Jason Kenney

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am again hearing in this speech the NDP's empty rhetoric and the pacifist ideology that refuses to consider the complexity of the situation. He is talking about a simplistic approach based on dropping bombs.

Does he really think that the approach of Canada or the 24 other allies involved in military action against this genocidal terrorist organization is just randomly to send bombs, or as one of the NDP MPs said to bomb here and there, bomb east and west? This is the House of Commons. This place deserves a serious debate, not just a bunch of slogans from protest signs.

Of course we do not believe that military action alone can resolve the problem of this emerging caliphate. However, we also are realistic enough to understand that while military action is not sufficient, it is necessary. It is necessary, to push ISIL back, away from the territory that it has gained so that the indigenous people of those areas can go back to their homes and live, one hopes, one day with security and peace.

My question for the member is this. I have posed this to a number of New Democratic MPs and none of them has even come within a mile of answering it. Every organization in Canada representing the Assyrian, Chaldean, Mandean, Yazidi, Iraqi Canadian communities support military action against ISIL. Is this member willing to meet with them and tell them that they are all wrong?

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, if I am not mistaken, I think the member used the word “crusade”. If that is the case, I hope that, as a reasonable member, he will withdraw it. It is very delicate and irresponsible to use such a word in this context.

The member asked if we have created safe places for religious or ethnic minorities in Iraq. The answer of course is no, because Daesh still controls the Nineveh Plains, the central region of northern Iraq, which is the historic home of the Christians, Assyrians, Yazidis and all those small minority groups.

Furthermore, I am very familiar with that diaspora in Canada. There representatives were here this week. All of those communities and minorities being persecuted by Daesh in Iraq support the use of military force against Daesh, because they understand that there is no other way to win back their historic territories and create a safe place for those communities.

Why does the member not agree with the victims of Daesh?

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, there were a number of mistruths in the member's speech.

For example, he said the government has not been clear about our objective. We could not be more clear. Our objective is, in co-operation with our allies, to degrade the so-called Islamic State to the point where it can no longer pose a threat to Canada or the international community and, I would add, to degrade it to a point where it no longer has the seductive power to radicalize or recruit individuals, including Canadians. That is how I would characterize defeating that organization.

He says that we are in a quagmire but then goes on to quote an article saying we have only contributed six aircraft and 69 ground personnel. Which is it? In terms of a quagmire and a so-called exit strategy, it is very simple. Once Canada believes we have achieved our objective or we are no longer able to make a useful contribution, we bring back the aircraft—nine, actually—and the 69 ground personnel.

He says humanitarian support is an alternative to what we are doing. No, it is not, because we are already doing humanitarian support with the largest per capita contribution of any developed country, the fifth-largest contribution overall, at nearly $70 million.

He says we do not know the cost. That is not true. We revealed the costs of the mission for the first six months in this fiscal year and we have revealed the estimated costs of the mission going forward.

He says that we require sanction from the United Nations. Is it now the position of the NDP that President Vladimir Putin and the Chinese Politburo should have a veto on Canadian foreign policy?

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where to begin with that speech. The member said that the coalition response to this genocidal terrorist organization is what is creating civilian displacement. Frankly, what planet is she living on?

One hundred percent of the civilian displacement has been caused by this genocidal organization that is trying to create a seventh-century caliphate through ethnic cleansing, mass rape, sexual slavery, and barbarism of the worst kind. This is why people have been displaced from their communities. This is why the Assyrians, Yazidis, and Mandaeans of the Nineveh Plains had to flee after that being their homeland for millennia

I happen to know the Iraqi Canadian community quite well. It was a result of, frankly, my initiative in 2009 to open the largest refugee resettlement program in 25 years, in which we have welcomed more than 20,000 Iraqi refugees.

I know them quite well. We had a bunch of them here this week from the Kurdish community, the Yazidi community, and the Assyrian, Chaldean, Kurdish, Sunni Arab, and Shia communities. Every single one of those communities in this country supports the motion, supports the allied military campaign, and is actually calling on us to do more in terms of a military response to protect the civilians, to prevent the displacement of even more civilians.

My question for the member is this. What does she say to those Yazidis, Kurds, Chaldeans, and Assyrians in Canada who are asking for a military response to protect their people and prevent the creation of yet more victims? What is her response to them?

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member just said that we need to prioritize humanitarian assistance. I have good news for him: we have already provided a great deal of assistance.

We have already provided assistance to Syrian refugees by investing more than $700 million, which is the sixth-largest humanitarian aid contribution to Syrians in the world, and the largest per capita among developed countries.

We have spent nearly $70 million to provide humanitarian assistance through the Red Cross and UN agencies for people who are displaced in Iraq as a result of ISIL. That is the fifth-largest financial contribution and the largest per capita in all of the developed world. We have already done this.

My colleague shared all of the typical left-wing anti-American conspiracy theories, and he could not stop talking about George W. Bush, who has not been president of the United States for six years. He blamed the CIA and all of the conspiracy theories.

However, I must point out that the left-wing social democratic governments in Europe, in countries like France, Holland, Belgium and Denmark, as well as the Democratic Party in the United States and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand and almost all of our allies are involved in the military campaigns.

Why do all of the mainstream social democrats abroad, in the democratic world, support our policy of military action and why are the New Democrats the only western social democratic party that is against it?

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the last New Democratic MP to enter the debate characterized my remarks as having being that “we would leave when we had enough”. I would like the minister to comment on that. I do not know if she heard my speech, but that is a complete fabrication. I said no such thing. I said that we had a very clear mission, which neither opposition party seemed to want to hear.

Does the minister not agree with me that our clear objective is to degrade ISIL to a point where it no longer constitutes a threat to Canadian or international security? Does she not agree that this is the clear objective?

Would she not also agree that the government has been extraordinarily transparent here at the second debate on a second motion, with weekly technical briefings for the public and the media, and briefings offered to the opposition? In fact, I do not think any Canadian government has ever been more transparent about a military operation.

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the member's statement was filled with a number of mischaracterizations of the government's policy. I strongly disagree with his conclusions.

First, the member characterized a small number of countries as being involved in the military campaign. In fact, there are 24 countries that have committed military assets to the campaign, amongst which are the social democratic governments of Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and France. As well, other countries with military assets including involvement in the air campaign whose governments' decisions are supported by the social democratic parties are the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and the democratic administration in the United States.

Parties of the centre left all through the democratic world see an urgent security imperative and humanitarian imperative to stop this genocide, to stop the metastasization of this genocidal terrorist organization into actually becoming something resembling a state. Why does the NDP take such a radical departure from the mainstream view on international security of the centre left parties?

Second, the member says we have no clear goal. The goal is very clear. It is to degrade ISIL to the point where it no longer constitutes a security threat to Canada or the world. That is what I characterize as defeating that organization.

The member says there is no exit strategy. We have 600 personnel in Kuwait and 69 in Erbil. The exit strategy is very simple. When the Government of Canada decides that their mission is over, they get on planes and return home.

Would the member please stop repeating this nonsense.

[National Defence, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the terms of the motion for the government's extension are clear for the next 12 months, based on the RCAF commitment of six fighter jets, two surveillance aircraft, a refueller and sixty-nine special operations forces in a training mission near Erbil. That is the mission we are seeking support for from this place.

To get back to the last question, we just had a visit here from Iraqi refugees, among the 21,000 accepted in Canada. They told us to please ask the opposition parties to support this military program because they wanted their people to be able to go back to their homes in Iraq. They want protection for those minorities. That is what they want.

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I should point out that since our government came to office in 2006, we have increased the budget for the Department of National Defence from $14.3 billion in 2005 to $20.1 billion, which will be the full and final estimates for the current fiscal year. That represents a 27% increase, vaster than the increase in inflation or the economy during that period, at a time during which most of our principal allies had been reducing their military budgets in absolute terms.

We increased the automatic escalator for the DND budget so it receives a 2% increase every year, effectively protecting the DND budget from inflation. No other department benefits from that. It also has a special capital accrual budget for procurement of equipment. By the way, next Monday I will be receiving our fifth new C-17 Globemaster strategic airlift airplane at CFB Trenton.

We have made important investments. Most important, the men and women of the forces are able to do the job we assign to them. In many missions Canada has been punching above its weight. We will continue to give them the resources they need.

I can confirm for the House that the government will be allocating to the Department of National Defence incremental resources above its baseline budget to cover the incremental costs associated with Operation Impact in Iraq and Syria.

[Military Contribution Against ISIL, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. He is right because until now the CF-18s that have flown to Kuwait for the air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq have been from CFB Cold Lake. I cannot say exactly which resources will be deployed. That is obviously up to the commanders of our military forces. They will decide which bases and squadrons will participate, depending on their needs and resources.

Which squadrons will be called upon to contribute is a question I will leave to our military commanders to decide in future rotations for the operations out of Kuwait. However, there are periodic rotations of equipment and personnel. We will notify the member in the House if there are changes in this respect.