We need to EARN the right to be leaders. It is to our peril when we are given things for which we are not qualified. For Believers, we must only engage in activities for which the Lord has called us.

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.

There are people who just haven't done as well in a globalized economy.

We Canadians need to go beyond what any previous government has done in terms of our diplomatic network, our support for companies to export, trade and invest beyond North America, and our contribution to the safety of the international system, through defence, development, international organizations, and so forth.

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.

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.

Great leaders do not see people for who they are, but who than can become. Further, the great leader compels those that follow them to become that man or woman of the future, likely exceeding the expectations of both.