Mr. Speaker, there was a very important period in our Parliament just at the time we were looking at extending our mission in Afghanistan. I do not know this, and history eventually will disclose this, but there was a period of a couple of weeks when our government was seized with what the next steps would be after Afghanistan. It was at the time we were being asked by the UN to supply officers for a UN peacekeeping mission. They were pleading. When I was in the Congo, they were asking me this personally. They wanted our professionalism, because obviously our history as peacekeepers is well known, to help with the peacekeeping mission in the Congo, the largest peacekeeping mission we had at the time, and which continues. They asked us more than three times over a couple of years. It was right around the time we were looking at whether to extend our mission in Afghanistan. It was at a time when we could have deployed some of our professional men and women, but not thousands.
I wish we had. It would have been helpful because of the professionalism we carry. We speak the language, French. We also have the authority, the history, and the integrity in peacekeeping. That is what was lacking and still is lacking. We could have done that. We could have implemented some of the ideas I had on conflict minerals. We still can do that. We still need to invigorate our action plan on peace and security. These are all things that can and should be done.