Thank you very much.
Good morning. I'm very glad to have the opportunity to update this committee and to discuss the way forward on one of the most important issues of our time.
This time last year, I was at the Geneva II conference aimed at bringing an end to the bloody civil war in Syria. During that summit, which was unfortunately unsuccessful, I worried about the potential for ISIL, or Daesh, to become a threat to the wider region. Sadly, since the summer, we've all watched with horror as this cancer has spread across the border and embedded itself in a broad swath of Iraqi territory.
At the same time, we've also seen the cancer of Islamist terrorism manifest in many other corners of the world—places like France, Belgium, Australia, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines—ongoing terrorist attacks in Israel, and of course closer to home in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. We even saw it on the other side of that door in this “infidel Parliament”, as the ISIL spokesman described it this week.
This threat isn't going away on its own. That's why Canada has taken decisive action to help curtail ISIL's expansionist agenda and to protect and assist its victims. Since our last committee meeting, I've spent a lot of time engaging regional partners, such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt, and of course our partners in NATO. Our actions and those of our allies are focused on five main lines of effort that are interrelated and tremendously important: military operations, foreign fighters, terrorist financing, humanitarian aid, and countering narratives. These areas of focus were agreed on at the last NATO summit. I'll run through them quickly so we can get to questions.
First is military operations. I believe my cabinet colleague Mr. Nicholson has covered this—ably covered it.