Debates of Oct. 7th, 2014

Military Contribution Against ISIL

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite certain that everyone here rejects ISIL's extremist ideology. We also recognize the threat that ISIL represents, not only to Iraq and Syria, but also to the region and the whole world, including Canada.

I am not going to attempt to demonstrate that ISIL is an evil and brutal organization, nor will I try to convince members of the necessity to defeat it. The question that is on everyone's mind today is this: how can we defeat ISIL, and what should be our country's role in defeating it?

These are very important questions, and Ottawa is not the only capital where such questions are being discussed.

Mr. Speaker, before going further I should note that I am sharing my time with the member for Etobicoke Centre.

French and British parliamentarians, among others, have debated these important issues. These same questions are also being discussed in the Middle East and in regional capitals with an even greater sense of urgency. On September 11, ten countries from the region met in Jeddah and joined the international coalition against ISIL. A few weeks later, five of them—Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain—joined the air campaign against ISIL in Syria.

On October 2, the Turkish parliament authorized the government to carry out military operations in Syria and Iraq to fight ISIL and also approved the use of Turkish military bases by foreign troops for the same purpose.

ISIL has made no secret of its expansionist aims. To Iraq's neighbours and Canada's friends in the region, ISIL is not some remote threat. It is a clear and present danger.

It is at their border. It is even inside their borders, as we know that the issues of terrorism financing and foreign fighters that also affect western countries are particularly acute in countries in the region. ISIL is actively recruiting fighters in several countries of the region, including in the Maghreb, where it has set up clandestine cells, and we were recently reminded of ISIL's reach in the region when an Algerian group loyal to ISIL beheaded an innocent French hostage in retaliation for French air strikes in Iraq. Some 2,500 Tunisians are fighting in ISIL's ranks.

Countries in the region are also affected by the humanitarian situation. Jordan is hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled ISIL, and Saudi Arabia has provided half a billion U.S. dollars in humanitarian assistance to help displaced Iraqis. Other countries, including Kuwait, are also providing assistance.

The active participation of regional powers in the international coalition against ISIL marks an important step, and the countries' participation in air strikes contributes to the weakening of ISIL. It also destroys a myth that ISIL is desperately trying to keep alive. According to that myth, ISIL's opponents are enemies of Islam.

This statement is false. Several Muslim religious leaders are raising their voices against ISIL. ISIL's war is not between Muslims and non-Muslims, nor is it between Sunnis and Shiites. ISIL is a megalomaniac terrorist group that recruits all over the world. Its opponents are a growing number of countries and peoples, including Sunni-majority Muslim countries that reject ISIL's violent and extremist ideology.

ISIL's horrific levels of violence have resulted in common cause among Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, and others. Like Canada, these states consider terrorism to be the single greatest threat to the region. This includes Sunni extremist groups such as ISIL, as well as the state-sponsored terrorism of the Iranian regime and its proxies and allies, including Hezbollah.

ISIL is not the only source of threat in the region. In fact, some of the region's states themselves pose a significant security threat. Of course, I am referring to Iran and Syria.

Both are state sponsors of terrorism and both are now opposed to ISIL. Given that they share a common enemy with coalition members, they may currently claim to stand on the right side of history, but let us not fall for the tales being spun by these dictators. These regimes are not allies for peace and stability. They helped create the conditions that spawned ISIL and their only aim is to replace one brand of violence with another one, just as cruel, and to continue to destabilize the region.

The Assad regime in Syria has violated international law on many occasions and has lost its legitimacy as a member of the international community. As documented by many sources, the regime has repeatedly used chemical weapons against its own people. The regime has routinely used indiscriminate weapons, both chemical and conventional, to kill combatants and civilians alike. It has targeted medical facilities and denied access to life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in areas under the control of its opponents.

Reports of rape, sexual violence, torture and murder in regime detention facilities are absolutely shocking in their scale and depravity. The atrocities perpetuated by the regime have fueled the rise of violent Islamists including ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra. If Iraqi security forces supported by an international coalition manage to halt or reverse ISIL's gains in Iraq, ISIL would likely continue to threaten Iraq and other states in the region from its bases in Syria.

That is why Canada welcomes intensified U.S. efforts, now joined by Gulf states, to destroy and degrade ISIL's capabilities in the region. We also welcome efforts aimed at ensuring that the Assad regime does not unduly benefit from this situation.

As for Iran, despite deploying a so-called charm offensive over the past year, the toxic reality of Iranian meddling in Iraq remains. Iran continues to run its Iraq policies out of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps., IRGC, Qods Force headquarters. Members will recall this is a listed terrorist entity responsible for some of the deadliest terrorist attacks of the past decades. This force can only compromise efforts to bring peace and stability to Iraq and the region. It is arming Shia militias within Iraq, which undermines the attempts by the new government to gain the trust of its Sunni population and build a fully inclusive government in Baghdad. That is no accident.

A truly inclusive government representative of Iraq's diverse communities would not be in Iran's interests. While the Iraqi government is trying to bring its people together, regardless of region or ethnic background, Iran is promoting discord and violence among Iraqis. Iran is stoking the fire for a longer-term conflict, one that risks inflaming sectarian tensions throughout the region. Syria and Iran cannot be part of the solution, when they are in fact a large part of the problem.

Four years ago, ISIL was considered defeated in Iraq and the only way to defeat ISIL once and for all is to address Iraq's sectarian and ethnic divides. Closing these gaps is something only the Iraqi government and people can achieve. Canada will support their efforts through concrete action and programming because we know that a stable, secure, prosperous Iraq is a key factor for regional stability.

Canada is making a major humanitarian aid and security contribution to Iraq.

We are supporting air support and military advice to Iraqi security forces. We passed the Combating Terrorism Act. We passed the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act and now Canada has been asked to make an additional contribution.

Iraqi authorities have been clear that they do not want foreign ground troops, but they need air cover. The United States has asked Canada to join air strikes along with other countries. ISIL is recruiting its fighters all over the world, including in Canada. They are posting online videos, threatening to destroy Canada. ISIL is building a network of cells throughout the region. We cannot in good conscience leave this burden to others.

We should do everything we can to stop ISIL.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Conservative minister for her speech. I have two questions for her.

Since the Conservative government's plan includes air strikes, will the CF-18s stationed in Bagotville be used during the six-month mission?

During that same mission, will soldiers stationed at Bagotville also participate in the six-month mission?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question on the specifics of the initiative.

What I can tell him, and what we have told the House already, what the Minister of National Defence and the Prime Minister have indicated, is that for a period of up to six months, Canada will launch air strikes against ISIL with our allies and partners with six CF-18s, and will contribute one air-to-air refueling aircraft, two surveillance aircraft and the necessary crews and support personnel.

It will be the Canadian Armed Forces who are going to be undertaking this mission for us. We know that they will be ready and willing to answer the call of their country. We thank them very much for their service and we commend them for their bravery.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as a party, we have supported the need to get military intelligence and the need to train on-the-ground indigenous militia to defend both the refugee camps and national interests, as has been eloquently expressed by the member opposite.

The concern, and the reason that my party is standing in opposition to air strikes, is that we do not know how to measure their success and we do not know their exact mission.

I appreciate that the government cannot define targets and cannot define in debate exactly what the nature of the mission is. However, I think it is a fair question and Canadians deserve an answer on exactly how the success of that mission will be measured. It is the success of that mission that will allow those service personnel and aircraft to return to this country to be deployed elsewhere if needed.

How is the government prepared to measure success and how will it report that success back to the House of Commons? More importantly, what will define that success on an ongoing basis?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. Also, I would like to welcome him to the House. It is my first opportunity to welcome him. We spent a lot of time in Toronto on different sides of the fence and here we are again doing the same.

Often we like to try to measure plans against benchmarks and markers. Sometimes the reality is that when we bring into the picture the sanctity of human life, the protection of minorities, the helping of those who are truly in dire straits, that does matter in the calculation. I can think of no greater need for our government and for humanity to join together to protect the women in these areas in these countries who are experiencing incredible amounts of pressure, threats to their lives, threats to their ability to function as human beings.

We talk about human rights in this great place a lot. This is a very clear case of defending the human rights of 50% of the population. As a woman here in Canada, I am very proud of the decision our government has taken. I hope that we do have a measurable success, but I do know one thing. Protecting them and making every effort we can to protect the women in these areas is absolutely something that we can do and have to do regardless of what benchmark, measure of success or metric the opposite party wishes to try to put us to.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as we all know, there are many uncertainties when we are dealing with these kinds of situations so it is difficult to state with a lot of clarity what might happen down the road, especially when we are looking at some months down the road.

I wonder if the minister could assist the House and Canadians by outlining the reasons and interests of Canada that will be served by Canada joining our international partners in pushing back against ISIS and ISIL.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I can say that we are approaching this on all fronts. We are aiding our allies with respect to our assistance with our CF-18s. We are also providing humanitarian support. We are providing expertise. We are putting together the entire package of what Canadians can do. I am very proud of our role.

Canadians have always been leaders in the world when it comes to helping those who are in need. It is no different this time. We do not approach this from the point of view of wanting to get into this situation. We need to be there. We have to be there. It is our moral duty to be there, and that is exactly why we are going to be doing the best we can in a Canadian way.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to this debate with great interest. I think it is clear to Canadians, to our allies, and most certainly to this side of the House what kind of threat ISIL poses to the world and to Canada. It is clear to respected Liberal statesmen such as Lloyd Axworthy, Ujjal Dosanjh and Bob Rae, who so ably led the Liberal Party in the interim. All of these very well-respected Liberals agree that joining the coalition mission against ISIL is the right course of action.

Another Liberal, Mr. Duncan Nyberg, an Afghan war veteran, wrote to me yesterday describing his disappointment with his own party. He wrote, “I'm proud of your government today Sir. As a Liberal, I will be very disappointed if the [Liberal leader] and the Liberals do not support the motion before the house today! Feel free to share my sentiments with colleagues. This is a good motion, this is absolutely a necessary motion! I'm finding it difficult to support my party when they pull stuff like this!”

Mr. Nyberg also told me that he registered his disappointment with his NDP MP as well, the member for Scarborough Southwest. I urge that member to respond to Mr. Nyberg and explain why his party is not willing to do what it takes to defend Canada and Canadians to the fullest of its ability. How do the Liberals explain their hypocrisy and the clear split in their party to Mr. Nyberg, a Liberal and a Canadian veteran, and to all Canadians, as to why they are prepared to compromise the safety of Canadians, something that Mr. Nyberg served in Afghanistan to defend?

Instead, the Liberal leader makes anatomical jokes about CF-18s, which dishonour our people in uniform. I was speaking to some friends today who are still serving and one in the RCAF told me that CF-18 pilots are very upset with the Liberal leader's comments. They have families they wish to protect and are ready and willing to undertake this mission on behalf of all Canadians.

In The Globe and Mail today the Liberal Party said it plans to support the Canadian Forces combat mission in Iraq once it is approved by the House of Commons, even though it will vote against Canada's participation in this vital mission. I truly remain confused by its position. Its dithering is on a national scale. All Canadians are confounded by the Liberal and NDP positions.

The member for Westmount—Ville-Marie is a military man, someone I truly respect and admire. He is a navy man with a military tradition in his family, and a proud one, which I heard him remark upon today in the House. I simply do not understand his defence of his party's lack of leadership, lack of vision and lack of understanding on this grave issue, because for him this must be entirely counterintuitive and most certainly against all that he was trained to be and to do in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Canadians are widely in support of this mission because they recognize the threat to us all and they recognize that it is necessary to take our rightful and necessary place amongst our allies and contribute to our collective global security.

Hillary Clinton recently said of ISIL:

...military action is critical.... In fact, I would say essential, to try to prevent their further advance and their holding of more territory. Because by holding territory, they both gain weapons and they gain revenues.

Mrs. Clinton said it very simply and I hope that this somehow resonates with the opposition parties.

The NDP cry loudly about this mission as being solely a humanitarian mission. Canada has given significant amounts of humanitarian aid already. We are currently the seventh-largest contributor to humanitarian assistance. We are adding Iraq to Canada's developing country partners. We have given money, material, and have already and continue to resettle refugees from the region.

The New Democrats' position makes it clear to me that they are not and may never be ready to accept the awesome responsibility of defending Canada and Canadians.

We have provided strategic airlift to other coalition partners so that they can deliver arms to Kurdish forces. That is a humanitarian act. Stopping and killing ISIL prevents it from killing innocent people in the region for just being there. It stops it from raping and selling into slavery girls and women. It prevents it from committing mass atrocities and beheadings, which have all been very well-documented. It will prevent it from coming to Canada.

I remind members that radicalized youth fighting abroad with ISIL and threatening to return home is a global reality in many countries. Approximately 130 Canadian youth have done so, and in my view, have forfeited their right to return, and where the law allows, to retain their citizenship. The opposition pointed out that this is not easy. It is right. It is not. That is why we are debating this in Parliament.

However, it is clear, and this government has been clear, as to why we are going to war against ISIL terrorists. The case for participating in this coalition is because children have been beheaded and, as I have already mentioned, women have been raped and sold into slavery to depraved individuals. They are absolutely depraved because who but depraved people buy slaves? What has been the fate of these women and these girls to date?

ISIL has killed en masse. It has beheaded journalists, humanitarian aid workers and others, and it has broadcast that to the world. It has said that it is coming here to advocate attacks on Canadians. It has attempted to perpetrate genocide on whole groups of people. What more justification do the parties opposite want? They speak a great deal of history most recent and generally out of context.

If it is history they want, what about the policy of appeasement? What about hoping that this will all just sort itself out? Appeasement is not an option. We cannot allow appeasement to lead to its inevitable tragedy.

The answer to terror is not negotiation. There is simply no negotiation or any dialogue with terrorists. It is foolish to think so. It is wrong. This government will not appease terrorists and their tyranny. This government will always stand up for freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. We will always stand up for the rights of people around the world, especially minorities. We will stand with our allies in a mission that is internationally sanctioned.

The Security Council stresses:

—terrorism can only be defeated by a sustained and comprehensive approach involving the active participation and collaboration of all States, as well as international and regional organizations, to impede, impair, isolate and incapacitate the terrorist threat.

The world is united against ISIL. The Iraqi government has asked us for assistance. That is precisely what Canada is going to do. This government and our Prime Minister will always do the right thing and this nation, Canada, will stand to be counted with our allies to fight to stop a global scourge, one that has no basis in religion because no god would sanction what this enormous gang of killers has done, and continues to do.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentions appeasement. He mentions terrorists and terrorism. I am disturbed by the gross simplification in the House, in the debate, and the ignorance of the complexity of this region.

I lived in the Turkish Republic for five years. I experienced terrorism first hand, the terrorism of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which bombed places I went to in Istanbul, which bombed and killed in foreign capitals, in western European capitals. This terrorism was prevalent and I experienced it first hand. I understand what terrorism is and the effect that it has on a population.

The PKK is a currently listed entity by Public Safety Canada, yet what is the government's response? How is it preventing the participation of this terrorist group in its fight against ISIS?

Does the member not see the complexity of getting into this regional war where there are numerous listed entities there, some that are fighting alongside allied troops and some that are fighting against them?

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly understand the complexity of this world. It is a very dangerous world in which we live. I appreciate the fact that he lived in a part of the world where he experienced some of this.

However, let me simplify it for him. This is simple. ISIL is a terrorist organization on an unprecedented scale: beheadings, rapes, slavery, genocide, murders. To me, this is pretty black and white, and I think pretty much the rest of the world agrees.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think many Canadians have not seen this extreme level of violence. We may not have a complete comprehension of what it means, whether it be women being sold into slavery or these heinous acts, including rape and killings, that are taking place against women.

I had the good fortune of being on-call here at our children's hospital over the course of the weekend. Even the nursing staff were saying “Please act now, Dr. Leitch”. They said that we needed to send the Canadian military to ensure that, if nothing else, humanitarian assistance could make it to the people who required it.

I know the member opposite is very passionate about this and has personal experience in ensuring that the armed forces also allow for humanitarian opportunities to take place.

Could he tell the House what Canada is doing to stop these attacks against women and minorities, individuals who truly are the most vulnerable in society? What is the focus of both our Canadian military and other aid workers to ensure these individuals receive the support they need?

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know how hard the minister works and her passion on this. As well as being the Minister of Status of Women, she is very concerned about this issue.

The Canadian Forces are a multi-role organization. We have ships deployed at sea. We have our aircraft, both transport and fighter, and we have our ground forces. As everyone knows, there are some ground forces already positioned as advisers in Iraq today. They are helping, guiding and creating the conditions for the Iraqi army and others on the ground to be able to fulfill their role, train their soldiers and effectively counter the ISIL threat on the ground.

What we will do is support those Iraqi ground troops and others with air strikes on strategic locations. That will be done as a member of a coalition. It will be done as a coordinated effort between various air forces, and that is the way it has to happen. Those targets and identified results will be something that we will see unfold in the coming months.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood.

As members have heard before, the Liberal Party is desirous that Canada plays a substantial role in this war but, for reasons I will explain, we are not in favour of a combat role. Therefore, we do not support the government motion.

Before getting into the reasons for that position, on the subject of Iraq in general, I do not think we can trust the judgment of the Prime Minister.

I say that because I remember that in 2003, Mr. Chrétien's government said that Canada would not help the Americans invade Iraq. I remember it well because I was the defence minister at the time. More than ten years ago, the Prime Minister was completely in favour of going to war against Iraq.

The Prime Minister in those days in 2003 went so far as to write a letter to the Wall Street Journal denouncing the position of the Canadian government to not join in the invasion of Iraq led by George Bush at the time. He was so rabidly in favour of war at that time. If we flash forward more than 10 years, he is rabidly in favour of war again.

It is true that the circumstances of the two occasions are dramatically different, but the fact that the Prime Minister was rabidly for war in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when history has shown that was a terrible decision and indeed the root of many of the problems today can be laid at that misguided invasion, leads one to the conclusion that if he was wrong then, one has no trust that he will necessarily be right the second time.

That is one reason why the Liberal party really does not trust the judgment of the Prime Minister on this issue, and that is why we came to our own conclusion. Our own conclusion is that yes, the situation is entirely different, yes, ISIL is evil, and I do not use that word lightly, and has to be combatted, and yes, Canada should play a major role in that struggle against ISIL.

However, the war has more than one dimension. A part of the war involves fighter jets and another part of the war involves assistance for those on the ground who are suffering untold horrors as we speak. Therefore, as important as dropping the bombs is the need to assist those people, to provide humanitarian support, to provide medical support, to provide refuge for those people as refugees in our country, possibly also to provide non-combat military support in terms of reconnaissance, transport or things of this nature.

One side of this war is not more important than the other side, but in our judgment, the capabilities of Canada, the comparative advantage of Canada favours us on the non-combat side in this war. We know that a number of countries have already lined up to take part in air strikes, but there are less resources being applied to the humanitarian side of the war. We therefore believe that is where Canada can add the most value added and make the greatest contribution to a solution in that troubled region.

I note the government says that it can do both. That is like a millionaire saying to a pauper, “We can both have the fruits of this world”. The millionaire has a whole lot more fruits than the pauper. The point is that the government's military contribution to the war will cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. We do not know exactly how much. The Conservatives have not told us. However, I know a bombing mission of that kind would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Yesterday, the Conservatives announced with great fanfare a humanitarian gesture, which is a few million dollars.

We can do both, but we are putting virtually all the eggs, in terms of money, on the combat side and very little, in comparison, on the other side. The Liberal position is that we want Canada to have a major effort, which means putting significant resources into the humanitarian side, something roughly equivalent to what would be spent on the combat side.

I will give the House one example, which came up in question period today. The government's record on refugees since coming to office has been abysmal. The number of refugees in total under the Conservatives' watch has dropped by 33%. The number of government-assisted refugees has dropped by 23%. Those are the ones it controls directly.

It takes money to bring in refugees. Our position is that the government should invest money in the staff and resources required to process refugees more rapidly so that we could bring in much larger numbers from Syria and Iraq and other places in that region. The government's record in that area has been dismal.

As one component of our non-combat, substantial proposal for a Canadian contribution, we would propose that significant resources be devoted to beefing up the resources in our immigration department so that we would be able to admit a substantial number of refugees.

Listening to the minister in question period today, my sense was that he did not display a great deal of enthusiasm for that proposition. While the Conservatives say they can do both, combat and humanitarian, it is clear from their body language and from the dollars involved and from just about everything they say that their heart, if that is the right term, is truly in the military mission, and only a few little trinkets are left over for the humanitarian side.

We in the Liberal Party think that the great bulk, indeed all, of our effort should be on the humanitarian side in terms of medical help, humanitarian help, absorbing refugees, providing transit, and all those other issues that are crucial to this war effort in its entirety. I for one do not think Canada's role would in any way be diminished or reduced because we in the Liberal Party chose to focus our efforts on that side of the war rather than on the combat side of the war.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, if I am not mistaken, the member for Markham—Unionville was the minister of national defence when Canada deployed a significant force to Afghanistan without any debate in this country. He sent a significant force of Canadians to a war zone with inappropriate equipment, with old outdated jeeps, and with the wrong colour of uniforms. It was described by military leaders at the time as a decade of darkness.

Having said that, I wonder if the member could identify for us what the differences are between this mission against ISIL in Iraq and the mission we undertook in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. What would have led the Liberals to send our military forces to fight the Taliban, when today they are not willing to send our forces to fight ISIL? I wonder if the member could highlight what the differences are and why the Liberals have now flip-flopped. I am not sure. We have a couple of hours until the vote, so they might change their minds before then.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of the hon. member's opening comments, I know he relied on PMO talking points today, but he has to have gone back 10 years to find the leader of the opposition's talking points at the time. Ninety per cent of what the member said about what transpired back then is false.

We are very comfortable with our position on this mission today. What they have in common is that in each case, Canada was determined to make a major contribution. In this particular case, we choose to focus on non-combat. The previous time, when I was defence minister, it was not even a combat mission. It was an ISAF security-maintaining mission in Kabul. The two are not at all comparable. In my case, it was a security-maintaining mission, and today we are talking about a very severe combat mission.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's dissertation. I wonder if he could answer a very simple question. Will he and his colleagues in the Liberal Party be supporting the NDP's amendment to the motion?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I do not know the answer to that question, Mr. Speaker. I am not the critic in this area, so I will have to leave that to the critic to respond to.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned that he agreed with us that ISIL was evil and that Canada should participate. He did not mention that Canada was actually directly threatened as well by ISIL.

I do take umbrage in respect of his comments regarding how this government has handled refugees. We have had over 12,000 refugees from Iraq alone.

I was on the border of Jordan and Syria back in January, and the brigadier-general who was in charge of that unit and was receiving Syrian refugees made sure that we knew that Canada was the only one that delivered on its promises to help those refugees. Inside and outside of our country, that has been our record.

I want to ask the member a question. He has seen what has happened with the delay in degrading ISIL's capabilities. What is going to happen if we continue to delay? Should we be responsible for the proliferation that is going to happen because of the delay?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would say that in its totality, the refugee policy of the government has been extremely poor. We have seen the total number of refugees, both government assisted and in total, go down. Within that terrible record, the Iraq case is perhaps a small shining light in an otherwise dismal picture, because certainly, the record on refugees from Syria has been really terrible. Syria, for many months now, has probably been, arguably, the world's worst refugee crisis in many decades.

The government's record on that one has been really pathetic. That is why I am suggesting that as part of our non-combat proposal, a major effort to bring in more refugees from that region would be a good idea, but it is not something Conservatives seem to be prepared to listen to.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are not that many times in the life of a parliamentarian when we get to speak on the issue of sending men and women in uniform into harm's way. I am appreciative of the privilege.

I regret that more colleagues are actually not able to stand in their places to talk about the significance of this moment. However, it is what it is, and the government has chosen to limit the amount of commentary on this matter.

The rush to war is frequently done in terms of these being the good guys and those being the bad guys. The problem with this entire conflict is that the good guys and the bad guys are a bit of a mix.

I thought we should do a canvass of the countries that are in the immediate area. For instance, one of the allies, the so-called good guys, is Saudi Arabia. Now, Saudi Arabia is the spiritual home of Wahhabism and Salafism. That is the touchstone, the spiritual home, of ISIS.

Within Saudi society, there is a great deal of conflict. Some argue that wealthy Saudis are those who sponsor ISIS. That puts the House of Saud, the government of Saudi Arabia, in a very difficult situation.

I join with our ambassador for religious freedom, who called upon Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and a variety of other countries in and around that Middle East area to deal with this particularly pernicious form of Islam.

These kinds of internal conflicts within our allies undermine the effectiveness of our presence. I would say that we are responding to a moral imperative. In that respect, all members of this House are on the same page. Having said that, our interventions in this part of the world have not gone well in recent history, and even in history further back.

Saudi Arabia is a society that does not tolerate forms of religious expression other than a very strict form of Sunni Islam. Indeed, it is known that there are beheadings if, in fact, this kind of rebellion against this kind of Salafism or Wahhabism takes place in Saudi Arabia. This makes it very difficult for us, as a western society, or even as a country motivated for the best reasons to intervene, because there is this spiritual support for the founders of ISIS.

If we go around the horn a bit, there is Iran. Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the Bush Iraq war. Baghdad is a satellite office of Tehran. That is, arguably, some of the source for ISIS: the grievance of Sunni Muslims against Shia Muslims.

Up until recently, much to the chagrin of the U.S. and other western powers, the manipulation of Baghdad by Tehran has in some respects created the difficulty ISIS is responding to. That, in and of itself, makes it very difficult.

Until recently, it was the view of the current government that Iran was the chief sponsor of state terrorism. It was considered to be the number one state terrorist threat in the world. Now Iran is apparently going to be our ally in fighting the ISIS threat.

As members know, Iran has been the supporter of Hezbollah, and Hezbollah has been the chief Shiite terrorist entity, threatening Israel on the one side and Lebanon on the other. It has joined in with President al-Assad in the Syrian conflict, which has created literally hundreds of thousands of refugees and literally hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Until recently, the papers were full of what President Assad had done to his own people, including gassing them, so it becomes a little complicated, since the chief sponsor of Hezbollah, and therefore the supporter of President Assad, is now our ally in the support of this conflict with ISIS.

Then we can just move over beside Iran to Turkey. Turkey has been in a 30-year fight with the PKK, which is a supporter of the Peshmerga. The Peshmerga are the chief fighters on the ground resisting ISIS, so Turkey is in a difficult position, shall we say, because it has had this conflict over quite a number of years and it regards the PKK as a terrorist entity.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

As does Canada.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a colleague has said, “As does Canada”. I am not quite sure he is right. Nevertheless, we recognize a number of the militias in the area as terrorist entities. Sometimes they are on our side, as in this particular fight; most of the time, or up until recently, they have been on the other side.

We are entering into an area where, on any given day, it is hard to tell good guys from bad guys. I do not know how Turkey's parliament arrived at its decision as a NATO partner to enter into supporting the ISIS mission, but Turkey has a lot of internal conflicts, a lot of which will work out in Kurdistan, which is really the centre of this particular conflict.

Therefore, the Peshmerga will have to keep one eye on ISIS and the other eye on the Turkish forces. Simultaneously, the Peshmerga will have to keep an eye on ISIS and another eye on the Iranian National Guard, which is fighting in parallel against the ISIS threat, all of which makes it very difficult to pick out moral high ground.

Let me give an example of where we are. We supported the Libyan conflict, for instance, and I think we actually did the right thing. However, we will be bombing the people that we were supporting in the Libyan conflict, so it becomes somewhat difficult to pick out the good guys from the bad guys.

As I said earlier, we actually have had no record of success. Ultimately there are those, including the religious ambassador, who think this is ultimately a dispute between Sunni Islam and Shia Islam, and in that conflict, I doubt that we will have much to contribute.

I join with the Liberal Party in its hesitation and I recognize that we are entering into a conflict in which we have had no history of success.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Minister of State (Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario)]

Mr. Speaker, I am getting a bit concerned about the Liberals' attempt to position us as having an ally in some of the evil that exists over there. I say this with great respect for the member.

These are not our allies; we happen to have a common enemy. That in itself should tell the member how serious the ISIL threat really is. If ISIS—which is beheading innocent people right now, at this moment, while we deliberate—is not our enemy, then how did the Taliban ever become our enemy? How does the member reconcile sending Canadian troops, on the ground and ill-equipped, to fight someone that is not even as bad as ISIS, if that is possible? How does the member reconcile those decisions?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the Taliban was initially created by the CIA. The CIA created the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to push the Russians out of the country. That in turn led to al Qaeda. Al Qaeda then perpetrated its misery on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the rest of us for the last decade or so.

Once that conflict was over, it went to Syria. In Syria, it then got into a dispute with the ISIS folks. The ISIS folks do not actually think that al Qaeda is a serious enough terrorist Islamic organization.

The irony is that we have put our foot in it and have created difficulties way beyond our imagining. Therefore, we should be very hesitant to get involved in this conflict.

I buy the argument that we have to give support to those who are being persecuted, the Kurds, the Yazidis, the Christians, et cetera. I am on side for that. However, the government should not be so naive as to make the same idiotic mistakes all over again.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear the member's considering the complexity of the region and bringing up questions such as the Kurdistan Workers' Party involvement. He mentioned the Libya mission. We also supported that mission when it was clearly outlined and sanctioned by the UN.

My question for the member, though, is this: given his understanding of the complexity and the involvement of the Kurdistan Workers' Party in this conflict, how could the Liberal Party originally approve the 30-day mission, knowing that some of these terrorist groups might have been involved in the conflicts?