Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of quick comments and a question.
The Leader of the Opposition cites some comments made by people about command as being somehow contradictory and misleading, but for his clarification and perhaps for others, the Canadian Forces are always under the national command of the Chief of the Defence Staff, wherever they are.
When they are operating in a theatre, they are under the operational command of whoever is commanding that theatre, just as Americans were under a Canadian command in Afghanistan, so it is not misleading the House at all.
We left Afghanistan much better off than how we found it. Will it last? That will ultimately be up to them, but it was a combination of combat, surely, and a lot of rebuilding, much of which was in fact carried out by men and women in uniform.
I do not disagree with the Leader of the Opposition when he says that a long-term solution requires sorting out the Sunni and Shia situation. That is true. However, I would like to ask him more about the short term.
Can we stop the short-term violence by ISIL without force? Can we negotiate the cessation of ISIL's short-term and obviously violent activity without force and simply by negotiation? What is his solution to stop ISIL from beheading people tomorrow?