Madam Speaker, let me pick up where the hon. member left off. We all agree that our military is outstanding and did do an outstanding job. There is probably no person in the House who has more experience in Afghanistan than this minister. He did three tours of duty in Afghanistan and saw it up front and personally.
In fact, on Monday night, my hon. friend's colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles said:
As a veteran, I am getting to know the minister, and I also recognize his human qualities and experience. He is a man who wants to do things well. He is a good man. In another time, I would have gone to war with him. He will understand what I mean. However, now we are politicians.
Unfortunately, that is kind of the point. My colleague wishes to make a point that the minister was not making. The only way which I can get the point across is to quote from an article in the Ottawa Citizen. The article asks whether the minister is wary of ripple effects from anti-terrorism policies. The article is in the context of a major foreign policy conference organized by a Canada 2020 think tank. The minister drew heavily on his experience in Afghanistan, saying Canada and its allies had done a poor job grasping the ramifications of their actions in various conflicts.
“Should we be patting ourselves on the back?”, he said. “From a security perspective around the world, I think we can say things have not gotten much better. Things have gotten worse”.
The article went on to say the minister said the government was taking its time deciding the future of Canada's mission because it wanted to understand the “ripple” that will result from its contribution. He said a failure to consider all the implications meant some development efforts in Afghanistan undermined what Canada and its allies were trying to do.
He said, “I want to make sure we get this right. That's why we're making sure we take a bit of time to get this right and create this ripple that's going to lead to some positive outcomes”.
The article stated:
A lack of understanding, or situational awareness, had undermined allied efforts in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. On Afghanistan, in particular, he said early efforts by some countries had helped create corruption, which fuelled the insurgency. A failure to clamp down on the corruption made matters worse. People have left, patted themselves on the back, didn't even realize the great work that they thought they did had actually created a negative ripple.
The minister speaks with a credibility and authority that no one else in the House can speak to.