Mr. Speaker, it is a very good question, in part because Canada is proud to have received over 20,000 Iraqi refugees in the past few years, in what has been the largest refugee resettlement program to this country since that of the Vietnamese boat people in 1979 and 1980.
Because I was the Minister of Immigration who launched this Iraqi refugee program, I have come to know the Iraqi Canadian community quite intimately. I can tell the member that in my consultations with the breadth of that community, the Assyrian Canadians, Chaldean Canadians, Canadians of Kurdish origin, Yazidi Canadians, Mandaean Canadians, Canadian Iraqi, Shia and Sunni, with all of whom I have consulted and all of their organizations who have spoken on this, 100% have indicated their support for the Canadian participation in the allied military operation against the genocidal terrorist organization which is seeking to wipe their people off the face of the earth.
There used to be a time when the left in this country believed in concepts such as the responsibility to protect, that responsible and proportionate action was sometimes necessary to prevent genocide. It is regrettable to see that the blinkered ideology of the NDP no longer accepts that notion.
However, fortunately, according to the recent Ipsos Reid poll, 56% of supporters of the New Democratic Party still believe in the concept of the responsibility to protect and in action to prevent genocide. The vast majority of Canadians and New Democrats agree with the overwhelming majority of Canadians of Iraqi origin.