Mr. Speaker, first I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Beaches—East York.
I am very happy to participate fully in this debate and salute the hundreds of thousands of TV viewers who are watching us.
Last Saturday on Télé-Québec, there was a very interesting film called Osama made by Siddiq Barmak back in 2003. It won some amazing awards. The story unfolded at a time when the Taliban were taking over Afghanistan and showed what that meant for women and the people living there.
The Liberal Party of Canada has always said that it supported the mission in Afghanistan, despite the indiscriminate outbursts from the hon. member for Saint-Jean. We had concerns, of course, that we expressed to the government regarding their interpretation and the lack of transparency and consistency. There were major problems here.
However, in view of the fact we were going to start taking another look at Afghanistan’s future in 2009, we said that we fully supported the Afghanistan compact signed at the London conference in 2006.
Now we have three basic principles. We are quite happy to say that people should not be playing partisan politics here on the backs of the troops and the people of Afghanistan. It is clearly time to do politics differently. It is also clear that we need to look at the mission differently.
Our leader—the leader of the official opposition—the party for which I am the critic and all the members of our caucus are totally in agreement that there should be three basic principles. The first is that the mission must change. It is no use telling us “Everything is fine—no problems here”, when there are realities out there in the field: this is not a conventional war and there are insurgents. If we want to win the hearts of the Afghan people, it cannot be done with military might. The conflict cannot be resolved militarily. I want to talk about security a bit later.
We have to rely much more, therefore, on reconstruction and development. It is very clear that everything needs to be re-balanced. Pursuant to the questions I asked of my colleague from Crowfoot in particular, we certainly want to ensure we have a much better balanced strategy, and that is the 3 D strategy of defence, diplomacy and development.
The mission has to change. If we want to accompany the Afghan people, we will have to provide them the tools with which to work. We believe, and I have said this clearly, we have to stop our counter-insurgency war. Because we need to change, we believe we should have a rotation.
This morning I asked the specific question of the Minister of National Defence. What is rotation? In my book, and in a lot of people's book, rotation means to replace. Rotation means to come and support and do something other than what we have been doing. The Minister of National Defence said that rotation meant reinforcement. This is the situation. The government will have to clarify what it clearly means by rotation.
We believe the mission has to change. We believe we should put an end to the actual mission, and it has nothing to do with business as usual. We believe we should refocus under security. Of course we have been there, and we initiated that mission. We said clearly that we believe in PRTs, the provincial reconstruction teams. We believe we need a military presence. I have always said that. However, we have to put an end to the way we define combat. We need to finalize that offensive strategy and find some other countries to replace us.
I had the privilege to travel to Afghanistan. Some members from the other side tried to stonewall me, but I decided to go anyway. I did not have any Jos. Louis, but I was there. It was very important. I think the credibility is to be there and watch. Napoleon used to say that we have the policies of our geography. When we take a look at what goes on in the field, we understand. We understand we cannot win in the conventional way and we have to refocus on development.
We believe in the military presence. We believe that under chapter 7, which is what the Security Council resolution is all about, we need to have the capacity to protect civilians. We do not want to relive another Rwanda. Clearly, we want to make sure that our troops will be there to protect themselves and protect the civilians.
It is very important to clarify the rotation issue. Unfortunately, we have lost a year. I tabled the motion myself on behalf of my party to go and meet with NATO and find out what has to be done to ensure this rotation, but they do not do it. Unfortunately, we have the feeling again today that something is being done at the last minute.
The government has unfortunately painted too rosy a picture. There is a big problem with opium. Just in the Helmand region, right beside the zone where the Canadian troops are located, opium production has increased by 179%. In 2001-02, when we threw out the Taliban who had been in power, opium production had been reduced to 200 tonnes. In 2007, the forecasts are for 8,100 tonnes of opium, which is about 96% or 97% of world production. That is great cause for concern.
The mission must end. It is not a Canadian, German or American mission. It is a NATO mission. As my colleagues who have military experience, and even those who have only seen how it works in the world, have said: it is normal that there should be rotations in an international mission. To achieve that, we must ensure that NATO can fully assume its leadership role. It is not only up to Canada or some other country to do that. To speak frankly, NATO must assume that leadership and ensure that everyone has the same military operation.
Canadians and Quebeckers are asking questions about the way this mission is being carried out, and with good reason. They do not understand how out of 37 participating countries, only 6 or 7 are in a combat mission. Some 30 countries have what are called “national caveats”, parliamentary or constitutional restrictions or what their troops can do. It is essential that we should be able to ensure that all of the countries are in the same situation. When the mission began, there were 102 parliamentary or constitutional restrictions covering 36 countries. Our former chief of staff, General Ray Hénault, who is now the chairman of the NATO military committee, has said the number has been reduced to 52. If we want to ensure proper operation and a rotation, it is absolutely necessary that those restrictions come to an end.
I am almost inclined to humbly dedicate my remarks to an Afghan journalist, named Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh. He is a 23-year old journalist who is currently condemned to death in Afghanistan. His crime was to promote equality of men and women. It will be essential—and it is our role as Canadians—to send a clear message that this sentence is completely unacceptable. Moreover, if we want to play our full role in the community of nations, we cannot say that everything is just fine. We cannot say there is governance by a duly elected government and everything is going well when we see this type of situation. I believe many others among us feel the same way I do.
No one in this House is against our troops. Our soldiers are doing an exceptional job. I have met them myself. Today, we want to ensure that Canada can play its full role in concert with other nations. To ensure that we make progress, this motion must be adopted. This motion signals clearly that the mission will change—that is the message I am sending to Canadians and to Quebeckers—the mission will end and it will proceed beyond military means. We want to bring security; but we want to completely change this mission by putting much more emphasis on development and reconstruction, and, accordingly, on training Afghan security forces. Certainly, we cannot resolve this situation without diplomatic efforts.
