Debates of Oct. 6th, 2014

Questions on the Order Paper

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion, and of the amendment.

Military Contribution Against ISIL

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. Minister of National Defence has three minutes left to conclude his remarks.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pay tribute to the men and women who serve in our armed forces.

They are, as members may know, ready for any challenge. They are trained and equipped to the highest standard. I want to be clear that they will remain under the command of the Chief of the Defence Staff.

We are asking Parliament to support the government's decision. We will work closely with our allies and partner nations to ensure that Iraq receives the support it needs.

Canadians expect their Parliament to take action in the face of an international crisis, in this case an international crisis that directly threatens Canada. This is not the time to sit quietly on the sidelines and hope that the threat will dissipate, as both the Liberal leader and the NDP leader have suggested.

This government recognizes the threat that ISIL poses to western values and the people of our country, and we are prepared to address it at its source. This terrorist group seeks to impose a world view diametrically opposed to ours, one that prizes repression over equality, hatred over respect, and death over life.

We must take action. We will take action. We seek support for the government's motion in order to prevent these violent, merciless radicals from further inflicting their twisted beliefs and deadly violence upon the innocent.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I know there is a fair bit of concern about what is happening in Iraq. The minister pointed out that there are over one million internally displaced persons. In fact it is about 1.8 million. Canada was asked directly in the personage of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the member for Ottawa Centre and the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie for support for this.

Comparing this with the Libya mission, which was an air bombing campaign as well, I just learned it cost $350 million with the deployment of maybe some 440 people. We are talking about a larger mission here in terms of numbers. Would the minister not think saving lives now, with the kind of commitment that could be made to do that as a result of the direct ask of the Iraqi government, would be an important thing for Canada to be doing? It is not simply the military mission or nothing.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that certainly has not been the position of the government. We have become very involved with humanitarian aid to that part of the world. We have taken supplies from both Albania and the Czech Republic and delivered over a million pounds of supplies to Iraq to assist in this. We have had a 30-day mission that has just come to a conclusion for us to have a look at and provide strategic and tactical advice to the Iraqi forces.

Again, this is one more step in our efforts to degrade the capabilities of ISIL. It is one more step and we have to do it. This terrorist organization has committed unspeakable acts to the people in that area and are a direct threat to Canada. This is why we have to take action.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I tried to get an answer during question period to this question about the possible involvement of our CF-18s, if they go over there, in Syria. It was not clear to me from the Prime Minister's remarks last Friday whether Canada would be, if I could call it “passive” in the sense of if Bashar al-Assad asked Canada to come in, or whether Canada would proactively, if it decided it wanted to go into Syria, make the request to Bashar al-Assad. I wonder if the Minister of National Defence could shed some light on that.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in question period I pointed out the Prime Minister's comments on Friday where he said that we will strike ISIL where, and only where, Canada has the clear support of the government of the country in question. I think that is very straightforward. The mission as it is constituted today is focusing on Iraq. We have been very clear with respect to our objectives and we will continue with or without the support of the Liberals.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to put a question directly to the Minister of National Defence. I am afraid this debate has been conducted on both sides as though there is an assumption that somehow a combat mission would be effective. We debate what Canada should do, but there is an underlying assumption that it would somehow work to counteract ISIS. There is no evidence for that. Today's Guardian reports that Kurdish fighters are finding no slowing in ISIS's assault on Kurdish areas while U.S. air strikes bombard them because they scatter and then reform as the jets leave.

Could the minister of defence give us any evidence whatsoever that Canada's planned mission would do anything other than fall into the trap ISIS has set for us to get involved in this for its propaganda and ongoing efforts to destabilize and encourage recruitment?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again, I would point out to the hon. member that we are involved in a number of different activities in that part of the world. We deem it appropriate at this time to strike at ISIL to decrease its capability to terrorize.

We had a suggestion from the New Democrats on Friday. I think they want to send lawyers over there to start prosecuting these individuals. Do not get me wrong. I love lawyers. I want to be very clear. I want to put that on the record. However, we are doing what is reasonable under the circumstances. I am very disappointed it does not have the support of all members of the opposition.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in favour of the government motion seeking support for its decision to contribute Canadian military assets, including air strikes for a period of up to six months, to the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and terrorists allied with ISIL.

I will begin by reminding the House of the facts on the ground and the crimes committed by that organization, which is basically a death cult. It is a genocidal organization motivated by its hatred of innocent people. It continues to commit acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing, mass rape of women and girls, sexual slavery, daily torture and the beheading of innocent people, including children.

To some people, the barbarity of this organization may be hard to conceive of, and some may dismiss the reality of the evil of this organization. However, even the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, in its report published in late September, said that the so-called Islamic State:

...attacks directly targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, executions and other targeted killings of civilians, abductions, rape and other forms of sexual and physical violence perpetrated against women and children, forced recruitment of children, destruction or desecration of places of religious or cultural significance, wanton destruction and looting of property, and denial of fundamental freedoms.

The UN report went on to say:

[The Islamic State] has directly and systematically targeted Iraq's various diverse ethnic and religious communities, subjecting them to a range of gross human rights abuses, including murder, physical and sexual assault, robbery, wanton destruction of property, destruction of places of religious or cultural significance, forced conversions, denial of access to basic humanitarian services, and forced expulsion. The targeting of ethnic and religious communities by ISIL appears to be part of deliberate and systematic policy that aims to suppress, permanently cleanse or expel, or in some instances, destroy completely those communities within its area of control.

The report goes on to detail the most horrific and unthinkable acts, including, if members can imagine, the kidnapping and torture of a three-year-old girl. Images are in the public domain of children having been decapitated by this organization because of the religious convictions of their families and of their community.

When we last debated, I mentioned this humanitarian moral crisis and my conversation with my friend, the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic church, the largest Christian community in Iraq, a community that is indigenous to Iraq.

The Chaldean community speaks Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, which has been spoken in that region for over 20 centuries. These are the indigenous people of Mesopotamia.

He told me about how Daesh, the Islamic State jihadis, entered hospitals where infirm, handicapped, elderly Christians were unable to leave and were threatened with decapitation in their hospital beds if they did not immediately convert to Islam. I cannot think of an organization in my lifetime, or perhaps all of modern history, that represents such brazen evil, such deprivation, and it cannot be overstated.

That is why Iraqis, particularly those of the minority communities, are asking us to do what we can to offer them protection.

For example, I noticed a report in today's National Post, in which Matthew Fisher interviewed local Kurds and Christians in the region, one of whom, Mr. Shoban Kunda, a Christian, speaking in Irbil, near the territories controlled by the Islamic state, said, “If the U.S. airplanes had not been here at the right moment, Irbil would have fallen and ISIL would be here”. He went on to say, “So we know that air power can help to stop [ISIL].”

Another Christian said, “someone has to stop Daesh...because they want to destroy everything and bring...the world back to the Middle Ages”.

Mr. Fisher also reports that those he interviewed were “astonished” when told that two of Canada's political parties have opposed the plan to send Canadian warplanes to assist them.

The day before, Matthew Fisher interviewed other local members of minority communities, including Behar Namiq, a Kurdish shop owner in Irbil, who said, “I know all about what Canada is doing”.... “it will be very good what the Canadians will soon do [here] in Iraq”.

The Iraqi government has requested Canada's assistance, as reflected in today's motion, but ordinary Iraqis have asked for this assistance. When I spoke to Patriarch Sako, he asked for Canada's military assistance. People understand that this country has some capacity to project our power in their defence, and so too do Canadians.

As the Minister for Multiculturalism, I have received dozens of letters from Canadians calling on our government to take serious action to support military action in Iraq in order to protect the innocent.

I have a letter from Father Sarmed Balious, on behalf of Canadian Chaldean Catholics, who said:

...we declare our strong support to Canada's decision to join the Allies in conducting air strikes against Islamic militants for up to six months in Iraq.

I have a letter from Muslims Facing Tomorrow, who wrote:

We support [the Prime Minister and his government] unconditionally in the stated mission to degrade and contain ISIL as put forth in the motion before the House.

I think we should heed these voices.

Let me address a canard that I believe was raised by the Leader of the Opposition, who suggested that ISIL is just another manifestation of the same forces that the United States has been encountering in Iraq for 10 years. The American forces have not been present in Iraq for the past two years, as President Obama has completed the American military mission in Iraq.

There is a complete and radical difference in the nature of this organization. It is true that some Ba'athist figures and some tribal Sunni figures have assisted Daesh in recent months. However, this is a fundamentally different organization, given the nature of its actions, its effort to create a caliphate and project state-like power through the entire region, indeed to explicitly target Canada.

If it can be said that the position of the Leader of the Opposition is that this is too great a challenge for us to address militarily, that could also be said of this arc of violence that is motivated by the doctrine of armed jihad that we see from West Africa, from Boko Haram in Nigeria to al Shabaab in East Africa, through the various Salafi-Jihadi forces, through Yemen, the Levant, Daesh itself, and al-Nusra, al Qaeda, the Deobandi, and Taliban militias in Pakistan, all the way to the southern Philippines. There is an arc of violence held together by a common perversion of theology, in the broadest sense the civilizational struggle for all civilized people.

In this motion, we are talking about one immediate action that we can take to help, we hope, save some lives. I believe doing so is in the truest Canadian tradition.

I call upon all members to support the motion.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the minister's speech, and I was going to quote from the same article. He left out one part of the article where it said, “Bombing is not so efficacious. There will have to be troops on the ground to retake Mosul..”. The minister implies that we should follow the advice, and he has laid out the people whom we should follow. I would caution that if we are quoting from an article and representing people on the ground and their opinion, we should tell the whole story.

Pointing out the very people he was quoting, it says that bombing is not working right now. We know that because Mosul is a highly populated area. Would he support ground troops, as was offered by the very people that he was quoting?

Finally, when I was on the ground talking to the representatives of the Chaldean community, they were asking for robust humanitarian support, which we did not see in the motion. We did not hear it in the speech from the Prime Minister. We are wondering where the support is that they asked for to help this minority community.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Iraqi government has not requested ground troops from Canada or other allied forces. The United States, which is coordinating this allied intervention with the government of Iraq, has not requested Canadian ground forces. The government is not seeking authorization.

It is clear that the critical military asset we can offer is air cover to stop large-scale movements of Daesh. It is true that since air operations began with some intensity they have ceased taking significant amounts of additional territory, which is what that article makes clear. Yes, there will have to be a ground dimension to the battle against Daesh, but that will have to be provided by Iraq and the Peshmerga, which is why we are also providing technical training to the Peshmerga militias.

With respect to humanitarian aid, we have already provided $29 million of aid, and an additional $10 million was announced today. This is specifically with respect to Iraq. We have provided enormous humanitarian support in Syria. Our support in Iraq is the seventh-largest contribution, in gross terms, in the world, and the largest per-capita contribution of any developed country in the world, and there will be more.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this morning a colleague in the NDP asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs what the situation would be whereby Canadian CF-18s would go into Syria. The minister said “I can't really answer that. You should ask the minister of defence”. I asked the Minister of National Defence during question period, and again just now, but he did not answer my question.

I will try it with my hon. colleague across the way.

Would Canada send CF-18s into Syria after asking permission to go in from Bashar al-Assad, or would we wait for him to call and give his permission and say he would like Canada to come in and do this?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is asking hypothetical questions that are excluded by the motion. He knows perfectly well of the complexity of the situation in Syria, and he knows that we have been invited by the government of Iraq to provide assistance, which is what we will do. He is asking this hypothetical question because he is plainly trying to evade the grotesque irresponsibility of his party and leader, outside the best Liberal tradition, in the position it has taken on this motion.

While most of our major allies in the democratic world, including social democratic governments and parties, have endorsed or committed military support to this mission in Iraq, the leader of the Liberal Party, in an extreme variation from Liberal tradition, is making adolescent jokes. He characterized prospective Canadian military action, referring to the use of the Royal Canadian Air Force jet fighters, as “whipping out our CF-18s to show how big they are”. How profoundly unserious. I would suggest that the member instead listen to voices such as those of former Liberal ministers Lloyd Axworthy, Ujjal Dosanjh, Jean Lapierre, le premier ministre du Québec, to Liberals who understand the great Liberal tradition of standing in solidarity with our allies in defence of international security.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this debate today. It is unfortunate that we did not have such a debate back in September before our current military deployment to Iraq.

The question in today's debate is not whether Canada should do something about ISIL; we should, and our response should be serious and significant.

The question is, what should Canada do? How can we be most helpful, not just in the short run but in defeating ISIL over the long term?

I will be sharing my time with the member for St. John's East.

I want to make one thing very clear: we do not need to shoot missiles or drop bombs in order to take this threat seriously. Over 60 countries are helping to defeat ISIL, and the vast majority are not taking part in air strikes.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs referred to how Italy and Germany support the coalition. They do, and so does the NDP, and like the NDP, governments in Italy and Germany have judged that they can best help through logistics, weapons, training, and humanitarian support.

So have conservative and social democratic governments in Norway, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, Finland, Greece, Poland, and dozens of other countries.

ISIL has perpetrated appalling crimes, including mass killings, sexual violence, forced displacement, and the destruction of holy sites. More than 20 million Iraqis have been affected. Two million people have been displaced from their homes. More than five million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance right now. The violence ISIL perpetrates is entirely unjustifiable and entirely contrary to Islam. The only ideology it supports is the ideology of hate.

The crisis in Iraq also seriously jeopardizes regional peace and stability. The flow of internally displaced people and refugees is threatening the ability of Iraq and its neighbours to secure their borders and govern effectively.

The NDP has been clear that Canada has an important role to play in contributing to the international response to this crisis. In fact, in the House in June, I asked the government to help refugees fleeing ISIL. In July we issued a statement calling on the government to work with our allies to support the Iraqi authorities in building responsible democratic governance in Iraq as a counter to ISIL.

My recent visit to Iraq with the Minister of Foreign Affairs reinforced my conviction that action is needed. I heard first-hand what the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities are asking from Canada, and nobody ever asked for fighter jets. That was true in 2007 when I visited Iraq for the first time and it was true again this year.

In 2007 I went to Iraq to participate in a conference on governance with members of Parliament from all major groups, including Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. I shared the Canadian experience of federalism and inclusion.

On October 14 and 15, 2009, I hosted a conference on Iraq here in Ottawa with the Stimson Center and the Centre for International Governance and Innovation on governance and the impact of conflict on minorities in Iraq. We cited at that time the need for more inclusion from the government in Baghdad and the need for the protection of minorities. That was then, but what I heard on the ground a month ago was similar.

We need to do more as a country, but instead of following through on its commitment to increase humanitarian and governance assistance to Iraq, the Conservative government went looking for military action. The government is now sending more Canadian men and women into harm's way in Iraq without a clear plan for going in and with no plan at all for coming out. Last week it was 69 troops; this week it is 669 troops.

Like many Canadians, New Democrats are concerned about the deployment of Canadian troops to Iraq on a combat mission that is ill-defined to the point of being irresponsible. Far too many questions about this mission remain entirely unanswered. Who will be commanding this mission? Where will our troops be located? What will the process be for expanding the mission? Will there be another debate and vote in Parliament?

The motion we are debating today is ill-defined and ill-conceived. It offers no plan and no exit strategy. Shockingly, there are no new humanitarian commitments, albeit we did hear one today, which is good news.

Just as shockingly, there are no territorial limits on operations. Nearly every other member of the coalition has explicitly ruled out air strikes in Syria; the Prime Minister explicitly ruled them in. This is unfortunate, to say the least.

The Prime Minister explicitly ruled them in if requested by the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad, and the motion we are debating today would open that door to air strikes there—or anywhere, for that matter.

There are also no restrictions on who could be included in the category of “terrorists allied with ISIL”. The motion would allow for the government to go far beyond Iraq and far beyond ISIL.

There are very few details in the motion on our deployment of “military assets”. Could these go beyond the nine planes and 600 troops currently committed? We just do not know.

Also, there is no requirement for Parliament to be consulted during or after the six-month term if the mission is expanded or extended.

Canadians are rightly uncomfortable with this mission. It is ill-defined and ill-conceived.

Canadians are concerned that the government has no idea where our hundreds of troops will be based or when they might even get there.

Canadians are concerned that the government is now passing off responsibility for Canada's response to Canadian Forces. Our soldiers will do as ordered. That is their job, but this war is the government's decision and it is the government's job to take responsibility for that.

Canadians are also concerned about the government's willingness to support Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship in Syria and the uncertainty of what we might leave behind in Iraq.

Canadians are concerned about the Conservative government's record of failing to give straight answers to important questions about our military involvement. That is why we have not only opposed the government's wrong-headed war but have also proposed smart, responsible, and genuinely Canadian alternatives, while demanding transparency and holding the government to account.

We have asked the government to do four concrete things: support the construction of refugee camps, help victims of sexual violence, assist in protecting ethnic and religious communities, and encourage international prosecutions of war crimes.

When I made these requests directly to the Minister of Foreign Affairs at committee, he said, “Yes”, “Yes”, “Yes”, “Yes”, but we are still waiting for specific and concrete actions on all these fronts.

Canada also has an important role to play in encouraging responsible governance in Iraq through collaborative capacity-building projects. We have been asking the government to act in these areas for months. Our call has been both pragmatic and principled, motivated by our common commitment to global security and basic human dignity. The mission we are debating today is simply not the best that Canada can do and has to offer.

When I was in Iraq last month, I visited a refugee camp. For a few minutes, I walked away from the group of dignitaries and aid workers to look around. I came across a group of small children playing on the dirty ground. Like millions of other children, women, and men in Iraq, they are in desperate need. How we can best help these children is the question I ask. How can we best help them to not only survive, but to grow up and thrive and live in a peaceful and prosperous Iraq?

This debate is not just about what we do in Iraq but about what we do as a country. Canadians deserve a Canadian foreign policy that plays to Canadian strengths while representing our interests and our values. We are most effective on the international stage when we exploit our comparative advantages in areas like security logistics, nation-building, and humanitarian support.

The children I met in Iraq need our help. We should be smart on how we deliver.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for sharing his perspective in this place. It is a perspective that is obviously very different from the government's perspective.

I think that when we look at the history of Canadian involvement in situations that require a coordinated effort from the world, Canadians have been able to do things on a multi-tasking basis, if we want to use the modern term. They have been able to provide nation-building support, provide humanitarian support, provide the kind of advice that is important on the ground. These things we can do.

However, this situation, as the hon. minister has pointed out, is beyond that. Now we are at a point, a tipping point, perhaps different from where you were when visiting there in 2009 and 2010.

The question is, why can we not do both? Why can we not answer the call to be there with our forces in the air and do the things that you want to do as well?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

I would remind all hon. members to direct their comments to the Chair, rather than to their colleagues.

The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a fair question, and here is a very straightforward answer: we should be doing what we were asked to do over a month ago.

While the government has been, frankly, dithering on what to do and looking for a military mission, we could have already been saving lives. That is what the Minister of Foreign Affairs and I were asked to do, as was my friend from the Liberal Party.

There was not one request on the ground from the President of Iraq, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government, the foreign affairs minister, or anyone at the UNHCR for air strikes. No one asked us for air strikes. They asked us to save lives.

I suppose it will be another three weeks before we actually have our strike force in theatre. While that is happening, and while we have been waiting to hear from the government about its plan, we could have already been on the ground saving lives. That is that Canadian way and that is what we should have been doing.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to stress that the member began by saying that no one in this place thinks that we should do nothing. Speaking for myself, I am horrified that we appear to be making the assumption that air strikes will constitute a “something” that does more good than harm. At this point, there are quite strong voices from such people as our expert on foreign affairs, Bob Fowler, that air strikes could very well do more harm than good.

I would like to ask my hon. friend this question. If we were to go to the United Nations and ask if a peacekeeping force could be put together with Canadian leadership to provide security for refugee camps and aid workers, would he think that that was a reasonable proposal?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canada can provide peace and security with the appropriate UN resolutions. I do not think that we are there yet. Frankly, I think what we need to do is protect the people who have escaped.

Let me add something. I am a little concerned in this debate that there is this kind of hierarchy of moral outrage. It is as if the louder we are, the more outraged we are with ISIL. Moral outrage is not a strategy to deal with ISIL. It is just a reaction, albeit it to something very horrific.

I have been after this government for many years, since I was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it cannot even see fit to support a bill that would cut off funds to these horrific militia groups, so please spare me the moral outrage and tell me what you are going to do effectively.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my capable colleague on his very enlightening and articulate speech. His speech is a perfect example of how the NDP approaches these issues. Obviously, during the member's recent trip he saw, with his own eyes, what people over there need.

We often hear members here talk about the international community and group efforts. I have noticed that the government will occasionally mention the existence of some kind of UN resolution. I would like him to clarify that there is no such resolution from that or any other international agency.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the UN Security Council resolution was very clear. To help fight against ISIL, we should do everything as respective member states to deal with the foreign fighters who are being recruited and to help the people of Iraq defend their borders.

We support that, but the main issue for us is to provide the humanitarian support that was asked of us. He asked me what the kids asked us for on the ground, what the humanitarian UNHCR people asked for, and what the governments of Iraq and Kurdistan asked for. They all asked for the same thing, including our ambassador: humanitarian support, humanitarian support, humanitarian support.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to the motion of the government. I believe we have to put it clearly on the record what our concerns and views are with respect to the motion.

We are dealing with a motion that sometimes has been framed as air support and sometimes as air combat. Really, it not air combat, because we are not engaging fighter jet to fighter jet. This is clearly an air strike, a bombing mission, within Iraq.

We have clearly stated through our leader and elsewhere that we do not support this aspect of the mission. The motion calls for other things as does our amendment, but the question is whether we should join about a dozen other countries in bombing raids. We do not believe that is an effective Canadian solution to save lives now.

When we are talking about bombing and air strikes, there is a lot of controversy about whether it would even be effective in this situation. Even those who believe it is necessary are saying, and these are military strategists and other people who do not believe in military action, we will run out of targets very soon. Therefore, how effective will this be in the kind of contribution Canada could and should make?

The third thing is that air strikes of this nature, and in this case we are talking about air strikes in Iraq and Syria, are a bridge too far in the kind of mission we were told about on September 5.

I would like to make it clear that we did not support the first mission because we were not given the information to support it. We did not say that we would not support assisting, advising and helping the Kurdish peshmerga to be strong enough to take on this threat. We did not get a chance to say it. We were not even getting the answers as to when the government was planning to go or what it was planning to do.

The member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie actually provided the answers for the government because the government was not providing them in committee. It was one of the more humorous things I have ever seen. Direct questions were being asked of the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We were not getting answers from them as they were stonewalling the questions. Rather the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie was giving the answers for them.

We also do not support this action because it does not respond to the direct ask that Canada got from the Government of Iraq. My colleague for Ottawa Centre described this from the visit he had with the president of Iraq and the president of the Kurdish regional council. They spoke of the terrible tragedy they were facing with the immense crisis of the 1.8 million now internally displaced persons in need of help. We support the idea of doing something about that and we support the coalition.

This is a big coalition. There are some 60 nations involved and they are all playing different roles. As I mentioned, there are about a dozen now that are engaged in certain aspects of military support in terms of air strikes, including about five of the Arab nations in the region. That is what they have chosen to do.

A lot of nations are providing different military support, like Canada was doing up until now, in delivering munitions and ammunition from the Czech Republic and Albania. Italy has been doing things like that, as have other countries as well. However, we have a lot of other countries that are doing different things solely on the humanitarian side, for example, Norway, Italy and Germany, with a combination of military efforts and supplies as well as humanitarian aid.

Effectively, the amendment to the motion would be to put Canada in the same group as that. Saving lives now is a priority for Canadians.

I did a little research and it seems that the Libya mission and air strike mission cost about $350 million. Imagine that. If that was the level of commitment made then and if the government is prepared to make a similar level of commitment to an air campaign, imagine how many lives could be saved and what Canada could accomplish using its military, resources, expertise and history in helping some of those 1.8 million people get through what is to be a very harsh winter? There is a need for food, shelter, clothing, and those kinds of things. A significant effort could actually save lives.

We are dealing with a question of choice, and Canada has that choice. This is a legitimate disagreement, as my friend just pointed out, morally outrageous and not a strategy. It is all right to be morally outraged. We are all pretty outraged, frankly, with the kinds of atrocities that are being committed in Iraq. We are looking for a long-term solution. We have seen the Americans, Brits and others try to deal with the situation in Iraq for the past 10 years and what we are left with is this situation.

We want a long-term solution. We are outraged by the activities of this group as well, but we want to know what Canada can best do right now that will help save lives immediately and help the peshmerga and the others get to the point where they can deal with this on the ground. As anybody in the military world says, air strikes are not going to solve the problem. Some even go so far as to say that they are counterproductive. Peggy Mason, who is a prominent former Canadian ambassador and adviser to a former prime minister, says that they are counterproductive, that they will not be effective and that we have to do something different because it has not worked in the past.

We want to do something that is going to be effective, in keeping with Canadian history, and save lives now. We believe that it will take a serious effort. I am not talking about sending another few million dollars; I am talking a serious commitment on behalf of Canada to address, to the best of its ability and resources, the humanitarian crisis as a result of the tragedy due to the atrocities going on there.

If members look at the amendment that the New Democrats have put forward, we have made it pretty clear that we want changes in the motion that would ensure that we first support the coalition. We want to ensure military support for the transportation of weapons. That is something we do support. We want a significant boost in humanitarian aid. We call on the government to provide assistance for the investigation and prosecution of war crimes, which I think there has been some nod toward today, especially dealing with sexual violence using rape as a weapon of war.

This requires significant investigation. It is not something we can simply forget about and hope that someone will bring them to justice. We have to get the evidence, provide the means to do that and put effort into getting the stories and collecting all of that. Many of these people who are victims of these atrocities and have that evidence are in these refugee camps or hope to be in refugee camps. Many of them do not want to leave the country and want to stay there, but they will need help until that country is safer.

We call on the government not to deploy Canadian Forces in combat operations and to report back on the cost of the mission on a monthly basis. We have made it clear. This is not supposed to be divisive. This is not about people who support the military and people who do not. We are calling for military support, but we also want to add that the government continue to offer its resolute and wholehearted support to the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces who stand on guard for all of us.

It is a question of what choices we would make to contribute to this international mission. We believe the amendment to this motion contains them. They are serious, they are robust and they are part of the Canadian effort that will save lives now.