Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise two nights in a row for the late show, along with my friend, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence. I will give him a chance to reiterate his comments from last night. I understand the answer was provided to the October 26 debate, in which I first raised this question, to the question I raised yesterday, which was October 27. Today's question is about the transparency of the government as it relates to what our troops are doing in Iraq.
So far, the government has put a veil of secrecy around what our troops are doing in Operation Impact in Iraq. It really does play to this overall level of control that we have not witnessed of the government in controlling the flow of information about our military back to Canadians and Parliament, so that we can do our job as opposition and hold the government to account, which is a fundamental role of making sure that our parliamentary democracy works.
I know the parliamentary secretary last night wanted to talk about all the technical briefings the government has done. In less than a year and a half, when the Conservatives were government back in 2014-15, 19 technical briefings were held on what the troops were doing and what the air force was doing in the combat mission against ISIS in support of our allies, including the Kurds and the Iraqi security forces. Canadians were able to see the benefit of our troops being in theatre.
There have only been four technical briefings in a year and a half, since the government came to power. We appreciate those technical briefings when they happen, but we were also told at the last technical briefing that took place that for operational security reasons, the government is no longer going to be sharing this information.
We know for a fact that this mission, which was an air combat mission, was expanded into a training mission. The Liberals pulled our CF-18s out of the fight against ISIS. We were supportive of having more boots on the ground to do the advise and assist, the command and control, and the training to work with our Kurdish peshmerga partners and Iraqi security forces, among other allies, in getting rid of ISIS. As we witness today, it is paying off in multitudes by pushing ISIS out of Mosul and Iraq.
We know that our troops are doing more. Images have come from the front line showing Canadian troops, not in an advise and assist role anymore but actually providing cover by using anti-tank weaponry to stop any attacks coming at the peshmerga or Iraqi positions as they are pushing ISIS out of Mosul. All of these images are getting posted through other media means, whether it is social media, Iraqi television, or other foreign media sources. Canadians expect more transparency from the government, not a veil of secrecy, not the iron fist over the dome of silence, to tell Canadians what a great job our troops are doing and the risks that they are taking.
It is important that the Liberal government share the facts with Canadians so that we know what our troops are doing and whether we can hold the government to account.