Debates of Sept. 16th, 2014

Situation in Iraq

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I too was at the meeting last week, and we did not get the kind of detail that was asked for at that time. In fact, it has taken almost a full week to get the number of Canadian troops that are being sent to Iraq. Apparently, they are going to land and not wear their boots when they hit the ground.

Could the member be a bit more specific about what aspects of the special forces are going? There are four units of the Canadian special forces, including the JTF2, the Canadian Special Operations Regiment and the 427 Special Operations Aviation Squadron. Which of these units are being sent, or is it a combination of them?

The member mentioned diplomatic assistance as well. Is that part of this same group?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as we know from our experience in Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere, members of the Canadian Armed Forces are often engaged in diplomacy as they meet with local leaders at a community, state or provincial level, as well as working with their colleagues at a national level. Being an officer within the Canadian Armed Forces is also being a diplomat and an ambassador of Canada.

I will not go into detail of who is coming from where, since those are national security concerns, but I can tell members that they are coming from across the spectrum of the Canadian Armed Forces and that they are doing exactly what was decided upon by the advance team that went over there to determine how they would best fit in with the situation on the ground, as well as with the forces with whom they are going to be co-operating and advising.

I can also say that after watching the Leader of the Opposition just speak, with his flawed reasoning, I am still somewhat astounded that the NDP is going to be opposed to this type of serious role that Canada has decided to take, as it always has in working with allies to confront any threat to Canada or to our friends and neighbours head-on, rather than to just act like a turtle, tuck tail and run.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, multinational operations are always very complex and take a while to organize. Here, we are talking about many members of the coalition. I myself remember, from when I was in the navy, participating in the Standing Naval Force Atlantic, a NATO squadron made up of many different countries, that it is very complex.

I am not expecting an answer from the government tonight, but one of the questions that has come up deals with the Kurdish forces, the Peshmerga. In some places, I have read that they are not going to move from where they are. In other words, they are going to maintain a defensive line to protect the Kurdish region. Is it, in fact, already decided that they will stay there and be purely defensive, or will they, at some point, possibly move into an offensive posture and advance out of the Kurdish region?

Can the government shed some light on that? When that information is known, I would certainly like to know about it.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as that situation evolves and as we have better information, we will for sure be willing to share that with the members. That is why we always say we are co-operating with the Iraqi government and with security forces in the north, including Peshmerga, as we go forward in ensuring that the ISIL threat is dealt with appropriately.

We do believe strongly that ISIL needs to be taken down to assure the people it has been terrorizing, using rape of young girls and women as a weapon, killing ethnic and religious minorities, that this is something that has to stop. We know that if we do not confront ISIL, if we do not work with our allies, if we do not work with the Iraqi government and its security forces from a regional and national level, we will not defeat this terrorist organization.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the Leader of the Opposition, and it appears that he has his head in the sand along with his NDP colleagues in this whole ISIL issue. They do not seem to recognize that, in fact, there is a crisis in Iraq and Syria. It will expand in the Middle East and globally.

There have been reports of Canadians who have joined ISIL in Iraq and Syria, and some of them have died while participating in the front-line fighting. I am wondering if my colleague could make a comment on that.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. I know that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has already dealt with some of these matters, stating and pointing out that Canada already has in place some of the strongest anti-terrorist laws in the world, going after those who decide to take their terror from Canada abroad, who are leaving Canada. We are going to restrict passports. We will revoke passports and citizenship for those who are dual nationals if they are taking their terrorism and being radicalized and not only going overseas to fight but want to return to Canada. We want to make sure that we quash this at home and at the same time make sure that we do not see that return to Canada.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to take part in the debate, but it is unfortunate, to be polite, that we are not able to have a full debate on a motion from the government which we would then vote on. It was clearly outlined by our leader tonight why that should happen.

Not only is it the desire of our party that Parliament have its say on this matter, after all it is our responsibility as parliamentarians to ensure we are aware, with eyes wide open, when we send our Canadian Forces abroad, but we believe, and we thought the Prime Minister believed in this, that when we send forces abroad, we should have a full debate and vote on it.

It is stunning. To look across the way, the Conservatives have a majority and they know that whatever motion they put forward, it will pass. We know how the Conservative government works, and it would not be a free vote, that is for sure. It is interesting that the government would not be fulsome and transparent.

The Conservatives say that they are being transparent. Why not put a motion in front of the House for all Canadians so we can debate exactly what we are getting into? It is extraordinarily important that we do this, and it has already been enumerated why in recent history.

No, we did not end up going to Iraq, but we ended up going, as a quid pro quo, well documented, to Kandahar. We ended up being unprepared, and everyone agrees with that, when we were in Kandahar. We did not have a vote, we did not have a debate, and look what happened.

Here we are again, and we simply are asking the government to fulfill its own commitment, to say that when we send forces abroad, we define it.

Let us go over what we have seen from the government this past summer.

This past summer we were contacted by the government to say that it was thinking of providing lift capacity, or planes, to particularly help the Yazidis who were isolated because of the ISIL and whose lives were in danger. The government wanted to provide humanitarian support. The leader of our party said that we were absolutely behind that. This then turned into something else, because it was determined that was not needed and we were to give lift capacity for other needs.

Then there was the matter of being invited to go and do an assessment on the ground in Iraq. I was in Baghdad with my Liberal colleague and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We met with the president of Iraq, the speaker and Iraq's foreign affairs minister. We then went on to Erbil, which I had visited in 2007. We met with the president of the regional government there.

I will be sharing my time with my colleague for St. John's East, Mr. Speaker.

We heard that every one of the representatives, be it from Baghdad, Erbil, the United Nations refugee representative, including our ambassador who was in Amman but is responsible for Iraq, has asked for humanitarian support. There was a crisis and they needed that support immediately. That is exactly what the message was from our assessment.

Lo and behold, while we were there in Iraq, an announcement was made by the Prime Minister in Wales that we were committing troops. According to the press, a committee of cabinet decided that we would commit troops. It would be interesting to find out from the government who was on this committee. However, it was very surprising to me and somewhat surprising to the Minister of Foreign Affairs it seemed.

This is why we need this debate because we are hearing different things. We hear that there is going to be dozens, or there is going to be 100. The Prime Minister says that there are 69 special forces in Iraq. Then we hear it is not 69 actually there, but there are 69 special forces getting ready to be deployed and that they will be taking arms from the Czech Republic and bringing them to the theatre. Then we hear there are also special forces that will helping with advisory and assisting, whatever that means. My colleague from Toronto—Danforth made some interesting points about how that could be interpreted as per the Australian mission.

This is why we need to have absolute clarity on what our mission is. It is why we need a motion. It is why we need debate and why we need a vote.

My colleague who I travelled with me to Iraq he heard what I heard. The most important thing that we both heard was the need for humanitarian assistance.

If we were going to have soldiers go and build refugee camps, the government would probably find support from this side, but we are not hearing that. What we are hearing about is special ops to advise and assist for something we do not know about.

The member who is chirping at me does not even know, it seems. He is certainly not disclosing it, so we have to do it. Why? Because of the recent horrific violence we have seen on Iraqi people, and particularly the minority Yazidis, the Christians and the Mandaeans who have been through so much already. This is the third wave. This is not new to them.

The Christians were pushed out of Mosul as well as the Yazidis. That started in 2006. There was a second wave in 2008, and here we are again, so this is not new. It started in 2003 because of the invasion. There was no al Qaeda in Iraq before 2003. Everyone knows that. It was the creation of the void and the vacuum because of the Sunni-Shiite split, and everyone knows that. Who paid the price? The minorities, which the government claims to support and protect, yet all we have are words.

Last week I asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs if he would support humanitarian refugee support immediately and help those victims of sexual violence, protecting minorities. I mean no disrespect to Ambassador Bennett for Religious Freedoms, but he is not able to protect the religious minorities.

The religious minorities, particularly the Christians, told us that they could not go back home, that they needed the support immediately and that they did not want to leave their country. They were clear on that, and my colleague would know that. They needed to have protection where they were. Why is our government not announcing that support? Why did we not hear robust support for the refugees who are living right now in the cold? I mean that metaphorically and I mean it physically in a couple of months, because they do not have anywhere to go. Every school is filled. The kids cannot go to school because of the refugees there.

People are living on the streets in Dohuk, just north of Mosul. They do not have the basic needs. They do not have water or sanitation. They want our help. That is what we should be doing here. Instead, what I thought was the assessment and we would provide that support immediately, we have a government that cannot tell us what we are doing on a military mission. My God, we should be providing the humanitarian assistance now, stepping up to the plate. Other countries have done it. Damn it, that is what Canada's role is here. That is what Canada should be doing, building refugee camps, providing that health support, ensuring those who have been victimized by rape get the support they need, the psychosocial support. That is what our fight should be.

Our fight is not to go in and do what obviously did not work out for the Americans before. While I am on my feet, it is extraordinarily important to underline the fact that even after we have 10 countries in the region which are supporting this coalition, which has no UN mandate, no NATO support even, which is very important, we do not have commitment from Arab countries to actually put boots on the ground.

When we have that, not to the extent that our friends in the states are looking for, when people in the region are not willing to do something to the extent that we want them to, with the exception of the Kurds, why we would send troops there with an ill-defined mission when we know what the needs are for the humanitarian support, the protection for religious minorities and minority groups? Prevention of this kind of crime is something that we all want to see, but we need to do it in a straightforward manner, a manner that would help those who have been victimized. It is something we should be doing immediately.

However, to have an ill-defined mission, without clarity, and sending our men and women abroad without that is a disservice to them. It is a disservice to Canadians and it takes away from what the focus should be, which is support for the humanitarian assistance to be provided.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, we have just had the definition of an ill-defined mission from the member opposite. He wants to protect minorities who we agree are in danger, religious minorities, ethnic minorities, many of whom have been resettled in Canada. More of them are stranded on mountains, fearing for their very lives in villages. However, he wants to do it without a military mission. There is no way to protect minorities, to protect these civilian populations without effective military action by Iraqi state forces, and they have asked for our support.

It is incredible that members opposite complain about the lack of a vote having, on this opposition day, forfeited the possibility of having a debate on just this issue that would have come to a vote.

Does the member opposite understand what he has heard here today, that this is a non-combat mission. It is an advisory mission for very specific numbers of Canadian Forces members, numbers that have been given in the House today, and that as such, it is unlike our first deployment to Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, which was a combat mission from day one, and more like the training and advisory mission that we had for the last few years of our time in Afghanistan. Does he understand that elementary distinction?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, putting aside that paternalistic, pathetic tone, we do understand. We understand that the government has changed the commitment day by day. It cannot even tell us the basic numbers. It may be 69. They may be going, but we do not know.

Let us put that aside and put a circle around the fact that the member was not there. He can chirp all he wants, but he was not with us when we were asked by the religious minorities, by the bishops and others who represent the religious minorities, to provide humanitarian support. They said that they could not go back to Mosul, and they are not going back. They need support right now to build communities. They do not want to leave their country, but they do need to have safety right now. That is what they have asked us to do.

I cannot understand why the minister of all people, who has been abroad, does not get that we should be responding to that urgent need.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to confirm with my hon. colleague that there was a demand for humanitarian aid. There is no question that there is a crying need for humanitarian aid and we have made that very clear. Hopefully the government will act on that.

There is a flip side to the coin and the flip side is this. If we do not want those refugee camps in northern Iraq to be there for many years, we have to do something about ISIS. There is a problem here, because if nothing is done by anybody about ISIS, even those refugee camps will be threatened eventually.

I think I heard tonight my hon. colleague from the NDP say more or less clearly, as did the Leader of the Opposition, that they do not want to get involved in any way militarily, that other countries can do that job and that we are only in there to do stuff like humanitarian help. Is that in fact what I understood this evening?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

He has part of it right, Mr. Speaker. I said that we have to provide humanitarian support because that is what he and I heard and were asked for. It was actually emphatic and the member knows this. We were told by President Barzani as well as the foreign minister that they did not need our boots on the ground, that this was not their critical need right now. They told us they needed humanitarian support. It could not have been clearer. I wish everyone in the House and Canadians had been in those meetings with us. That is what they asked for and that is what we should be giving them.

On the other part, what does the member want? He was talking about imbedding. He was talking about a long conflict.

Is the member saying right now to Canadians that the Liberal Party wants to commit troops for the long haul? That is what I hear him saying. If he is saying that, then yes, I am dead set against that without some definition of what they are going to be doing.

After all, we do not have to teach the Peshmerga how to fight. They are capable of doing that. Our going to northern Iraq to teach the Peshmerga how to fight is a big question mark in my mind. I was there in 2007. I saw how well disciplined they are. They have taken it to ISIL. The problem is ISIL has better arms. Where did it get the arms? The arms came from the Iraqi army that fled, but it was provided arms by the Americans.

We have a problem here of inequity in terms of arms, but not about who should fight. If it is a matter of taking the fight to ISIL, let us leave it to the people who are right there right now, and that is the Peshmerga. We do not have to send Canadian forces to do that.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate tonight. It is an important debate because it underscores an important point that has been made many times by our party, a point joined in by the Prime Minister in 2004, 2005, 2006, and later. It is that for the deployment of Canadian troops, we need a vote in Parliament and that Parliament has the right to make that decision.

We have learned, of course, that it is not something that the Prime Minister wants to do, and he seems to have the full support of the Liberals.

I want to underscore that by saying that we are talking about a mission that is being undertaken without basic questions being answered. Last Tuesday, a week ago, there was a meeting of the defence committee after the commitment had been made, and after the commitment had been made, by the way, without the request of the Iraqi government. Otherwise, why would the Prime Minister say the government is going to send troops to Iraq once it gets the consent of the Iraqi government? Therefore, this is not at the request of the Iraqi government, despite what members opposite have said. We do not know where this mission is going.

Last week when we asked what was going to happen after 30 days, the answer was, “We don't know. Things are changing all the time. We're not really sure what it is going to be.” When we asked what criteria were going to be used to determine where we go from here, up or down, or whether we bring the troops back home, the answer was, “We don't know.” No criteria were laid out. No numbers were given.

It took until today to even get a number from the Prime Minister, and that was after the embarrassment of being left without an answer again and again when a very simple question was being asked and after the U.S. president stated exactly how many additional troops he was sending, which will be 475 troops in addition to the 1,200 who are already there. At least the Americans set out what they were going to do, but we could not find out what our government was intending to do.

When we asked when the troops will depart, the answer was “We can't tell you that. What do you want? The flight numbers would be a security problem.” The Conservatives could not even answer exactly what the troops were going to do. They had to rely on the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie to make a suggestion and then have the Conservatives tell him whether he was right or wrong. That was the most ridiculous briefing that any opposition has ever gotten from a government. A member of the opposition had to go so far as to make a suggestion so that he would have it on the record that we are behind some non-existent wire.

We heard yesterday and tonight from the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie that this is going to last for years and that Canadians had better get used to the idea that this is a long-term mission. We heard similar remarks from the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

What, then, is this debate for tonight? Is it to soften up the Canadian public to the idea that we could be there for three or four or five years, and that after 30 days, we are going to have something else, something that we call “mission creep”? The government does not want to even acknowledge that there is such a thing.

The people I talk to are universally saying that they do not want to be dragged into a war in Iraq, yet today, only a week after the President of the United States announced this mission and was trying to build a coalition, there are reports out of the U.S. about the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the equivalent of our CDS, talking about the possibility of advisers accompanying Iraqi troops in attacks against ISIL targets.

That is very reminiscent of the Vietnam War a long time ago. President Kennedy sent military “advisers” to Vietnam, and that led to an incredibly long and destructive war that the Americans eventually lost in 1975. We have had mission creep before, and already we are hearing hints of advisers being used as troops and participating in attacks.

We can say that they are there to advise and assist, but, as was pointed out earlier, what exactly does that mean? We are talking about special forces. We are not talking about advisers teaching people how to do particular things; we are talking about special forces troops, boots on the ground, and all the equipment that goes with that.

As retired Colonel Steve Day pointed out on Question Period the other day, of course they have the right to defend themselves. They will be there as troops.

As has been pointed out as well, there is no wire that the troops are behind or not behind. My colleague, the foreign affairs critic for the NDP, the member for Ottawa Centre, and the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie were there two weeks ago, and they were within firing distance of ISIL forces that they could see.

This is an asymmetrical war. There is no wire. It is not on a base in Kandahar, behind a wire. This is an asymmetrical war that the Peshmerga are fighting, a war that they have to fight to defend themselves.

What we are talking about is Canadian participation. We are talking about what we are doing and whether or not we have the mandate to do it. The government has been long on rhetoric and very short on the facts of the mandate and the goals. It is called a 30-day mission; that timeline is meaningless. I think everybody agrees that very little can really be accomplished within 30 days.

What we are saying is we are going to assess the situation. What does that lead to? We can be sure, given what we have heard from both the government and in the support of the opposition Liberals, that there will be more to come.

We do not know what the real intentions of the government are. We are very unconvinced by the speeches that we have heard, particularly from the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration this evening, as to what exactly is going on. What battle is it we are involved in? Are we involved? Are we expected to be involved in the battle, as the member phrases it? The battle that the ISIL people think they are involved in is a battle to take over the entire Middle East from Spain to India. Is that the battle that the member believes we are involved in? Does he really think that we in the West should be playing that game and aggrandizing the nasty work that is being done by the ISIL group?

We are in full agreement with Security Council resolution 2170. Unanimously adopted on August 15, it calls on member states of the United Nations to take measures to prevent people from going to join this group by adopting serious measures and sanctions and all of the things that are laid out there. It recognizes that gross, systematic, and widespread abuse of human rights is being carried on by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. This is a full statement decrying this action.

For the record, I want to say that we are fully supportive of the condemnation of what this group is doing. It is criminal activity of the worst kind. It is an abuse of human rights. This resolution also calls for ensuring that the perpetrators of these actions are brought to justice. These are international criminal breaches of human rights.

However, we are not talking about that here. We are talking about a military mission of a different sort, and we know not where it will lead. We know not where it would lead Canadian forces.

We do not really have faith that this government is now being forthcoming about what it is doing. We have no faith, and Canadians have no faith, in what the government's real intentions are and where it will take people.

I know there is someone who wants to yap across the way. I am sure he will have an opportunity to speak if he wishes. I know he has regretted things he has said in the past; I hope he is prepared to be quiet now and listen.

Unfortunately, there is a grave concern in this country that the government is about to take us down a road that leads to more involvement by the Canadian Forces and by our country in what may well be a very long-term mission in a country and place where we chose 10 years ago to not go. We are now suffering from the consequences of a mission that was undertaken there over many years and then left behind. The problems were left behind.

There is a crisis there. There is no doubt about that. We have a crisis in Libya as well, but we are not going there to solve the crisis left over after the Libyan mission went on to mission creep and left the country afterwards to a civil war and the destruction going on there now.

This is the concern we have. This is why we want a full disclosure from the government, a full debate. Once we have the cards on the table, we must have a vote in the House. That is what must happen.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite has said that he supports the sanctions against ISIL. We have heard that it is very serious, that the organization has already spread, and that if it is left unchecked, it could spread even further.

At what point would the NDP support actions from Canada of a military nature? Would it be after something has happened in Canada? Would it ever support having our Canadian Armed Forces becoming involved?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her question. It is a legitimate question. We have answered that question in the past. In fact, we answered that question by supporting the mission to Libya when backed by United Nations—

[An hon. member]

Sort of.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

The member says “sort of”, Mr. Speaker. We backed that motion and we voted on it in the House and we supported it, but guess what happened? Mission creep. The effort to provide some support based on the responsibility to protect turned into a very different mission.

The mission then became that we had to get Gadhafi. We had to destroy the government totally. Then everybody left, and what was left behind was a country that was unable to govern itself. There was civil war, which is continuing now, followed by destruction into Mali and other things. That was based on the fact that mission creep took over. The nation building that was required did not take place. The assistance to form a stable government did not take place. We are now left with a mess in Libya, south of Libya in the desert, and in Mali. We are seeing the same thing in the Iraq situation for similar reasons.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad we are having this debate, but I am finding it difficult to understand what the NDP's real position is.

At the beginning of the evening it seemed to be that they needed more details so that we can fully understand what is involved in this mission that is being proposed by the government. However, the last two speakers gave me the impression that what the NDP really wanted was more humanitarian aid—with which I agree—but not to be involved militarily, either because the Peshmerga and the Iraqi forces can take care of their own country and do not need our help, or possibly because enough other coalition members will go in there and do the hard work of helping to get rid of ISIS.

Is it that New Democrats would like to have more details and may decide to step up to the plate and support this initial mission, or is it that they really do not want to get involved at all?

It would be nice to get a good honest answer.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, once again I note the patronizing comments.

We are here to debate a serious matter involving a commitment of Canadian troops to a foreign operation, without a UN mandate. We want to know exactly where this is leading Canadians, but we have not had that answer.

We made it very clear that humanitarian assistance can and should be provided. That is something that we can support wholeheartedly. We are not prepared to support the deployment of troops without a full knowledge of where Canadians are being taken, how far we are prepared to go, and whether, as the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie is saying, Canadians better get prepared for the long haul because we could be in for two or three years. Everybody knows this is not going to be over in 30 days.

The people who are not being honest here are the Conservatives. As well, I do not think the Liberals are being intellectually honest when they say they fully support what the government is doing, because they do not know what the government is doing any more than we do.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for Mississauga—Streetsville. It is an honour to rise in the House today to speak on the troubling situation in Iraq. I want to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for granting the request for an emergency debate on this serious situation and to discuss the government's ongoing response.

The spread of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, has been accompanied by heinous acts of brutality against Iraq's religious minority communities. In August, we witnessed the harrowing scenes of tens of thousands of Yazidis stranded in the Sinjar mountains, men, women and children who fled en masse under the threat of torture, enslavement and death at the hands of ISIL.

The persecution of Iraq's Christian communities has been no less brutal. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians have now fled their homes, having been faced with the stark choice of the advancing Islamist militants: submit to Islam, flee, or be killed.

By some estimates, we are now witnessing the near total disappearance of Christians from the region. Whereas the population included more than one million Christians prior to 2003, including over 600,000 in Baghdad and tens of thousands more in Mosul and in Kirkuk as of late July, these numbers are estimated to have dwindled to less than 400,000 with many more having now fled Iraq as the violence has accelerated over the past six weeks. The incredible loss that this represents for Iraq, for the region and for the world cannot be overstated.

The 2,000-year-old Iraqi Christian community was founded by the immediate successors to the Apostles. It has made substantial contributions to the economic, intellectual and cultural heritage of the Middle East. However, most crucially, the pluralism fostered by the existence of these communities alongside their Muslim neighbours is a crucial ingredient in fostering the tolerance, respect and pluralism that Iraq must embrace for it to achieve everlasting stability. Without a stable presence of Christians and religious minorities in Iraq, the chances of building a democratic country grounded in respect for the rule of law is greatly diminished.

We recognize that the perpetrators of these acts of violence are adherents to a twisted religious ideology motivated by a belief in a divine call to war against the enemies of Islam. This is a spreading cancer. The hateful ideology that motivates ISIL is also fuelling violence in East Africa, in Nigeria, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and throughout the Middle East. While the government has rightly directed the Canadian military to support our friends and allies in stopping ISIL's advance on the ground, military force alone cannot root out the long-term threat posed by Islamic extremism.

For this reason, the government is also focused on advancing the cause of religious freedom in Iraq as part of our overarching response to the crisis. This means that beyond our short-term efforts to protect religious communities that have fled the violence, we recognize that a stable Iraqi government, grounded first in religious tolerance and ultimately in religious freedom, is the only reliable way out of this spiral of violence, persecution and death being fostered by the extremist views of the Islamists.

The majority of Muslims in Iraq and throughout the world deplore the false interpretation of Islam in whose name the violence is being perpetrated. However, they must also recognize that the extremism flourishes in an environment without respect and tolerance for religious diversity and religious difference. Legal and social restrictions on religious freedom, including the prohibitions against blasphemy and apostasy that we have seen elsewhere in Muslim majority countries, cannot be allowed to take hold in Iraq; not just because they infringe on the rights of Christians and other minorities to practise their faiths, but because they discourage the liberalizing voices within Islam that are crucial to countering the influences of the extremists in the long term.

This is precisely why the government has committed to advancing freedom of religion as a central component of our response to the situation in Iraq.

Through the Office of Religious Freedom, we will be working over the medium- and long-term to promote interfaith dialogue, to encourage understanding and respect between Iraq's religious communities, and to help build a political and social framework that allows all Iraqis to express their faith freely and without fear. To that end, over the next two to three months, the Office of Religious Freedom is working to identify, in collaboration with implementing partner organizations, a number of initiatives to assist in these efforts. We will also be reaching out to friends and allies to build recognition of the important role religious freedom will play in ensuring long-term, sustainable peace in Iraq and the ultimate defeat of Islamist-fuelled violence.

Our ambassador for religious freedom, Dr. Andrew Bennett, is also conducting outreach with the Canadian-Iraqi religious community, including members of the Syriac and Chaldo-Assyrian churches, the Yazidis, representatives from the Jewish community, and Shia and Sunni Muslim community leaders, to identify how best to help Iraq's threatened religious communities and support longer term tolerance and freedom. Ambassador Bennett has also held a fruitful discussion with a number of faith-based aid organizations, such as the Catholic Near East Welfare Association and Aid to the Church in Need, to explore opportunities for a partnership with Canada on the ground. As a multicultural and multi-faith society, Canada is uniquely called to promote the peaceful coexistence of Iraq's various religious and ethnic communities. We have a rich and proud tradition of diversity, respect and tolerance, a tradition that has yielded peace and prosperity for our people. Through our engagement in Iraq, we will honour this tradition by acting against hate and persecution, by championing the values of pluralism and religious freedom, and supporting Iraqis as they work to build a more stable future.

As the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, which includes CFB Petawawa, I am proud to acknowledge the Canadian Special Operations Regiment, CSOR, which is headquartered in Petawawa. CSOR was established in 2006 and is the first new Canadian regiment to be stood up since 1968 when the Canadian Airborne Regiment was created. On that note, the politically motivated decision to disband the airborne regiment was wrong. In today's troubled world, I know that Canadians would benefit from those skills.

As Canadians are aware, CSOR members have been deployed to Iraq to advise and provide intelligence first-hand to the Canadian government about the situation in Iraq and the threat posed by ISIL. On behalf of the Canadian government, I wish to thank the Petawawa families of serving soldiers for the important role they play in keeping the home fires burning.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as members know, the debate is about whether or not the government should put a vote into Parliament on this specific issue, because it is going back on the exact policies it has put in place. Unlike President Obama, who made a televised address in which he laid out America's plan in Iraq in some detail, we are being dictated to on what the government is doing without really telling us what it is doing. The whole issue is that the government is again sending in our troops without really defining the mission, which is very problematic. That is why we need to have that conversation.

Maybe the member can answer a couple of questions. Was this specific deployment directly requested by the Iraqi government? Was it requested by the UN? Was it requested by NATO?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government of Iraq did request our assistance in this matter and our troops are there to advise.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has detailed how ISIL continues to show deliberate disregard for human rights by intentionally targeting religious minorities and civilians, including children and aid workers. I know the government has committed approximately $28 million in aid to the region, but the Minister of Foreign Affairs has called the current levels insufficient.

Will the government provide additional aid to the region and what form will this take?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is in part precisely why we have troops on the ground. It is to assess the situation to see what exactly is needed for the future.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, for her excellent presentation and for all the hard work she does on the Standing Committee on National Defence and her strong support for the Canadian Armed Forces and the brave men and women who serve.

I appreciate the comments she made about the Canadian special operations forces and the expertise that they bring to the field and also her comments highlighting the risks that Canadians are facing because of ISIL. I would ask if she could go into a little more detail, talking about how ISIL is more than just a brutal terrorist regime that is terrorizing ethnic and religious minorities within Iraq and what type of regional and global security threat they represent.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is well documented in the media how ISIL is using the social network to recruit Canadians, Americans, and people from all countries. The threat escalates in that if we do not keep what is happening in check where it is occurring right now, in the Middle East, North Africa and potentially spreading into Europe, then there is no doubt that the potential for attacks within North America can happen.

There is no limit. Having seen how quickly this spread already across Syria and Iraq, it could spread across continents.