Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to add my voice to this most important debate in my two short years in Parliament.
Our nation has a long and honourable tradition of contributing to international peace and security. It is a heritage that was born in the fields of Flanders, the hedgerows of northwest Europe, and the hills of Korea. It is a heritage of Canadians serving for the greater good.
Canadians take pride in our past role on the world stage and they can take pride in our role in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not a Conservative mission nor a Liberal mission. It is a Canadian mission, and the most important one we have undertaken in over 50 years.
Liberals and Conservatives agree that the mission should wrap up in 2011. Both parties agree that we must focus our efforts on training, reconstruction and development. As the Manley panel report states:
We like to talk about Canada's role in the world. Well, we have a meaningful one in Afghanistan. As our report states, it should not be faint-hearted nor should it be open-ended. Above all, we must not abandon it prematurely.
Like all of our military missions, it is being conducted with allies who share our support of and commitment to liberal democracy and the values that it represents.
Canadians are being asked to form an opinion about the mission, but most are only getting part of the story.
Frankly, what I find hugely annoying is the crowd of critics who automatically interpret any bad news as gospel and start making generalizations about the mission as a whole. When we announce some good news, we are accused of looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses. Anyone who says no progress has been made has not been to Afghanistan, is not listening to the people who have been there or has an axe to grind.
Of course there are major challenges to be met in Afghanistan. That is why we are there, with 38 allies, on a UN-mandated, NATO-led mission, at the express request of the democratically elected government of Afghanistan.
There are a number of things we have to improve, and that is why we made the commitment in question, knowing that it will not be easy, that it will be a short-term commitment and there will be sacrifices to be made.
If we had quit on South Korea, it would be a communist country today instead of one of the strongest economies in the world. Croatia is one of the 39 allies within the International Security Assistance Force. It was not long ago that Croatia was failing and the alliance stepped in to help. Maybe if we get this right, Afghanistan could be part of an alliance helping out someone else in the future.
In 1938 a British member of Parliament, Leo Amery, said of the situation at the time, “The issue has become very simple. Are we to surrender to ruthless brutality a free people whose cause we have espoused, but are now to throw to the wolves to save our own skins; or are we still able to stand up to a bully? It is not Czechoslovakia but our own soul that is at stake”.
I suggest that the basic principle at play is not much different. This mission is about three things.
It is about national interest. It is clearly in Canada's national interest to not let Afghanistan become a breeding ground for terrorism once again. We have seen what happened to our markets and economy after 9/11. We have seen what happened to our ability to move freely across borders and for commerce to move freely. What happens to our allies, such as the United States, has a direct impact on our security, our prosperity and our quality of life.
It is also about values. It is about the values of liberal democracies that we all share--freedom, human rights and rule of law--and which Afghans deserve a taste of.
It is about trust. We have told Afghanistan to trust us.
We will be there to help them until they are able to provide for their own security.
If we leave too early, the people who trusted us and worked with us will not be treated well by the people who replace us.
The next time we ask someone to trust us, they will be quite right to say: “No, thank you. Even if things are difficult for us, at least we know what to expect.”
We cannot let that happen.
I would like to share a few memories of my visits to Afghanistan over the Christmas holidays.
On Christmas Eve 2006, at Mas'um Ghar, I was with General Hillier. We were talking about war and peace, listening to the bombs explode some distance away, and contemplating a blackened landscape.
When I found myself in the same place on Christmas Eve this past year, together with the Minister of National Defence, the landscape had been completely transformed. You would have thought you were on the Canadian Prairies, with the lights of several villages twinkling on the horizon.
After decades of darkness the lights are back on, because after decades of darkness the Canadian forces are equipped to do the job and because Canada is there.
There are many measures of the success we are achieving. I met a little girl about six years old on Christmas Day. She was wearing nail polish. She would have had her fingers cut off by the Taliban for that crime. Today she is allowed to go to one of the 4,000 schools that Canada has helped build and be taught by some of the 9,000 teachers that Canada has helped train. She will be able to grow up and get a job. She may be one of hundreds of thousands of women who start small businesses with micro loans from Canada.
She will be able to leave home wearing what she wants, without being escorted by a male member of her immediate family.
Violation of any of those rules would have resulted in a public hanging under the Taliban.
She might be elected to public office in Afghanistan, where there are more women in that role now than in Canada. She may be one of the 40,000 Afghan babies who no longer die at birth every year in Afghanistan.
None of this progress would have been possible under the Taliban, and we cannot allow the Taliban to take that country backward again.
Who would have thought that there would one day be the equivalent of a Terry Fox run in Kandahar, with thousands of participants dressed in white tee-shirts and pants? And yet it happened last year.
Some people invoke the memory of Lester Pearson as justification for adopting what they see as a blue beret approach to resolution of the situation in Afghanistan. I suggest they go back and reread their history.
Lester Pearson was not Mahatma Gandhi and he was not Pollyanna. Mr. Pearson had a clear understanding of the requirement for a robust military that was properly funded and equipped. He was a key part of a Liberal government that raised defence spending to 7% of GDP. Lester Pearson's government did not stare down our enemies through the power of love and isolationism. It stared them down through a combination of strength and national resolve in cooperation with like-minded allies.
As compelling as the image of the power of the blue beret may be, it is simply dangerously unrealistic to believe that this will strike fear into the hearts of the Taliban and bring stability to Afghanistan.
These same people would say that we should withdraw NATO and bring in the UN. Brilliant. In fact, it was so brilliant that it was done years ago. Who the heck do they think the 39 allies in ISAF are, if not representative of the United Nations?
Let me quote from a recent article in the Globe and Mail written by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon:
Afghanistan is a potent symbol of the costs inherent in abandoning nations to the lawless forces of anarchy. That alone justifies international efforts to help rebuild the country....
Our collective success depends on the continuing presence of the International Security Assistance Force, commanded by NATO and helping local governments in nearly every province to maintain security and carry out reconstruction projects....
The Afghan government has far to go before it regains control of its own destiny. But that day will come. It is hard work. There is little glory. It requires sacrifices. And that is why we are there.
Others say we should simply stop combat operations and concentrate on training and development. I would suggest to them that the purpose of the mission from day one has been to work toward that goal and that is exactly what we have been doing.
Regrettably, there is someone else who gets a vote on how fast we can progress in that area, and that is the Taliban. As General Hillier and John Manley have rightly pointed out, we cannot train the Afghan national army and the Afghan national police force without exposing ourselves to combat.
It is also unrealistic to suggest that we simply move to another part of Afghanistan. The previous Liberal government chose Kandahar, with our support, and it is too late to turn back the clock. In the south alone, we have benefited from close partnerships and cooperation with Great Britain, the United States, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Romania and Estonia.
Together with our allies and partners, we have almost 19,000 troops in the south of Afghanistan and others are joining us. We are in talks with our allies and partners to get more troops on the ground in Kandahar. Across Afghanistan, the international community is pulling together to support the mission.
The Prime Minister established the Manley panel last fall with the express intention of bringing a bipartisan consensus to this important mission. The Manley panel notes:
To make a difference in Afghanistan--to contribute to a more stable and peaceful, better governed and developing Afghanistan--Canadians will require sustained resolve and determined realism about what can be achieved.
“Freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law” cannot be simply fine words. They have to be backed up by strength and resolve. It is up to all of us to work together, remembering our proud history of doing the right thing internationally on Canadian missions under Conservative and Liberal governments for the past 140 years.
We owe it to our allies. We owe it to those who depend on us for help. We owe it to Canadians.
