Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Monday he is now willing to support a vote in the House of Commons on the federal government's plan to extend Canada's mission in Afghanistan beyond 2011.

Ignatieff and other members of his caucus broke with the other opposition parties and repeatedly said last week that a Parliamentary vote on the training mission, which would see 950 soldiers and support staff remain in Afghanistan until 2014 in a training and aid role, was not necessary. The Liberals have long called for Canada to remain in Afghanistan past the scheduled July 2011 end of its combat mission in the country to train and support the Afghan National Army and police.

During a talk to students at Dawson College in Montreal on Monday, Ignatieff said he would not be opposed to a vote in the House.

Afterward, he told reporters that he will not be the one to propose a vote, but should there be one, "we have no problem with that."

"We've never ducked a democratic debate on Afghanistan," Ignatieff said.

Last week, the government announced that Canada will remain in Afghanistan until 2014 in a non-combat role. Despite calls by the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, the Conservatives have repeatedly said parliamentary approval is unnecessary for a non-combat mission.

The Bloc and NDP repeated their calls for a vote Monday, hammering the government with charges of broken promises during question period.

"In May 2006, what the prime minister said was that there would be a vote on any new deployment abroad for any reason," Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe said in French. "Will the prime minister keep his promise and make sure that there is a debate and a vote in the House on extending the Afghanistan mission beyond 2011, regardless of the form of that mission? Because there will still be military personnel and he made that promise. Is he going to break it?"

Harper was not in the House for question period to answer the accusations. But Tory MP Denis Lebel, said the government "has been clear from the beginning" that the combat mission will end in 2011. "In the transition, we will continue to provide assistance and to help with training as requested and stated," Lebel said in French.

Duceppe said afterward his party will introduce a motion in the Commons on Thursday pertaining to the extension of the Afghan mission, but conceded that the government does not have to abide by the results of the vote.

NDP Leader Jack Layton last week accused the Liberals of conspiring with the government to prevent a vote on the issue in the House. On Monday, he questioned whether Canadian troops will indeed leave Afghanistan in 2014. On the weekend, leaders of the 28 nations that make up NATO wrapped up their annual summit by vowing to turn over security in Afghanistan entirely to Afghan forces and police by the end of 2014. However, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen also said that NATO troops will likely remain in the country well beyond that.

"The government won't give Canadians the straight goods on what's going on with this extension," Layton said.

"We now have NATO making it very clear that 2014 isn't necessarily a fixed date for the withdrawal. Considering all the broken promises around this issue, and it's clear that our troops will not only stay beyond 2011, but they could be staying a heck of a lot longer because the government has no exit strategy post 2014. So why won't they come clean? Why won't they allow a vote after a full debate in House?"

Government House Leader John Baird repeated the government's position that the extended mission won't involve combat, and therefore does not require House approval.

"Our government has been very clear and the practice has been if we're going to put troops into combat, to put them in a war situation, for the sake of legitimacy that we've made a practice of bringing it before Parliament. But what we're talking about here is a technical and a training mission," Baird said.

"What we want to do is to increase the capacity of the Afghan national army to be able to deal with the security of Afghanistan on their own. That's a great practice for Canada, where can actually train and provide the tools that Afghanistan needs to do its own job."

Ignatieff told the students Monday that despite the opposition to the mission's extension by the NDP and Bloc, the work in Afghanistan is not yet complete.

"The NDP and the Bloc say: 'It's finished. We can leave without consequences,' but we say, no, there are consequences if we make a sudden departure like that," he said.

"We've been there for a decade just to accomplish one task: that the Afghans can defend themselves."

With files from The Canadian Press