Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra.
The question we are debating today is the following: should we send our troops to Iraq on a combat mission?
As members of Parliament, we must all carefully consider the issues before us before making an informed and extremely serious decision.
Our decision will have heavy and lasting consequences. We are talking about going to war. Needless to say, the 308 members of the House will have to live with the consequences of this decision, which will be voted on shortly.
There are many points in the government's motion with which the Liberal Party agrees: the evil that is ISIL, the need for a broad coalition to take on ISIL, the need to provide far greater humanitarian assistance to the million-plus victims displaced by the advance of ISIL, and the need for Canada to contribute to the coalition. No party can claim the high ground in condemning ISIL. We all forcefully condemn this abhorrent, barbaric group of terrorists. None of that is open to question.
The question is, what should Canada do in order to contribute in the best possible manner to the collective effort to defeat ISIL?
When that question is posed, there is a fundamental and consequential second question that follows: should we contribute to a combat or a non-combat mission? That is what we are debating today.
Let me say from the outset that the Prime Minister has failed to make a clear case for a Canadian combat role in Iraq at this time. The Prime Minister is taking us across the Rubicon by deciding on a combat mission. Once a country makes that decision, there is no turning back the clock.
When the government announced the first mission to Iraq, namely sending special forces to advise and train Kurdish forces, my party gave its support. We clearly recognize the need to do something to help Iraq. We believe that beyond a combat mission, there are a number of ways a country can contribute to protecting the citizens of another country.
In early September, I visited the Kurdish region of Iraq, so I have an idea of the complexity of the military challenge, as well as the extent of the humanitarian catastrophe. Canada cannot stand idly by. We must not only contribute much more than the $29 million already sent in humanitarian aid, but also help in other ways. I am very pleased to know that the government just added a new contribution of $10 million. That brings us to the contribution that the Prime Minister announced on Friday.
The Prime Minister has proposed six CF-18 strike aircraft as the centrepiece of our contribution, thereby opting for a Canadian combat role. This leads to the obvious question: has the Canadian mission been clearly and fully defined? The answer is no.
Defining a mission is much more than stating what assets we will contribute and then establishing a deadline. Going to war is an extraordinarily complex undertaking, and it has to be thought through.
Let me give the House an example. When George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, he only thought out step one, which was to capture Baghdad. After that, what? We saw what happened because of the failure to understand the overall challenge.
At this moment, the United States will lead in this coalition effort, and it is still working out an overall coalition strategy to defeat ISIL. This is the job given to General Allen. It is an extremely complex undertaking that rests on the assumption that Iraqi forces must eventually dislodge and defeat ISIL in a ground campaign. Should Canada be rushing in with an air combat mission? The answer is no.
In the end, when we are talking about a combat role, getting in seems very straightforward, but getting out is much less so. The right approach is certainly not to say that Canada will go into Iraq with strike aircraft but may pull out in six months. The right approach is to give the most careful consideration to our objectives before we send our men and women into harm's way. That has not been done by the government.
However, there is something that we can do at this time. There are significant, substantial non-combat roles that Canada can play, and to suggest that our contribution has no value unless we are contributing to a combat role is offensive to me.
There are as many as 60 partners in the coalition, and each has chosen to contribute in their own way to the defeat of ISIL, whether by providing weapons, base facilities, strategic airlift, humanitarian aid, surveillance and other intelligence, or advice in training. All this is to say there are many different ways to contribute, and they are all important.
It has been said that when it comes to sharing the burden of military intervention, the sacrifice that counts lies in the willingness to take casualties, and last Friday the Prime Minister said that “...being a free rider means not being taken seriously.”
I really object to that comment. It implies that we are taking the easy way out if we choose to contribute to the war effort in other ways.
Did the Prime Minister really say, last Friday, that Canada would not be taken seriously if it contributed to the coalition by any means other than a combat mission with air strikes?
Are the majority of partners of this coalition less engaged or, in the words of the Prime Minister, less noble, because they choose to contribute to defeating ISIL by other means?
Let me say that I also dispute the Prime Minister's assertion that air strikes are the hard thing to do, and his implication, by extension, that other roles are easy or require less courage.
It is hard work on the ground to train and advise forces, help refugees, provide medical aid, undertake air surveillance, provide strategic airlift, and provide humanitarian aid. While these tasks are not combat roles, they are still important tasks, many needing to be performed by our military.
I would also challenge his assertion that we are somehow abandoning our allies if we opt out of air strikes. Nobody has accused Canada of not pulling its weight in the past 20 years, or indeed, during the entire period that we have been a country.
Ultimately, defeating ISIL will only happen on the ground. There are important non-combat contributions Canada can make in this effort.
Let me conclude. There is a clear line between non-combat and combat. If the Prime Minister wants to take us, in Canada, across that line, he must make the case to Canadians as to why.
The Prime Minister has not given us reason to believe that once in combat the government will be able to limit our role. Once the line is crossed into combat, as the government is doing, it is no simple matter to cross back over. We all know that this conflict is likely to last a long time.
Deciding in six months to pull out of combat could be very problematic for Canada, depending on the situation, and the pressure will be on us to remain. That is why the Liberal Party of Canada will not support the Prime Minister's motion to take on a combat role in Iraq. Saying we will review it in six months is not an exit strategy.
We have the capabilities to meaningfully assist, in a non-combat role, in a well-defined international mission in Iraq.
There are more than just the two extreme options of, on the one hand, refusing any military role and, on the other, having Canada rush into combat without understanding all the consequences.
It is incumbent upon us to make the right decision when we vote on this mission.
