The story of Taliban recovery and resurgence begins in the places where they took refuge after 2001. And as long as those leadership structures and training structures operate outside of Afghanistan with relative impunity, the conflict will continue.

People follow those who act like leaders, not those who proclaim themselves to be leaders.

All politics are local, whether in Kabul or in Canada.

Everyone in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a potential target. My heart goes out to the UN family in Afghanistan: in spite of everything, they are showing fortitude. But they will need the support of the whole world at this difficult time.

We need to give the private sector many more powerful incentives to do research and development, to bring ideas and new discoveries to market in Canada, and commercialize them here, and stay here through successive stages of growth. But they can only do it with better government policies that give them more powerful incentive.

If the Taliban comes back to power, the impact would be devastating. A country that has made great strides, in terms of development indicators, would take a huge step backwards. Afghanistan's national economy would be devastated.

The plant goes down. The industry is weaker. The price of the commodity has lagged. Any of those things can push people into unemployment or lower income categories, and that hurts.