Mr. Speaker, this is coming from the same person who, a little bit earlier this evening, said that he took it really seriously when people in one of those groups said they were going to take over everything from Al-Andalus, which is in Spain, to India. That is how serious he thinks this is.
This is what we are dealing with. We are dealing with a government that does not even recognize that it is doing the exact same thing, and it is true that when we do not learn the lessons of history, we are condemned to repeat them. The lessons in Afghanistan were that we were drawn into a conflict that cost well over 100 Canadians, cost tens of billions of dollars, for a situation that is right now barely more stable than it was then. This is because the Conservatives and the Liberals simply followed all the instructions from other powers.
This is not a NATO mission. There is no NATO mandate here. It has nothing to do with NATO. So any reference by this minister to NATO in Iraq shows the paucity of his empty rhetoric and his incapacity to present a case that will convince Canadians.