Madam Speaker, I will inform you that I will be splitting my time with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.
I would like to begin by thanking the government for providing the House the opportunity to debate its ill-advised decision to diminish Canada's contribution of Operation Impact in the war against Daesh, ISIS, ISIL, call it what one will. I am talking about the death cult that delusionally self-identifies itself as the Islamic State in the Levant.
I also join with colleagues on both sides of the House because we know there are members on the government side who are embarrassed, indeed frustrated, by their leader's “fight fade”. I join them in protesting that this debate is taking place after the fact. It is taking place not before the significant change in Canada's military contribution to the coalition war effort but after the CF-18s were grounded and began staging back to Canada.
Members may have noticed that I used the word “war” twice in the first 30 seconds of my remarks, and that is because I am offended, the official opposition is offended, Canadians are offended, and our coalition partners are most certainly offended by the government's double-talking, hairsplitting rhetorical pettiness in trying to diminish our past and future contributions to the coalition with euphemisms. The Prime Minister, the defence minister, the foreign minister, and the rest on the front benches across the aisle are trying to characterize the military operations in Iraq and Syria without using the word “war” or other clearly spoken characterizations.
It reminds me of Churchill's famous characterization of a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. What we have from the government is a non-combat mission wrapped in a combat mission inside a war. The ministers contend that the Canadian Armed Forces are deployed on a non-combat mission, that our expanded ground forces, though operating in and around the front lines of this brutal, destructive, deadly unconventional war are merely trainers, that these trainers will only participate in engagements—in other words, shooting to kill members of the death cult that exists only to murder those they consider apostates—if necessary. The defence minister says that this is the Iraqis' fight, not ours—in other words, as if to say it does not really count.
Believe me, notwithstanding the defence minister's meritorious service in various combat theatres, our men and women in the air and on the ground in Operation Impact take their mission very seriously. On this side of the House, their service and sacrifice does count.
All of the government's explanations and excuses are, of course, befuddling bafflegab because Canada is not withdrawing entirely from the air war. Canadian aircraft and aircrews will continue to courageously refuel the strike aircraft of other coalition partners. Canadian aircraft and aircrews will continue to courageously provide surveillance for the strike aircraft of other coalition partners and to assist in identifying targets on the ground.
Let us talk a little, if we could, about the ground. The defence minister has made a perfectly logical point that, in the end, Daesh must be defeated on the ground, but he makes that point as if the ultimate victory will not require the absolutely essential multidimensional combination of air support of the ground forces. Our expanded ground forces will bring skills and technology to the Kurdish and Iraqi troops they are training and they will show them how to target enemy positions, to paint targets at close range, to guide bombs and other smart ordinance to those targets. I do not wish to offend any of my Liberal and NDP colleagues, but our special forces professionals will be active participants in killing the enemy. I expect the government would prefer the euphemistic characterization of “threat elimination”.
I have participated in any number of media panels over the past few months with Liberal and NDP colleagues. There have been civil disagreements. The NDP, of course, has never supported Operation Impact and articulates its traditional isolationism as one would expect, but my Liberal friends contort themselves with incoherent attempts to justify exactly why Canada has withdrawn the CF-18s and the skill and daring with which they have contributed to the war against Daesh. We still have not heard anything more logical than keeping a campaign promise, which is illogical when we put it up against the dozens of campaign promises the Liberal government has already broken.
Some of my Liberal colleagues say there are more than enough fighter bombers provided by other nations, by the U.S., by France, the United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Jordan, Morocco and others, and they are correct. In truth, the United States could carry out all of the bombing mission, but the idea of a coalition, the strength and the credibility of a military coalition, comes from the shared participation, the shared risk, the shared commitment to fight evil, to defend democracy and the rule of law and to perform the ultimate humanitarian act of making Iraq and Syria safe again for the millions of displaced civilians who long for the day they may return to rebuild their shattered lives.
By withdrawing the CF-18s, the government has, on one hand, reduced Canada to the second rank, the outer ring of coalition partners, despite the polite offerings that we acknowledge from coalition partners, recognizing our diminished participation.
At the same time on the other hand, Canada is putting more of our ground forces into the war while withdrawing life and death air cover that our ground troops will require now more than ever. Colleagues will remember, I hope, specifically December 17, 2015, when Canadian and Kurdish troops came under unexpected attack by Daesh terrorists near Mosul and were protected by air support from Canadian CF-18s and American, British, and French aircraft.
The next time Canadian special forces fighters need assistance defending themselves—and by expanding the number of Canadian ground troops, as the government has, there most certainly will be more incidents when they will come under fire—and call for air cover protection, their skilled and courageous Royal Canadian Air Force comrades will not be there for them.
In closing, I would also like to briefly return to the remarks I made last year in response to what I considered insulting comments by the Minister of Foreign Affairs that demeaned our CF-18 crews' contribution to the air war. He said, dismissively, in different words, but more or less what the Minister of National Defence has said in his statements recently, that Canada had only flown 2% of the coalition bombing missions. I ask the government again, is 2% trivial, unimportant, or is 2% a lot?
The government seems determined to whack Canadians and the Canadian economy with billions of dollars in carbon taxes over the barely 2% of global greenhouse gases that Canada emits every year. I would suggest respectfully that if the Liberal government believes that 2% is so important to Canadian values and global responsibility, then why is the 2% of Canada's previous commitment to the air war against Daesh so unimportant?
I would again like to thank the government for allowing this opportunity to debate the diminished contribution to the war against Daesh, and I would like to close by reiterating the official opposition's protest that this debate is taking place after the fact.