Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence, who will be speaking in this place shortly, would be best to answer the assessment of the Canadian Forces, as he is the minister responsible.
There is no doubt that the Kurdish Peshmerga forces are very battle tested, but they are battle tested in the mountains, not in a more conventional war with a front line. There is no doubt that they need support, advice, and counsel, and that is exactly what the government committed to.
We had a challenge with the previous Iraqi government in getting troops into the field as quickly as we would have liked. The good news is that Iraq has a more inclusive government today, one that is working with the Kurdish and Sunni populations, which we did not have at the outset of that deployment. However, I will allow my colleague, the Minister of National Defence, to speak to the issue.