Mr. Speaker, what we are witnessing is a takeover of the opposition by some of the most eccentric, unsound thinking that has ever been pronounced in a western democracy on an issue as important as this.
The United States, Canada, and others went to war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan under the authority of the right to self-defence, as guaranteed and formalized by the UN charter. The government of Iraq, our partner in this venture, is under attack by a terrorist organization that wants to take over that country.
Terrorism, if the hon. member would take the trouble to read the dozens of resolutions on this score, is illegal. Terrorists are subject to international forms of punishment as well as to some of the most hard-edged national forms of punishment, and rightly so.
There is no legal question in other democracies, even among socialists, about the authority for undertaking this military operation, including its combat aspects, including aerial bombardment of ISIL. Why do other socialists get it but not the NDP?