Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is being disingenuous when he suggests that the rules of engagement for fighter jets are the same across the board. Nothing supplants force protection that is provided by having our own fighter jets in theatre. Their first role is to protect our forces on the ground. The parliamentary secretary should know better than to suggest that by having other fighter jets there that our troops are just as well protected. That will not happen if there is a full-scale attack on other coalition partners. The first line of defence for those coalition planes is to protect their own troops on the ground before Canadian troops.
The words that the parliamentary secretary is using diminish the major role that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Air Force played in the combat mission.
We are not saying that there is anything wrong with increasing the training mission and doing more on the ground as is happening, but there is a role from the combat side. We should not be backing away when everybody else is stepping up.
Prime Minister David Cameron said in the British Debates back in November, “we should not be content with outsourcing our security to our allies. If we believe that action can help protect us, then, with our allies, we should be part of that action, not—”