Afghanistan mission to continue, despite rising death toll
By Bill Rea

The number of Canadian service personnel killed in the operation in Afghanistan rose by six last week. But the government is going to stay the course, at least until February 2009.

"We made a commitment to to be there until February 2009, and we intend to keep that commitment," declared York - Simcoe MP Peter Van Loan.

He added Canada is one of 37 countries taking part in this mission, which has been sanctioned by the United Nations, pointing out this operation "has been achieving very good results for the people of Afghanistan."

Those results include some 4.6 million refugees being able to return to the country because of enhanced stability there. As well, he pointed out 70 per cent of the population now has access to health care, as opposed to 10 per cent when the operation started. "Millions of children are not getting an education who weren't before," he added.

"Canada has a proud tradition of showing leadership on the world stage," Van Loan pointed out, noting that was demonstrated over two world wars. But he said Canada spent several years not pulling its weight, dropping to 47th in terms of U.N. peacekeeping participation when he was first elected in 2004.

Van Loan also said that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has pledged that consensus with the other parties will be needed before Canadian participation in the mission goes beyond the February 2009 deadline.

"We continue showing leadership right now," he said.

Van Loan couldn't say if Canada is pulling more than its fair share of weight in Afghanistan, pointing out there are other conflicts in the world where Canadians are contributing a lot less. He said there's really no formula to measure how much each country should be contributing.

What's important, he maintained, is that Canada keeps its commitment.

"Because of our strong leadership, we have much greater credibility on the world stage," he remarked.

The February '09 deadline was also important to Oak Ridges - Markham MP Lui Temelkovski, although he was hoping some steps could be taken to reduce the number of casualties.

"We've got to be monitoring it closer, making sure that we somehow find a way to reduce the number of casualties," he commented, adding one way to do that is to shift the focus of Canadian activity farther to the north in Afghanistan, "as opposed to the hot spots."

Temelkovski added he's hoping there will be a serious discussion on this, come February '09, although he agreed Canadians are obligated to stay with the mission at least until then. "It will help us to have a serious assessment of the situation," he commented.