Mr. Chair, our view on this side of the House is that the concept of time for these groups should be that their time is over. That should be our message from all sides of the House, and certainly from all capitals.
However, let us clarify the question of what kind of mission this is. We have had some confusion about peacekeeping missions and combat missions. There are roughly 80,000 troops on UN peacekeeping missions at the moment. There are, what colleagues in the NDP neglect to mention, over a hundred thousand troops still in NATO missions. Canada has about a thousand in the most important of those missions. Does the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood agree that this mission is neither of those?
It is certainly not a NATO mission and given its mandate, it is certainly not a UN peacekeeping mission. It is a pseudo sui generis combat mission led by Africans but with strong French participation, because France has troops based in Africa. That formula has worked so far, and so long as it continues to work, we in Canada should not be questioning it.