Mr. Speaker, I believe the member's statement was filled with a number of mischaracterizations of the government's policy. I strongly disagree with his conclusions.
First, the member characterized a small number of countries as being involved in the military campaign. In fact, there are 24 countries that have committed military assets to the campaign, amongst which are the social democratic governments of Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and France. As well, other countries with military assets including involvement in the air campaign whose governments' decisions are supported by the social democratic parties are the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and the democratic administration in the United States.
Parties of the centre left all through the democratic world see an urgent security imperative and humanitarian imperative to stop this genocide, to stop the metastasization of this genocidal terrorist organization into actually becoming something resembling a state. Why does the NDP take such a radical departure from the mainstream view on international security of the centre left parties?
Second, the member says we have no clear goal. The goal is very clear. It is to degrade ISIL to the point where it no longer constitutes a security threat to Canada or the world. That is what I characterize as defeating that organization.
The member says there is no exit strategy. We have 600 personnel in Kuwait and 69 in Erbil. The exit strategy is very simple. When the Government of Canada decides that their mission is over, they get on planes and return home.
Would the member please stop repeating this nonsense.