Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity. I don't intend to talk out the clock or anything like that. I'll just move the motions and have a bit of debate on them.
The first motion I want to put on the table reads:
That the committee invite the Minister of National Defence to appear before the committee in order to update Canadians on the current status of Operation IMPACT and elaborate further on his comments regarding the future of Operation IMPACT and the supplying of weapons to the Kurdish Peshmerga; and that a meeting to this effect take place within 30 days from adoption of this motion and that this meeting be televised.
To speak to that, it's been some time since we've had any briefings as a committee on what we're doing with Operation Impact. Of course, that has changed significantly with the turmoil in the Kurdistan regional area, with Iraqi security forces moving into Kirkuk and other communities. The minister was referring to a remake of Operation Impact going forward because of that instability, and as we know, weapons that were supposed to be provided to the Kurdish peshmerga, bought by the Government of Canada, are sitting in storage in Montreal.
I think we should get an update on what's happening, what's going to happen with those weapons, and how we will support the Kurdistan regional government and the peshmerga going forward. I think we need to have that detail and have the minister here, along with department officials, to give us a thorough briefing. I think it's been close to 12 months since the last time we had any discussions on Operation Impact at this level.