Mr. Speaker, first I congratulate the member, whom I have known for many years, on his election to this place. This is the first chance I have had to hear him speak in the House.
While I have no doubt that the member is sincere in his words, I strongly disagree with the sentiments he just expressed. He concluded by saying that we must not get ahead of the process and that this House has no business in defining when a genocide has occurred. That is entirely contrary to the practice of this place, which recognized the Armenian genocide as such in a motion that I co-sponsored, not as a result of some international tribunal but as a result of the broadly accepted historical facts. This place recognized the genocidal nature of the Holocaust in the creation of a Holocaust commemoration day. It recognized the Rwandan genocide, prior to any determination by a multilateral tribunal, and it recognized the Holodomor as a genocide, even though that continues to be contested by Vladimir Putin and his propagandists. This place has consistently read history for what it is and has not waited for putative groups of lawyers to tell us what history means, what genocide is.
I find the prevarication of this government on this point not just regrettable but shameful, and it is for a reason. The Liberal Party, which took great pride in advancing the notion of the responsibility to protect at the UN, is opposing the recognition of ISIL's genocide for one reason: its recognition would lead to the inevitable conclusion that we must combat it.
The member said we are contributing to the fight against ISIL in all dimensions of the plan. I regret that is untrue. We are not participating in the single most powerful dimension of the plan against ISIL, and that is combat, because we ended the combat dimension of our air strike campaign against ISIL. How can the member justify ending combat against terrorists engaged in genocide?