Mr. Speaker, I do not like war, I do not like conflict, and I do not like fighting. Over the past few days, many of my colleagues have told the House what they think of the war against ISIS. This is not a war in the traditional sense of the word because the enemy does not have a country.
That is actually what worries me most about what is going on right now in Syria, Iraq, Africa, and everywhere. The new enemy of the modern world is stateless. What does that mean? It means that this new enemy has nothing to lose. If we manage to gain ground, all that means is a setback for the enemy in a country that does not belong to it anyway.
No matter where it is, this new enemy is not at home. It cares little for the people left broken, mutilated, dead, and raped in its wake because it does not want territory, it wants souls, and unfortunately, it has no territory. Fortunately, it has no territory.
I do not like war, I do not like conflict, I do not like fighting. As representatives of Canadians, we must ask ourselves how we can face this new enemy that does not use recruitment centres to recruit soldiers, but uses Internet forums, which are unfortunately filled with impressionable people who are prepared to believe someone who promises them happiness on this earth or elsewhere.
They have no country, no land. They have only enemies that they have learned to hate and detest. They have only enemies that they must destroy, kill, rape. These soldiers have nothing to lose but their illusions, and they are convinced that dying will bring them even closer to victory over their enemies.
The so-called Islamic State is a threat to the entire world. As I said earlier, this insidious war is nothing like the other major conflicts we courageously fought over the centuries. Our enemy can choose any battlefield. No one is immune. We have even experienced it here, in Canada.
Fortunately for us, our enemy chose to concentrate on a very specific area by calling all its sympathizers to arms in the hopes that it could take advantage of a people's suffering and the disorganization of areas already at war to gain credibility and claim territory. It is shamelessly stealing that territory from local populations.
We have a unique opportunity to live in a country where it is still possible to live a life free from war. I am very grateful for that. Even if everything goes well, Canada is not immune. We know that. People died here in Canada, victims of this terrible war. I do not like this war, but we have to fight it. We cannot turn a blind eye. The ocean and the miles of land that separate us from the battlefield do not make us immune.
As long as these soldiers without a country believe they have a chance of winning the war, they will continue to target innocent people. Unfortunately, just recently, the so-called Islamic State won a victory as a result of our weakness. A member of the coalition decided to withdraw from the combat zone. Without dropping a single bomb on that country, the so-called Islamic state brought it to its knees. The longer the conflict goes on, the more such victories ISIS will win.
Unfortunately, this government's decision to withdraw the CF-18s from the mission is the sort of victory ISIS is looking for. For purely political reasons, the Liberal government granted ISIS this moral victory. There is still time for the government to change things and take away this moral victory it gave ISIS. It is by leaving our CF-18s where they are that we will send ISIS the right message.