Jay Hill

[Afghanistan, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, fair would be the hon. member not trying to use up all his time so he did not have to face any more questions.

I am sick and tired of the New Democratic Party being all doom and gloom and saying how badly the mission is going. Those members refuse to look at any good news. They refuse to talk about all of the good things that are happening in Afghanistan, all the freedoms that have been given as a result of people dying for them on behalf of the Afghan people. That is the big difference.

I would like every New Democratic member to have a lesson at some point in what exactly peacekeeping is all about. Afghanistan could not possibly be a peacekeeping mission at this particular time because there is no peace to keep. The old peacekeeping situation where a force was placed between two warring nations to keep them apart is not the situation in Afghanistan. My God, do those members not even watch the news from time to time to understand that the Taliban might be the person standing beside them? It is not somebody wearing a different coloured uniform.

[Afghanistan, March 11th, 2008]

Who is always one of us, of course.

I listened with great interest to the member's obviously well-researched and good presentation. It kind of reminded me of an issue that I have been raising and putting to members of the New Democratic Party during this debate over the last couple of days, and that is this whole notion that the NDP seems to be trying to perpetuate among Canadians that somehow we can negotiate with the Taliban and maybe the path to peace, I think the NDP is calling it, will somehow arrive at some sort of a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban.

It strikes me as extremely odd when one looks at the history of this regime. Not only does the Taliban have a distinctly different view from the existing democratically elected government in its view of the separation or, in its case, the lack of separation between mosque and state, but also on the rights of women. Basically, it believes that the rights of women are somewhere beneath that of a cow or a donkey because it believes those animals are more useful than women.

I am not quite sure how it is that a party, which seems to like to present itself as a party that protects the rights of women, would even be able to suggest that power-sharing with a regime that believes in such ideologically backward notions could be possible. I wonder if my colleague would care to comment on that.

[Afghanistan, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and ask a question of my colleague from across the way.

[Afghanistan, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I hardly know where to begin with this particular colleague and her speech.

First, let me state that she said at the outset of her remarks that there was no party in this place that wanted to abandon Afghanistan. Yet, I clearly remember the NDP bringing forward a motion not that long ago to do exactly that, to pull our soldiers out of Afghanistan immediately, with no contingency plan of who would replace them, and who would protect the Afghans from the resurging Taliban. To stand here tonight and suggest that the NDP did not do that and somehow rewrite history is a bit of a stretch of the imagination.

Near the end of her remarks, she said that the NDP refused to abandon Afghanistan, except that is exactly what it advocates doing: to abandon the Afghan people and leave them to their own devices. This naiveté persists with the NDP, that if we all hold our hands and sing Kumbaya, somehow everybody is going to be peaceful and join together in song and the world will be a better place. It is ridiculous.

In order to have a peace process that she spent most of her time talking about, both sides must want peace. That is what we have to start with. If we look at the history of the Taliban, that is not what it wants. It wants to reinstall its evil regime in Afghanistan and use it as a base for worldwide terrorism. That is what it wants and what it was doing before the allies, the UN-sanctioned mission, moved in and pushed them out.

She talks about a path to peace. Both sides must want peace for there to be peace.

She talks about the simplicity of the present mission. I do not think it is simple at all or that anybody believes it is simple. It is a complicated situation.

If NDP members learned nothing else from the six female Afghan members of parliament who were here just last week, if they were listening to their message at all, they would understand that those people have a price on their heads and that if we abandon them, they will be the first--

[Afghanistan, March 10th, 2008]

How about the debate we had when the Liberals were in office.

[Afghanistan, March 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, about the only thing the hon. member said with which I would agree with her is that originally when we went there it was because of our desire to do our part to fight terrorism. That is about all I think I would agree with in her entire statement.

The member did talk about the NDP amendment to the motion. That is what we are currently debating. I want to read a little from it and then ask her a question about it. It goes on at quite some length. I do not want to read the entire amendment ,but it states:

...that, in the opinion of the House, the government should engage in a robust diplomatic process to prepare the groundwork for a political solution--

--whatever that is, and further on it states:

--and ensuring the full respect for international human rights and humanitarian law;

I wonder if the member could explain how we could accomplish that, ensure the full respect for international human rights and humanitarian law, without the troops on the ground there to assist in actually ensuring that. The motion then goes on:

...that, in the opinion of the House, the government should maintain the current suspension on the transfer of Afghan detainees to Afghan authorities until substantial reforms of the prison system are undertaken;

It does not say how long that might take. I would be interested in knowing, since it seems to be the NDP's desire to extend a temporary suspension of holding those detainees to a more permanent role if it is suggesting that we somehow build prisons. I suppose they are not, since we would remove our troops from providing any security and therefore they obviously would not be in a position to take any more detainees or Afghan prisoners, as I would call them.

Then lastly, the motion states:

...that, in the opinion of the House, the government should provide effective and transparent development assistance under civilian direction...

This is something that continues to puzzle me about the naivety of the NDP position. How in God's name do the NDP members figure that we or anyone else, including the Afghans themselves, would be in a position to provide effective and transparent development assistance under civilian direction as long as the Taliban are there to destroy everything and blow people up with their mines and their IEDs? How, if we removed our troops, would we ever get any civilians, foreign or local, domestic civilians, to try to extend development assistance without the troops there to provide some semblance of security?

[Afghanistan, March 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I followed most of my colleague's speech and the problem I had is when he started talking about the fact that it is unfortunate that this particular debate over the last while has become partisan, that people have taken some pretty strong positions and said what I think he called intemperate remarks.

I will tell a story and then culminate with a question and perhaps shed some light on why some of us get fairly emotional about this. I do not believe it is partisan in the party versus party position because I know a lot of Liberal members in particular, even before we started working toward finding a compromise position that both parties could support, at least privately held positions not unlike my own, as did many from the Conservative Party.

I do not think it is partisan in that sense but this is an issue that gets emotional very quickly. When he says that he thinks it is incumbent upon all of us to put a little water in our wine, I do not think that is a proper term to use in connection with this particular debate.

I will use the example that I have used before in the House. When my wife and I were out for dinner with the Afghan ambassador, Omar Samad, and his wife Korshied, the phone rang and yet another tragedy had unfolded in Afghanistan. Two young girls were walking home from school and a motorcycle went by with two gentlemen in robes. The machine gun opened up and killed those two young girls. That is the reason we are there. That exemplifies why our young men and women are putting their lives at risk.

What was the crime? The crime was that two little girls wanted an education. It is pretty simple to understand. That is why some of us get so emotional about defending this mission of why our people are there and why they should continue to be there. The member may want to use the term “partisan” but we get very emotional when some people in this place suggest that we pull out immediately.

[Afghanistan, March 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I know time is short but I want to congratulate my colleague, the caucus chair of the Conservative Party, for his excellent speech this evening. Perhaps many people do not know that his fiancée, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Trade , was instrumental in getting the six Afghan female MPs here last week during International Women's Week.

I know you had the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to be in the chair at the end of question period and introduce them not only to our House, but by television to our country. As the member said, their stories were so moving. It was incredible to be able to talk to them and try not be moved to the extent that it would bring tears to our eyes when they talked about the courage it takes for them just to go to work every day. Sometimes we like to complain in this place about the amount of snow outside and how difficult it is to wade through the snow and the slop to get to work every day, but unless we get hit by a wayward bus, we do not face the type of danger that those parliamentarians do. I admire them so much for their courage.

The member touched on the issue that I have been raising throughout this debate and that is the whole idea the NDP has floated that somehow we can negotiate with the Taliban. In the limited time he has remaining could the member comment on that? Personally I do not see, because of the ideological differences and because it is such an evil regime that would murder people almost for no reason, how we could possibly share power with a regime like that.

[Business of Supply, March 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the words of my colleague who speaks with some authority because he has been there a couple of times.

I have often thought what it would be like if we could take every Canadian over to Afghanistan, as I and many of my colleagues have been there, so they could actually see what is on the ground and see how much of a difference our young men and women are making every day in improving the lives of Afghans and protecting them from tyranny, oppression, torture and murder.

My colleague's comments about the six young, brave Afghan female MPs certainly struck a chord with me. I wonder if he has any other personal human stories that touch people so deeply to share, not only with members of Parliament in the House but, through the wonders of the television camera, with Canadians at large.

[Business of Supply, March 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I know time is very short, so I will keep this short. I posed a question for his colleague, the member for Yukon, and I had hoped to get a response.

There are some in this place and outside of this place who suggest negotiations should be undertaken with the Taliban to eventually lead to power sharing in Afghanistan, recognizing what I would think are irreconcilable differences between the way in which the Taliban regime operated when it was in power and where presumably it would operate again.

I think about the views of the Taliban on the separation of mosque and state and on the lack of rights of women as two primary areas that dramatically differentiate them from the free and democratic government currently in place in Afghanistan. How would it be possible to share power with an organization, a political party, a regime that adheres to those types of ideological extremism? Does my colleague support the idea of negotiating power sharing with a regime like that?