Defence Minister Peter MacKay speaks with the media on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The Conservative government is being asked to clarify its position on whether Canada will remain at war in Afghanistan after Parliament's deadline passes to pull out combat troops.

Questions arose after Defence Minister Peter MacKay said on Tuesday that the government was considering whether Canada's 300 soldier reconstruction team, called PRT, could remain in Kandahar after 2011.

But he appeared to add to the confusion on Wednesday when he refused to rule out the possibility of the Canadian military training teams remaining in Kandahar.

"Well there's been no decision taken on that," he said.

In March 2008, the parliamentary motion agreed to by the Conservatives called on the government to "end its presence in Kandahar as of July, 2011." It did not make concessions for leaving any troops behind.

During question period in the House of Commons, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae pressed the government to clarify its position.

"Are you sticking to the motion that was passed by the House in March of 2008?"

Foreign Affairs Minster Lawrence Cannon responded that "we are putting an end to our military combat mission by 2011 and that is clear."

The confusion seems to centre on the word 'combat' and whether troops that secure development workers or train Afghan soldiers and police officers, fall under that category.

But military historian Jack Granatstein, a senior research fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, said he believes they do.

"They go out on operations, the mentors go into the field with Afghan battalions, and they fight alongside them, the police mentors are with the police and the police are under what seems likes almost constant fire."

Granatstein said the parliamentary motion is a little less than definitive and that the government likely believes those Canadian trainers and the troops who provide security for development are exempt from the motion.

"So there's simply no doubt that if we leave troops there, although they may not, in quotes, be combat troops, they will nonetheless be in the line of enemy fire," Granatstein said. He said the confusion around the future of the mission needs to be cleared up.