Mr. Speaker, we share the concern of the member for Cariboo—Prince George that there could be unnecessary loss of life. We already saw the tragic case of Sergeant Andrew Doiron, who was indeed on the front lines in the previous Conservative combat mission. Tripling the number of people doing the exact same work, as General Vance has said, simply increases the risk that there will be other unnecessary losses of life.
I said at the beginning of my intervention today that I do think that this is the most serious thing we can do as members of Parliament, to decide to put our brave women and men in uniform in harm's way. That is why any time we take the decision to put them into combat, we have the obligation to make sure they have the best tools possible.
I would also add that we have the obligation to take care of our brave women and men in uniform when they return from combat. When the Conservatives were very recently in power, they shut down nine Veterans Affairs offices across the country, depriving those brave women and men of the aid they were entitled to when they came back to Canada.
He also used the expression, “line of fire”, and I think that represents what we are concerned with here. We are indeed talking about troops involved in combat. The wordplay from members on the other side only makes us more skeptical about what is actually involved. They are doing everything they can to avoid the obvious, which is that this is indeed a combat mission.