The Senlis Council, a London-based think tank that specializes in international policy, is urging Canada to stay in Afghanistan until, as the Manley report recommended, the job is done.

In its view, if Canada ends its combat mission in Khandahar at the current deadline, February 2009, no NATO ally will step up to take its place.

At a media briefing in Ottawa on Wednesday, Senlis officials said a Canadian withdrawal at that point would cause the situation in southern Afghanistan to deteriorate very quickly and all the work that has been accomplished over the last six years would be lost.

The council, by the way, is highly critical of NATO, calling it completely dysfunctional.

Liberal MP Bernard Patry played hooky from the party's weekly caucus meeting in order to attend the Senlis briefing. He asked two questions.

He wanted to know how Afghans would feel if NATO forces were sent to patrol the Pakistan border areas. He also wanted to know what it would require to educate Afghans about democracy.

Meanwhile on Parliament Hill, Patry's Liberal colleagues were discussing whether they should support a government motion expected later this week to extend the combat mission past 2009.