Mr. Speaker, I did not suggest that we do nothing. I just said that whatever we did should not make matters worse.
I referenced Brigadier General Hussam Alawak from the Free Syrian Army earlier. What he exactly said in a report from Murray Brewster from the Canadian Press was this:
If Canada wants to continue in a useless thing, then it’s up to them....
Aerial bombardment of ISIS, as we all know, is not going to stop it. If ISIS terrorists did not want to draw the west into aerial bombardment, why did they post their brutal beheadings on YouTube? I think we are falling into a trap, and I have said that before.
What could we do instead?
We could be doing everything to stop the flow of arms to ISIS terrorists. We could be stopping the millions of dollars a day they get from selling black market oil. We could even be willing to go into the region in a multilateral force providing round-the-clock security for aid workers. We could provide much more assistance to the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon that are breaking those countries.
We must do something. Let us just not make it worse.