Mr. Chairman, last September the so-called Islamic State was gaining new territory every day, new villages, towns, and cities, including Mosul, the second largest in Iraq; claiming new victims; committing genocide against the religious minorities of Iraq, the Yazidis, the Assyrian Christians, and others; and committing some 8,000 Yazidi women alone to horrific sexual slavery and human trafficking. Left unchecked, there is no doubt that ISIL would now be in control of much of Iraq, in addition to its territory in Syria.
This is strategically relevant to Canada because as long as that death cult was growing in perceived size, strength, territory, and pseudo-sovereignty, it was confirming the whole narrative of this so-called caliphate. The growth of that organization was, in other words, a magnet for radicalization and recruitment, including from countries like Canada. Every Canadian who goes and joins Daesh represents a potential security threat to us here at home, as do the radicalized individuals unable to leave this country, such as the two individuals who committed attacks last October. That is why it has been so critically important to move Daesh from the offence to the defence, from gaining territory to losing territory. This effectively proves that this is not a caliphate; it's just a band of genocidal hoodlums, and this helps to reduce the seductive power of it to recruit and radicalize.