Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Etobicoke Centre.
This afternoon, it is with a great sense of responsibility, humility and pride that I rise before my colleagues in this honourable House for the first time.
I would like to thank the people of Mississauga—Lakeshore for putting their trust in me. I would also like to thank my family and my extraordinary team in Mississauga—Lakeshore. I also want to congratulate all of my colleagues in the House on getting elected or re-elected and you, Madam Speaker, on your re-election.
I am rising on a very important topic, namely ISIS, a terrorist group otherwise known as Daesh.
I would like to begin by thanking my colleague opposite, the hon. member for Parry Sound—Muskoka, for introducing this motion so that we can have this important discussion here in the House of Commons today on developments in the Middle East.
I was in the Middle East for nearly seven years, from 2005 to 2012, serving as a senior United Nations official in Baghdad, Iraq. The majority of my time was devoted to supporting the Iraqi parliament, the Iraqi executive, and elected officials of the Iraqi Kurdistan region. My team and I supported our Iraqi counterparts in building an all-party dialogue on important questions of political and constitutional reform, including their struggle with early incarnations of the Islamic State of Iraq.
As a Canadian who has served proudly under the blue flag, one of my proudest moments was when former prime minister Jean Chrétien decided not to join the coalition that intervened in Iraq in 2003, a decision that was supported by members of the Conservative caucus but opposed by President Obama.
It is difficult for me to fully capture just how much goodwill this Canadian decision generated among the people of Iraq during the subsequent decades and how profound a role it played in allowing my UN team and me to build trust and effective working relationships with our Iraqi counterparts and Iraqi-Kurdish counterparts.
Let me be clear. Today the question of how to deal with the Islamic State is of the utmost importance for people of the Middle East, for us in the west, and in all other parts of the world and, ultimately, for human civilization. By all indications, fear, division, and widening global conflict is what this murderous group wants to achieve. We must not indulge it. We need to defeat it in other ways.
Canada's most effective contribution to the fight against ISIS will focus on empowering those voices and forces in the region that are prepared to stand up and take on the fight to reclaim their territory and their collective future from this terrorist group, like our friends in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
One of the greatest obstacles to the fight against ISIS is that at the moment there is no alternative vision in the Middle East. Young men or women in Iraq or Syria who contemplate standing up in the struggle against ISIS will first ask themselves what exactly they are fighting for. The formulation of an alternative, the vision of a better tomorrow for an economic and social future, is not something that can be created by dropping more bombs on Syria.
The Islamic State is a complex, multi-faceted humanitarian, economic, religious, cultural, political, and military problem. It has those components. Most important, the vision for a better tomorrow has to be created by the people of the Middle East; it cannot be imposed from the outside.
I am proud of the government's decision to withdraw our fighter jets from the Syrian air campaign, all the while remaining engaged in the effort to defeat ISIS on other fronts, including military training and advisory capacities to support the brave military forces in the region that are taking up the armed struggle and who have developed their vision for a better tomorrow.
Just to be clear, the Canadian Armed Forces has a strong record of projecting leadership abroad through its participation in international operations. Foremost in our memory of course is the mission in Afghanistan. Over the 12-year mission, Canada sent more than 40,000 personnel to the region. Many of our members served more than one tour, including our hon. Minister of National Defence.
Our achievements in Afghanistan were hard won. Our forces had to overcome many challenges. Canada undertook ambitious projects that aimed to improve the lives of Afghans, including helping to build critical infrastructure such as roads and schools and supporting partners with important initiatives like education on polio.
We are proud of Canada's legacy in places like Afghanistan and in many other places around the world, and of the tremendous effort of our brave women and men in uniform. Our legacy continues as the people of Afghanistan now continue to progress toward a democratic and secure country.
Our government has never been opposed to deploying our armed forces in combat when it clearly serves our national interests. The Government of Canada will shift our mission to a non-combat role that will be focused on training and humanitarian aid.
I am particularly proud of the fact that Canada participates actively in the humanitarian aid effort, which includes, most importantly and most recently, the fact that we will be welcoming 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by March of next year.
The problem of Daesh is multi-faceted. There are many roles to play. Canada is not advocating for an end to the air campaign. There are countries that are going to conduct an air campaign. We are not telling them to stop. All we are saying is that there is a better way for Canada, a more effective way that better fits Canada's historical missions. It is sophistication. It is an understanding of the region and it is a history of diplomatic engagement. For that reason, I am proud to speak against the motion today.