Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you. This is my first time meeting you and hearing from you. Your knowledge and the information you bring to the table is invaluable.
I want to pursue a bit of the line of questioning of my earlier colleagues. I am by no means a military strategist, but as a former martial artist, we look at two options: you have an offensive posture and a defensive posture.
For me in this situation the offensive posture would be, as you were saying, attacking the financial support of those governments or penalizing those governments that are supporting ISIS, attacking the oil fields and cutting off the lifeline.
The defensive posture I look at as being along the lines of what my colleague Mr. Marston was talking about in terms of humanitarian aid. I agree with you wholeheartedly there is a double element to that humanitarian aid. There is the need to provide the assistance, be it medicine or shelter. There also is the need to defend that, to make sure those supplies get to the refugee centres, to make sure the refugee centres are protected against any kind of invasion, any kind of situation where people are held hostage by nefarious means.
Would you elaborate on how Canada could possibly play that defensive position in terms of making sure refugees are protected, that the food, the medical aid they need, does get to them so things do not disintegrate in those centres?