Mr. Speaker, for not making a decision, there seems to be a lot of information coming from the government on what it thinks should happen. The decision is imminent. It knows where it is going and is not telling Canadians, not telling our troops, and definitely not telling parliamentarians what the goal is, what the plan is, and how it is in our national interest.
It all comes down to the fact that if we are going to be sending our troops to deal with dangerous jihadist organizations, as we are doing in Iraq, we should send them over with the right equipment, the right command and control, and the right rules of engagement. Even though the government likes to say that what we are doing in Mosul is non-combat, what we are seeing is that our troops are taking the offensive as they continue with the attack against ISIS.
If we are going to go into northern Africa, whether it is in Mali, the Sudan, the Central African Republic or the Republic of the Congo, we need to go in, first and foremost, with the ability and equipment to combat terrorism.
The difference between what is happening in Africa versus what we see right now in Iraq is that at least we have local government troops and the Kurdish peshmerga fighting alongside. That does not exist in Africa, and that is why it is so dangerous. There is no peace to keep. We cannot send our troops into a peacekeeping operation where they are putting their lives on the line for nobody, other than a photo op for the Prime Minister so he can get a seat at the UN Security Council.