Hélène Laverdière

[Health, March 8th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, unsafe abortions account for 13% of maternal mortality in the world. If we really want to save lives then we must do something about this.

Why is the Minister of International Development upholding the Conservative policy and refusing to fund abortion services abroad where it is permitted? It is legal in several countries.

Why is she refusing to defend the rights of women around the world?

[National Defence, February 25th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, during the election campaign, the leader of the Liberal Party was unequivocal: if he was elected, Canada would not buy F-35 stealth fighter jets. Now we have learned that the government is going to spend more than $45 million to remain in the F-35 joint strike fighter program.

I would like to know why. Why is the minister spending our money on F-35s that he does not want to buy?

[Foreign Affairs, February 23rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, we want transparency, but it is long overdue. The government took an interest in this situation yesterday, but we have been talking about it for months.

The government's policy is clear: before arms can be sold abroad, the government must ensure that they will not end up in a combat zone and will not be used to violate human rights.

However, we have now learned that Canadian arms sold to Saudi Arabia have fallen into the hands of fighters in the Yemen civil war.

Can the minister confirm whether that is the case, and will he commit to making public the assessment that his department had to make before allowing arms exports to Saudi Arabia?

[Foreign Affairs, February 23rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, reports suggest that Canadian arms sold to Saudi Arabia are falling into the hands of fighters in the Yemen civil war. Armoured vehicles made in Canada and bought in the last decade appear to be used by the Saudis themselves in the same civil war.

Government policy is clear: an assessment of human rights has to be conducted before allowing arms exports.

Can the minister confirm that arms made in Canada are being used in Yemen? Will he make public, finally, the assessment made before the sale of these arms?

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 23rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for what I think is a very important question.

The hon. member will understand that we do not agree with keeping CF-18s in the region. However, it is true that the government seems to want to have its cake and eat it too. It says one thing and does another. It is withdrawing from the combat mission, but when we take a look at the details, it really is not withdrawing from it at all. There seems to be a pattern here because we have seen this attitude before on other issues where the government opposed certain things, but voted in favour of them. It is rather interesting.

I would like the government to provide more clarity, including on the issue of whether or not this is a combat mission, as I said in my short speech. The government owes Canadians and the men and women in the armed forces the truth.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 23rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, but I disagree with him on one important point.

My colleague says that all one needs to do is read the motion. One needs to read the motion and the background papers and hear answers from the minister to get at the reality of things.

General Vance says there is a risk of more casualties as a result of the training we will be doing. If we have in-theatre transportation, if we just continue, there is nothing to indicate that the mission will be changed from what it was before. This means targeting at the front line. This means our military personnel will be spending a significant amount of time at the front line with the Kurds. Our Liberal colleagues say that our troops are ready to fight on the ground.

We have to go a bit beyond the motion, take all of this into account, and everyone will see that it is a combat mission.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 23rd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by stating that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.

Of course we all agree that ISIL is committing horrendous crimes, absolutely barbaric acts in Iraq and Syria, and furthermore, that it poses a threat to global security. We all agree that, basically, we need to destroy ISIL, destroy its message of hate, and I think we need to do it without creating other monsters at the same time.

Last week the government finally unveiled its plan to address this huge challenge. I will begin by saying right away that some aspects of this plan are interesting, at least on paper and in principle. This includes the increase in humanitarian assistance, something that we have been calling for for some time. I am happy to see plans to increase our humanitarian assistance.

Development assistance is another thing we have been calling for for some time, and I am pleased to see it in the plan, to prevent the destabilization from spreading throughout the region and into fragile countries like Lebanon and Jordan.

Furthermore, there is no doubt that diplomatic efforts will be a key element of the solution to this problem.

It all looks good on paper, but there are gaping holes. First is the issue of the combat mission. It is a combat mission even though the government refuses to acknowledge it. During the election campaign when the Liberals said that they would withdraw the CF-18s, I think most people understood that Canada would stay away from the military mission and put the emphasis elsewhere. It is a strange way of withdrawing from the combat mission.

When it comes to the air strikes, let us be honest, we will not have CF-18s any more, but we will provide refuelling, targeting, all kinds of things. We are still participating in the bombing mission.

Then we are going to triple the troops on the ground and we are doing so with no clear parameters, no exit strategy, and no criteria for success or when we feel we have achieved what we want to achieve. It is a combat mission, and it is a combat mission with boots on the ground. We know that under the Conservative government, the troops were spending a significant part of their time on the front lines. Sergeant Doiron died on the front line. Now we are tripling those troops and General Vance has acknowledged that we are increasing the risk to our troops.

It was interesting this morning when I heard some Liberal MPs say in their speeches that the government is ready to fight ISIL on the ground. If this is not a combat mission, what is it? Is it an elephant? Interestingly, the Prime Minister, while in opposition, said the government must be clear about what is and is not a combat role. Now the government is using the same ambiguity. The government should acknowledge that this is a combat mission. It owes it to Canadians and, above all, it owes it to the troops themselves, the men and women serving in the forces.

We are also going to give arms to the Kurds. We cannot even track the arms that we are selling to Saudi Arabia, which are now finding their way to Yemen. Who knows what we are going to learn tomorrow? What exactly is the government going to do to make sure that those arms are not used for the wrong ends or do not fall into the wrong hands?

Will the training of the Kurds only be about fighting? Maybe human rights and respect for international law should be included, because this is part of the problem. I say so because there are recent reports from Amnesty International saying that in their fight, the Kurds have possibly committed war crimes, so the training certainly needs to include that.

There are other issues. The plan talks generally about governance, but there is no detail. There is not much information.

What exactly is the government going to do about governance? Apparently it is going to send advisers to the ministry of defence. I think that has more to do with gathering intelligence. There is so much that needs to be done with respect to governance. ISIL got a foothold in the country because of the breakdown of Iraqi society. We have to work on that or else it will be ISIL today and some other armed group tomorrow.

Why not get involved in facilitating a reconciliation process in Iraq? That is the only way to solve the problem for the long term. The same goes for diplomatic engagement. They talk about diplomatic engagement, which is great, but what then? What exactly are they proposing?

Some of the core elements of our UN mandate are critical to defeating ISIL, not only in the Middle East and Libya, but around the world. We must cut off its supply of arms, money, and fighters. The Liberal plan has little if anything to say about that.

One thing that really bothers me is that there is nothing here about deradicalization. We know that the attacks in Paris, Jakarta, and Ouagadougou, which bolstered the will to destroy not just the armed group, but its hateful ideology, were carried out by people who were homegrown radicals. Why does the Liberal plan not even touch on deradicalization?

I have just a few minutes to say that I am afraid we may be repeating the errors of the past. We have tried to rely on the military approach in various parts of the world and, unfortunately, the result is not that good. In fact, we may have been winning battles for the last 20, 30 or 40 years, but losing the war on terrorism.

It is a new kind of war, a war of the 21st century. It is a war of propaganda and it is a war that breeds on chaos and unaddressed grievances.

We hear that some of the towns that have been retaken are completely destroyed. Seemingly 80% of Ramadi has been reduced to rubble. The population cannot go back there.

After the attacks in Paris and in parts of Europe, certain rules of engagement have been relaxed, which will inevitably mean more civilian casualties. Are we creating more chaos? Are we creating more grievances? If so, we are just exacerbating the problem.

Let us give hope to what I think can actually work. Yes, indeed, humanitarian assistance will work, but above all, cutting what has sustained these groups—arms, money, and foreign fighters—and let us try to find a political solution both in Syria and Iraq.

[National Defence, February 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, last year the Liberals criticized the previous government and its rather loose definition of a combat mission.

At the time, the Prime Minister's current adviser on foreign affairs said that the mission in Iraq was a combat mission. He called on the Conservatives to be more honest with Canadians. Now we have a new Prime Minister and the mission has been expanded, but we still do not have a clear answer.

Will the minister stop denying the facts and admit that our soldiers are engaged in a combat mission?

[Business of Supply, February 18th, 2016]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. The Government of Canada has a list of safe countries, and Hungary is on the list of safe countries, despite what we are seeing happen in that country.

[Business of Supply, February 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I completely agree that it is important to deal with the issue of anti-Semitism. We must combat all forms of exclusion or hate, including anti-Semitism.

However, we have unfortunately seen an appalling increase in acts of anti-Semitism in Hungary in recent years, and his government put Hungary on the list of safe countries.

Could my colleague explain the logic there?