Mr. Speaker, the government and Liberal members keep referring to the need to have an enhanced training mission, but training coalition partners and allies in general in the Middle East and beyond have not had a good record on training. In fact, in testimony in front of the U.S. armed services committee in September of this year, it was revealed that the United States had spent $500 million on training and trained a total of four or five fighters in northern Syria. In Afghanistan as well, training has not borne the result that coalition partners had hoped.
Therefore, the real solution is to maintain our combat mission against the Islamic State. If members opposite want proof that is working, they just have to talk to the refugees, the Yazidis, who were saved on Mount Sinjar, when they were being pursued. They would have to talk to the Iraqis in Kurdistan about how coalition firepower prevented the Islamic State from attacking them. They have to talk to the people who were liberated from the siege of Kobani about whether combat air power makes a difference.