that the situation is not so straightforward.
It is also urgent that we have a plan for going forward. How are we going to help Syria set up stable, democratic and equitable institutions that respect human rights in every way? If we want the country to attain stability and peace, this is the most crucial thing. Weapons, airplanes and the like are one thing, but genuine security is built on democracy and human rights. This is the only way to guarantee security over the long term.
We were active in a number of countries, such as Libya. We could have stopped earlier, but we agreed on the first stage, at least. Now, we are no longer there to help the country rebuild, even though we have experience, in terms of federalism for instance, that could be very useful to a number of these countries. Unfortunately, the government downloaded its responsibilities and took away some of the extraordinary tools that Canada had, such as Rights and Democracy, an organization that could do this work in the field, and now Canada is playing an ever-diminishing role in this regard.