OTTAWA — Canadians should remember that Canada isn't in Afghanistan simply to be a nice global citizen -- it's there to ensure its people don't have to live in fear of the kind of global terrorism practiced by the Taliban, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says.

The minister kicked off a series of speeches Tuesday aimed at informing Canadians about why their troops are in Afghanistan in an effort to bring them onside with the Conservative government's decision to leave soldiers there at least until February 2009.

The speech comes after recent polls found support for the mission slipping. An Environics poll done for CBC last week, found that in 2002, 75 per cent of those questioned supported having Canadian troops there. By this month, that had sunk to 50 per cent.

"There is no question the work of our men and women in uniform is in our national interest, no question that this is the right thing to do,'' O'Connor said in his speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade.

The minister acknowledged Canadians have become increasingly alarmed at the number of its soldiers killed -- 42 -- by insurgent attacks, mostly in Afghanistan's troubled south.

But he also noted that 24 Canadians were among those killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The hijackers of the planes that killed some 3,000 that day plotted in Afghanistan and the United Nations recognized the Taliban as a threat to international security.

"As a government, we have an indisputable responsibility to protect Canadians from that kind of terror that we saw that day,'' O'Connor said.

The CBC poll indicated that 59 per cent of those surveyed said they want Canadian troops out of Afghanistan before 2009.

When respondents were asked how they thought the Canadian mission to Afghanistan would end, 58 per cent said it would not be successful, while 34 said it would be.

The poll of 2,005 people is considered accurate to within plus or minus 2.2 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

The results echo those in a Decima Research poll conducted in September, in which 59 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that Canadian soldiers "are dying for a cause we cannot win.''

O'Connor said he isn't concerned about the polls.

But he said his government -- including other ministers and military officials -- will be more active in telling Canadians about some of the successes their soldiers are having in Afghanistan.

O'Connor has speeches planned for Calgary, Toronto and Quebec City.

He noted NATO Secretary-General Japp de Hoop Scheffer has said the progress so far means "we are winning the fight.''

O'Connor listed some of the victories:

• A survey of Afghans found 84 per cent believe they are better off today than they were under the Taliban and 76 per cent thought security was better.
• There is now a democratically elected government and a constitution in Afghanistan where none existed five years ago.
• Women make up 25 per cent of the total number of MPs sitting in the national assembly, whereas five years ago, they were virtually banned from society by the Taliban.
• There are now six million Afghan children in school, six times higher than 2001, and 40 per cent are girls, up from zero in 2001.
• The Afghan economy has tripled and per capita income has doubled over the past five years.

Pulling troops out now would give the Taliban a chance to regain its stronghold, leading to the kinds of abuses that saw women marginalized, routine executions in soccer stadiums and historical monuments destroyed, O'Connor said.

He also said he was heartened that Poland will send 1,000 troops to help by January and they won't have any restrictions on where they can be deployed.

Canada has become increasingly irked at the national caveats imposed by some NATO member countries, restricting their troops from fighting in some of the most dangerous areas.