Honoured Veterans,
Members of the Canadian Forces,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is truly a privilege to be here today.
I've spent a lot of time in Trenton during my Air Force career,
although I was never stationed here.
I see a few familiar faces here who will keep me honest - at least
as honest as a fighter pilot ever is.
First, I want to thank Rick Norlock for the invitation to join you
today.
As a fellow rookie MP, I have appreciation for being able to work
with Rick in many areas, including on the Standing Committee on Public
Safety and National Security.
Rick is a very strong advocate for issues of security, justice and
national defence; as well as representing the specific issues of
Northumberland Quinte West.
And we also get along because we're both married to Judy's who are
nurses and who are both smarter than either one of us.
Privileged to spend past two Christmases in Afghanistan with the
troops and, for me, nothing is better than being outside the wire
with the men and women - military and civilian - who are doing such
a great job and making us so proud.
Run though some slides quickly to set the stage for some remarks
about why we're there, the progress and the challenges.
SLIDES
Canada has a very proud history in which our military has played
a pivotal role, but Canada's military has been through some tough
times over the past several decades.
Many of us in this room have lived through more than one decade
of darkness, but the light has started to shine again.
It will take a couple of decades to recover from several decades
of neglect, but we are doing our best to set in motion something
that will be hard to stop.
All three services have seen major equipment programs started -
whether it's Leopard tanks, M777 howitzers, Arctic Offshore Patrol
Ships, Joint Support Ships, C-17 Globemasters, C-130J Hercules or
Chinook helicopters.
Some of those are here and many more are coming.
Canadian history and, specifically military history, continues to
be made and, once again, we need to do a better job of educating
Canadians.
Our mission in Afghanistan is clearly the most important thing that
Canada is doing in the world today.
Like all of our military missions, Afghanistan is being conducted
with allies who share our support of and commitment to liberal democracy.
Canadians are being asked to form an opinion about the mission,
but most are only getting part of the story.
Frankly, what annoys the heck out of me is that a great many critics
take the approach that any bad news report is automatically the gospel
truth and is generalized to apply to the entire mission.
Any good news report is automatically deemed to have been through
rose coloured glasses.
Anyone who says that there has been no progress has either not been
there; is not paying attention to those who have; or they have another
agenda.
To be sure, there are serious challenges and that is exactly why
we are there with 38 allies under a mandate from the United Nations,
under the leadership of NATO, and at the specific request of the
democratically elected Government of Afghanistan.
There are many things that we need to improve and that is why we
have made the commitment that we have, with the understanding that
it will not be easy and it will not be short-term and it will not
be without sacrifice.
If we had quit on South Korea, they'd 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 wasn't so long ago that Croatia was failing and an alliance stepped
in to help.
Maybe if we get this right, in twenty years or so, Afghanistan will
be part of an alliance helping out someone else.
Winston Churchill said that "An appeaser is one who feeds an
alligator, hoping that it will eat him last."
We have many appeasers in Canada and we deal with a lot of them
every day.
Many of them are simply ideologically opposed to reality-let alone
the Afghan mission.
In 1938, 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 to you that the basic principle at play is not much different.
Ladies and gentlemen, this mission is about three things.
It is about national interests.
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, the rule of law - and which Afghans deserve
a taste of.
And, it is about trust.
We have told Afghanistan to trust us.
We will be there to help you until you can stand on your own.
If we leave before that happens, those who trusted us and cooperated
with us will not be treated very kindly by those who will replace
us.
The next time we propose to someone that they can trust us, they
may rightly say no thanks - as bad as it is, at least we know what
we've got.
Ladies and gentlemen, we can't let that happen.
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 that they go back and re-read their history. Lester Pearson
was not Mahatma Ghandi and he wasn't Pollyanna.
Pearson had a clear understanding of the requirement for a robust
military which was properly funded and equipped.
He was a key part of a Liberal government that raised defence spending
to 7% of GDP. What we could do with that today!
Lester Pearson's Liberals didn't stare down our enemies through
the power of love and isolationism. They stared them down through
a combination of strength and national resolve in cooperation with
like-minded allies.
One main difference today is in the quality of our enemies.
In earlier days, we faced enemies who were not infected by religious
fundamentalism, and who cared about their own lives and the lives
of their people.
Today, we are faced with a narco-terrorist enemy who has utter disregard
for their own lives and the lives of the people over whom they seek
to exercise complete control in the name of religious fundamentalism
and drug profits.
As compelling as may be the image of the power of the blue beret,
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's so brilliant, it was done seven years ago.
Who the heck do they think the 39 allies in ISAF are, if not the
United Nations?
We would withdraw and be replaced by whom? Forty thousand undefended
aid workers and bricklayers?
That will surely make the Taliban cooperate! Naivete, thy name is
Layton.
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 of abandoning
nations to the lawless forces of anarchy. That alone justifies international
efforts to help rebuild that country.
Almost more dismaying is the response of some outside Afghanistan,
who react by calling for a disengagement or the full withdrawal of
international forces . This would be a misjudgment of historic proportions-the
repetition of a mistake that has already had terrible consequences.
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 that 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 towards that goal and that that is exactly what
we have been doing.
Afghans are increasingly taking the lead - in combat, in reconstruction,
in governance, and in law and order.
That has always been the aim of the mission and that is precisely
what is happening.
A realistic person knows that there will be stumbles along the way;
and that is precisely why we must stay.
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 or Afghan National Police 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.
The Manley Report - SLIDE
Let me finish with a couple of recollections of my Christmas visits
to Afghanistan.
On Christmas Eve 2006 at Mas 'Um Ghar with General Hillier, talking
about war and peace, and listening to 500-pounders going off in the
distance, we looked out over a black landscape.
Standing at the same place this past Christmas Eve with Minister
MacKay, the landscape had changed.
It looked like a scene from the Canadian prairies, with the lights
of several villages shining in the distance.
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, many measures of the success that we are achieving
and I'll use my favourite picture to illustrate some of them.
I met this little girl on Christmas Day, when Minister MacKay and
I were passing out school supplies to Afghan children.
You can't see it, but she is wearing nail polish. She would have
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.
And she has 6 million friends, 2 million of them girls who are doing
the same thing.
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 her home with or without a burka and without
being escorted by a male member of her direct family.
Violation of either of these rules would bring public hanging at
the hands of the Taliban.
She may become a member of one of the 17,500 Community Development
Councils responsible for their own communities' progress.
She may become a Member of Parliament in Afghanistan, where more
women occupy that role than in Canada.
She will be one of the over 80% of Afghans who now have access to
basic healthcare, compared to less than 10% five years ago.
She may have been one of the 40,000 Afghan babies who no longer
die in childbirth every year.
None of these things would happen under the Taliban and we can't
let them turn back the clock.
Who would have thought that there would be an equivalent of a Terry
Fox run in Kandahar City with thousands of participants dressed in
white shorts and tee shirts?
It happened last year.
We will have a vote in Parliament in the coming weeks on whether
to extend the mission beyond February 2009.
Rick and I will both be participating in that debate.
I hope that Canadians themselves will look beyond momentary headlines
and see the big picture of what is at stake in Afghanistan-Canada's
values, interests, and reputation.
I hope that Canadian politicians can put aside partisan politics
and simply do what's right.
I hope that we might take a lesson from the Dutch Parliament which
recently voted to extend their mission for an additional two years.
John Stuart Mill once said that:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed
and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that
nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for
which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than
his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance
of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better
men than himself."
Ladies and gentlemen, "responsibility to protect" cannot
be simply fine words.
They have to be backed up by strength and resolve.
The Manley Panel has made an excellent contribution.
Last week, the Prime Minister announced a revised motion that seeks
common ground with the official opposition.
This issue is far too important to become a matter of partisan politics.
It's now up to all of us to work together, remembering our proud
history of doing the right thing internationally under both Liberal
and Conservative governments for the past 140 years
We owe it to our allies.
We owe it to those who depend on us for help.
And we owe it to Canadians.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
Laurie Hawn
M.P.
Edmonton Centre
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