Deepak Obhrai

[Business of Supply, December 10th, 2015]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate you as well for being in the chair.

I am pretty surprised about the resources she says were not properly funded. This mission was properly funded. The approval of this mission was done in the House of Commons. There was a debate here and everybody had a chance to speak, and it was very clear that it was absolutely funded. I do not know what she is talking about, that this is not funded.

I hope the Liberal government, before it does anything, will bring it to the House so we can debate this here like the Conservative government did. We are a little concerned. For example, on electoral reform, the Liberals do not want to have a referendum. Therefore, I do not know if they will consult us with this change in their plans.

[Business of Supply, December 10th, 2015]

Madam Speaker, I agree with the member that air strikes are not the only way to defeat ISIL. It is only one way of weakening ISIL, not defeating it, but weakening it so that it is powerless.

Do members remember the town of Kobani, which ISIL was going to take over and the whole community was under threat, or the Yazidis, who were massacred by the ISIL group in that state and the large graves that were found? Do you not think we should go to fight and stop all of these refugees from coming out of there? The government has just taken 25,000 refugees out of the million refugees that are over there. I have visited those camps in Turkey and everywhere else. That is why it is important to take on ISIL and fight it, so that the minorities are safe in their own country and in that country. That is why it is important and why I say it is one of the tools that we need to go ahead and fight ISIL.

[Business of Supply, December 10th, 2015]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise to speak on my first debate in the 42nd Parliament.

Before I begin, I want to take this opportunity to thank my constituents of Calgary Forest Lawn and Calgary East for electing me for the seventh time, and for having put their trust in me again. I want to say a very big thanks to them.

I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for South Surrey—White Rock.

The motion today is to continue our engagement to fight ISIL. This is now an international human rights issue. Those who sponsor and carry out these horrendous crimes against humanity must be brought before the International Criminal Court and brought to justice, in the same way as the Nuremberg trials were held. However, first we have to defeat them.

Our previous Conservative government brought this current engagement to Parliament and sought its approval. I have participated in numerous debates on this issue of tackling ISIS in this House.

I listened to the Minister of National Defence, and I am not convinced he is on the right path. We are downgrading our engagement by removing the air force and stopping Canadian air strikes.

During debates in the previous Parliament, we found support for this mission from Canadians and from many Liberals, as well as our allies in the international community. Not surprisingly, of course, we never got any support from the NDP.

However, to see the government trying to follow the same NDP logic by downgrading the fight against injustice is doing an injustice, not only to the victims of the terrorist group, but also to future generations who would fall victim to this terrorist group. Paris comes to mind. I can say from experience that when strong action is not taken to fight injustice, its consequences can be devastating.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, the G-8 and neighbours of Iraq held three conferences, in Egypt, Istanbul and Kuwait. I represented Canada at all three of these Iraq meetings. It was an attempt by the international community to stabilize and rebuild Iraq. We all pledged money and help for Iraq, but the Maliki government did not take it seriously, and our international partners, including us, did not demand stronger accountability from his government.

This resulted in the continued weakening of the Iraqi government, to the point where this terror group, ISIL, filled the gap. The results were massacres, rape, killings, and much suffering. The lesson we have to take from this is to take strong action when a threat arises.

Today's motion is asking the government to ensure that our engagement is not downgraded. Canadian air strikes have been successful in engaging the terrorists. Why the government wants to stop this is beyond our understanding. Only today reports say that the financial chief of ISIS was killed in air strikes. This is a big blow to ISIS.

The question Canadians are asking is this. Are the Liberals serious in fighting ISIS, or are they talking about token support? They keep talking about this robust engagement that is going to come. They keep talking as if there is a vacuum right now in the war against the terrorists. The Liberals are forgetting that Canada has been engaged, not only on humanitarian grounds but in training peshmerga. I have heard Liberals talking about training peshmerga. They seem to have forgotten the fact that has been going on, through the motion that was passed by the previous Conservative government.

I do not understand where this robust thing is going to come from. It is already there. Why does the government want to take away what is already a successful engagement against this terrorist group? It is beyond anybody's understanding.

I know the defence minister served in Afghanistan. However, I was on the House of Commons special committee on Afghanistan, which was there to oversee our mission in Afghanistan, recommended by former Liberal foreign minister John Manley. I travelled with the committee to Afghanistan and saw our operations first-hand.

The Taliban is still a threat today. Only yesterday it attacked the Kandahar airport, where over 50 people are now confirmed dead.

Have we abandoned Afghanistan? No. However, the presence of American forces is what is keeping Afghanistan safe today. It could easily revert to becoming another region where terror and terrorists reign. Therefore, the government must engage with ISIS to destroy it, before it destroys us.

Britain went through a debate as to whether it would perform air strikes. Because of the threat posed by ISIS, it has now changed its mind and is engaging in air strikes.

Let us look at France, Britain, the U.S.A., and the other neighbouring countries, like Jordan and Iran, that engaged in air strikes to stop ISIL because they recognized it as a threat.

We say that we will stop it, and then we say that we will find a robust and better way of doing it. I have heard others say today that we should let the others carry the burden and we can stand on the sidelines.

When we go to the Remembrance Day parades and talk to the veterans who have fought for the freedom of this country and I listen to their stories, it is evident that the reason they have put their lives on the line is for our freedom and our country's freedom. They went out and they fought. They did not run away like this Liberal government wants us to run away from the air strikes. It is beyond my understanding.

Everyone talks about the great job being done by our air force. Our armed forces are well trained. When the previous Liberal government was in power, it cut the military expenditures, to the point where our armed forces were no longer effective, creating a period of darkness. The Conservative government invested in the armed forces, and today it is doing an excellent job in Iraq and wherever else it is deployed. We are all proud of the excellent work they have been doing, including the members on the Liberal side.

Therefore, I do not understand why the Liberals want to pull out. Time after time, I have heard the argument that we should provide humanitarian assistance. If there is no security on the ground, what is the point of humanitarian assistance? Where do they think it will go? It will not go to the people who need it. First and foremost, there is a need for security, and that security can only come if we take up the fight. That is why this motion is very apt. If the Liberals do not support it, so be it. However, Canadians will support this motion, and we will stand to fight against ISIL.

[Business of Supply, December 10th, 2015]

Madam Speaker, I am quite surprised listening to the member's background that he was in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan, considering that he feels that humanitarian assistance and diplomacy is what will work in that region and not military and that he would like to withdraw.

Let me remind him that I was also engaged with diplomacy and everything in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq. I can say from our experience, without having strong action being taken, if we had taken very strong actions with the Maliki government when it was in power, ISIS would not have had the opportunity to do the horrendous crimes that it did and is doing right now.

I am extremely surprised that the member is talking about actually withdrawing. Making it even worse, he is telling the coalition to do it and we should not. That is exactly what he just said. Let others carry the burden and we will stay home. That is something we will not agree with.

[Business of Supply, December 9th, 2015]

Be very careful before you say that.

[Business of Supply, December 9th, 2015]

Mr. Chair, the question is whether the Canadian military will be used in any capacity to deliver humanitarian assistance to the Syrian refugees.

[Business of Supply, December 9th, 2015]

Mr. Chair, boiling down that question, can the minister tell us how much humanitarian assistance aid money is going toward helping the Syrian refugees? How much? The total amount.

[Business of Supply, December 9th, 2015]

Mr. Chair, the United Nations assesses countries. In this case, UNHCR has already assessed us for how to help refugees around the world. Now the government is asking it to do some more work in bringing 25,000 refugees.

Would that assessment be increased and, if it is to be increased, has the minister included that in the estimates he is presenting here?

[Business of Supply, December 9th, 2015]

Mr. Chair, there are three elements to this refugee crisis.

The first is to bring the refugees in, and my colleagues have very quickly pointed out that there is no real plan and that there are huge shortfalls that the minister cannot answer.

The second is to help the refugees in that part of the world. My colleague just talked about UNHCR and the assessment that will come from it.

The third will be the military element, which we will be talking about tomorrow.

My question for the minister is this. Has he looked at using Canadian NGOs to assist at the refugee camps in helping them? That is far cheaper than going to the UNHCR. Has he had a look at that as a proposal?

[International Development, December 7th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it is vital that our government provide assistance to Syrian refugees, but security on the ground is key to provide aid to those vulnerable people. Our Conservative government understood this importance of both engaging ISIL militarily and providing aid, but the new government has decided to sit on the sidelines on one flank, making it even more dangerous for the people still in the camps.

Will the Minister of International Development explain the logic of helping the victims of war while not engaging the aggressor?