Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Thornhill.
I am very proud to speak today in the House on a subject that is very important to me.
I had the honour and privilege of working for the Canadian Armed Forces for more than 20 years and I earned the rank of lieutenant-colonel, like our colleague from National Defence. I am therefore in a position to talk about something that concerns me and many Canadians, specifically the withdrawal of our CF-18s from Syria and Iraq.
Our allies, including the United States, France, and England have decided to ramp up their attacks and bombing against ISIS. An international coalition is being formed on a consensus that it is their common duty to combat ISIS, which has made no secret of the fact that Canada and many other allied countries are potential targets for deadly attacks.
The Prime Minister has not provided a single plausible explanation to justify withdrawing our CF-18s from Iraq and Syria, from this so-called asymmetrical warfare, for our NDP colleagues who may need some information.
The explanations from Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs were nebulous at best, and completely incomprehensible at worst. He spoke about potentially increasing training for local police, providing governance assistance, without defining what that means in the middle of a war against ISIS, and helping create democratic institutions in Iraq. Does the minister understand that when we are in the middle of a war, that is not the time for teaching, but the time for combatting the common enemy?
This government does not seem to have a plan. The Minister of Foreign Affairs promised us a plan soon, and I cannot wait to see this plan in writing, since the minister is not even able to explain it to us in the House. We cannot wait to see it.
Canada must now make a clear commitment to combatting ISIS by keeping our CF-18s in Iraqi and Syrian territory. The Iraqi government openly called for military support from members of the international community to combat ISIS.
My NDP colleague mentioned the United Nations Security Council. Does she know that the United Nations Security Council remains seized of the threat posed by international terrorism? On September 24, 2014, the UN unanimously passed resolution 2178, which states, and I quote:
Reaffirming that terrorism in all forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security and that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable regardless of their motivations, whenever and by whomsoever committed, and remaining determined to contribute further to enhancing the effectiveness of the overall effort to fight this scourge on a global level...
Yes, you can make what you will of a UN resolution. However, we saw what happened in Rwanda in 1994 when we put General Dallaire in an impossible situation where he was unable to prevent the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis.
From my experience, I know that in this fight against ISIS, it is critical to destroy the enemy's resource base. We must not forget that ISIS is advancing on the ground and that refugees are being hunted down. Our involvement keeps ISIS from advancing and thus helps the local population. In an armed conflict, our air force supports the supply effort, does locating, and so on.
Why take away the final resource, the one required to destroy located targets? The answer is obvious. Our CF-18 fighter jets must continue their mission in Iraq and Syria. We have special forces that are assisting the Kurds. We have soldiers who are giving valuable advice and getting a lot of information. If we withdraw the CF-18s, what will we do with the intelligence that our aircraft gather on their radar missions? We will send it to our American and British allies so that they can do the bombing.
By withdrawing our CF-18s, we are failing to complete the job. Soldiers do their job from A to Z. By withdrawing the jets, we are forgetting about Z. We are stopping at Y and letting others finish the job. As a former military officer, I can say that our Conservative government raised our Canadian Armed Forces to unprecedented heights.
Why beat a retreat? Why stop?
That would be a slap in the face to all of our men and women in uniform who laboured for years to perfect their skills, an insult to the sacrifices their families were forced to make when they spent months away from home being trained to do their work well.
I would like to make another important point. When I was teaching in France, at the military school in Paris, I would ask my students to stop making long speeches about their plans and to focus on the ultimate mission. I can assure you that I got results that way.
Canada's goal and that of our allies is to destroy ISIS. That is what everyone wants. President Obama even said last week that we have to put an end to ISIS because it is a major threat to humanity.
In the battle against a mobile and formidable enemy, our CF-18 fighter jets are making a valuable contribution to eliminating ISIS targets. We are blocking its progress by attacking its caches of supplies, weapons, munitions and fuel. That is extremely important.
I am appealing to the government's good sense to preserve Canada's international reputation. I am asking the government to keep our CF-18 fighter jets in Iraq and Syria. “Army” rhymes with “credibility”. As a country, we need to preserve our credibility.