Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is remaining firm in his demands that troops begin to withdraw from Afghanistan next year and that the mission end in 2011, while Conservatives are refusing to set a clear deadline.
"Our position is that in 2011 the mission is over," Dion told reporters.
"And we need to make that clear otherwise NATO and the government of Afghanistan will assume . . . that Canada is setting for a never-ending mission."
Dion met with his caucus Monday evening to outline a set of amendments to the Conservative motion on the Afghanistan mission.
Liberals told The Canadian Press the plan will address areas that they feel were ignored or largely forgotten by the Tory plan -- likely suggesting a greater focus on diplomacy, development and support, as opposed to combat.
Despite tabling a motion last week calling for troops to stay in Afghanistan until 2011, the Conservative government isn't willing to call that a withdrawal date.
Government House Leader Peter Van Loan said the Tories don't want to tie the hands of future governments by specifying a hard-and-fast end to Canada's mission to Afghanistan.
Responding to a barrage of Liberal questions about whether the Conservatives are trying to set the scene for a never-ending war in Afghanistan, Van Loan said in question period on Monday that deciding an end date was not the most important task at hand.
"You cannot have peace and security in that country until we advance the mission we have," he said, adding that includes continuing in a combat and training role until Afghans are able to handle the own security.
NDP Leader Jack Layton, meanwhile, wants Canada to withdraw its troops by February 2009.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has signalled it will be a confidence matter, meaning the government would fall and an election would be triggered if the opposition parties united to vote it down.
More troops from France?
Defence Minister Peter MacKay recently met with NATO defence ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he was actively trying to solicit additional troops to help the Canadian Forces in the south of Afghanistan.
A recent report by a panel headed by John Manley said Canada should only stay past the February 2009 deadline if NATO sends 1,000 more troops to help in the region.
During the Lithuania meetings, France suggested it will send more troops to the south, but a report published in French newspaper Le Figaro on Monday suggested that sending troops to southern Afghanistan is only one of four options the French are considering.
The newspaper said French President Nicolas Sarkozy would decide "within a few days," but would not make any announcements until the NATO summit in Bucharest in early April, and that the president seems very committed to the Afghan mission.
After France first indicated its willingness to help last week, members of the prime minister's staff and the Department of National Defence travelled to Paris to meet with French officials as a follow-up to MacKay's discussions with French Defence Minister Herve Morin.
MacKay returned to Canada on Sunday from a corresponding meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his other foreign counterparts in Vilnius, Lithuania.
While in Vilnius, Gates' offered a stern warning to members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, most of whom have not contributed any of their combined 3 million troops to the Afghanistan effort, that NATO could become a "two-tier" organization if more countries don't share the burden.
