Pierre-Luc Dusseault

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, April 21st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and for telling it like it is. He had no qualms about saying that the Conservatives are politicizing issues at the expense of certain segments of the population, inmates in this case.

When offenders with addiction problems enter prison, no emphasis is put on treating their addiction and no program is offered to help them overcome their addiction while they are there. They are given no resources. They are told they have to figure out how to overcome their addiction themselves if they want to get early parole. Those who do not manage to do so will eventually leave prison with the same addiction problems.

What does my colleague think will happen if we stay on this same path, if we do not change this policy and if inmates keep getting released with the same addiction problems?

[Drug-Free Prisons Act, April 21st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech on Bill C-12. As is the case with many bills, this bill's title is surprising because it is an impressive title about fixing a serious problem. I have a hard time believing that the clauses in this bill will truly do what the title implies they will, which is to make our prisons drug-free.

Could the member tell us what she thinks about the titles this government loves to give its bills? The titles are misleading, because at the end of the day the bills do not achieve what the titles imply they will. Could she give us her opinion on how the Conservative government gives its bills nice titles that do not pan out?

[Petitions, April 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by hundreds of people from Sherbrooke.

The petitioners are calling for the release of Raif Badawi and, most importantly, they are calling on the federal government to use all the diplomatic means at their disposal to pressure the Saudi Arabian government to ultimately release Raif Badawi. Mr. Badawi is in prison simply because he expressed his views in a blog.

I am presenting this petition on behalf of these people from Sherbrooke. I hope to get a response, but more to the point, I hope to see the government take action on this matter. That is what the petitioners are calling for.

[Leader of the Official Opposition, March 31st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about a very special day. On March 23, we had the immense privilege and honour of welcoming the Leader of the Official Opposition to Sherbrooke.

He did not come to Sherbrooke for photo ops, or to make an appearance and leave without proposing anything concrete to the people of Sherbrooke. No, on the contrary, he arrived in Sherbrooke with concrete proposals and clear commitments.

First he visited one of Sherbrooke's flourishing and innovative companies, Surplec HV Solutions, where he presented his plan to support small and medium-sized enterprises. Then he met with Ensaf Haidar, the wife of Raif Badawi. The opposition leader promised to ask the Prime Minister some questions about Mr. Badawi's situation and followed through on that promise two days later.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the commitment my leader made about the Sherbrooke airport: an NDP government will resolve this issue once and for all. This is something the Conservatives have failed to do since coming to power.

I want to thank the leader of the NDP for his clear commitments to Sherbrooke. On October 20, the day after the election, we will finally have a prime minister who truly knows and cares about our region.

[Safe and Accountable Rail Act, March 31st, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to ask my colleague a question about railway safety. My riding is actually very close to Lac-Mégantic, or just over an hour from the area that was severely affected by a rail disaster, as all my colleagues know.

I am pleased to see that some measures might reassure residents and allay their fears. What I hear most from the people living in the Eastern Townships and Lac-Mégantic is that they want the companies responsible for the spills or railway accidents to also be responsible for the costs resulting from a disaster. These accidents are unfortunate and there will probably be more of them because the number of cars transporting oil is increasing and the quality of the infrastructure seems to be decreasing. Therefore, these disasters could well happen again, as we have seen in northern Ontario.

Could the government member reassure the people of Lac-Mégantic and the Eastern Townships about corporate responsibility in the event of a spill that causes irreparable damage?

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly share the concerns of the people of Guelph.

Going into Syria poses a number of problems with respect to international law. To say that a group that poses a threat to Canada is a good reason to bomb another country, even though that group is not even a recognized state, creates a dangerous precedent, so the people of Guelph have every reason to be concerned.

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

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

I agree that we need to confront this problem. Where we disagree, however, is on the role Canada should play. We should determine that role by looking at what resolutions international organizations like the UN have adopted. The United Nations Security Council has adopted three resolutions on Iraq, and none of them authorizes military action.

The United Nations Security Council is calling for action to prevent the influx of foreign fighters and the funding of terrorist organizations, including ISIL. Putting pressure on governments in the region to prevent cash transfers to ISIL is a real diplomatic effort that Canada can and should prioritize. That would be effective. These UN resolutions give Canada a mandate and a role to play.

We need to combat the rise of extremism and terrorism, both inside and outside our borders, by taking action against radicalization. However, I am not hearing anything about that from the other side of the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the House for the opportunity to speak to the very important motion we are debating today. I am pleased to be addressing parliamentarians on behalf of the people of Sherbrooke, who have afforded me the privilege of being here today.

This is a very important motion. As parliamentarians, one of the most important decisions we must make is to deploy the men and women in uniform who defend Canada on our behalf. This is clearly the most important decision that we are asked to make.

Therefore, it is with a great sense of responsibility and duty that I will make this decision. I will try to state my position as clearly as possible, a position that I share with many of my colleagues who have already spoken on this subject.

I would like to go back to the beginning of the Canadian mission in Iraq, which the government now wants to expand into Syria. In the beginning, the mission proposed by the government was to last 30 days. It simply consisted of advising the Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers.

However, when those 30 days had passed, the government made a request to extend the mission by six months. Six months ago, we also debated a motion about this mission in Iraq. Today, the government is asking us to vote on extending that mission for another year. We went from 30 days to six months to a year, and each time, we had to ask dozens of questions to try to get clear and consistent answers from the government.

People like me who watch question period every day noticed that the government kept contradicting itself. For example, some ministers were saying two different things about whether we would accompany or assist Iraqi troops. Contradictory answers were given about whether or not our soldiers would be engaging in combat and whether or not they would be near the front lines. How can the government say that our soldiers are far from the front lines when they were only 200 metres away?

In that respect, an unfortunate incident occurred not that long ago. One of our soldiers lost his life for his country. I want to express my sincere condolences to his entire family and to thank them. This soldier gave his life for our country. He was 200 metres from the front lines, when the government told us that our troops were two kilometres away from Islamic State positions. Two kilometres may seem like a lot but it really is not in situations such as this. Unlike the Americans, who did not get that close to the front, our government allowed Canadian soldiers to get only 200 metres away. That also shows that the government is not giving us clear answers about what our soldiers are doing. Just in the past few days, we heard new contradictory remarks.

This time, they had to do with the purpose of the mission. Will the government say that the mission has been accomplished when the Islamic State's capacities have been degraded, when the group has been eliminated completely or when it has been stopped in its tracks? The government has been describing the goal of the mission in several different ways.

Sometimes their descriptions were even contradictory. Has the government earned our trust? That is the question I asked myself when I was assessing the motion and deciding how to vote. Can we trust the government, based on the seven months that have passed since the start of Canada's mission? The answer is no. As the leader of the official opposition clearly demonstrated on Tuesday, any trust we might have had in this government going forward was broken as a result of its contradictory statements and unclear information.

I will not vote in favour of the main motion today for several reasons. As I just said, I cannot trust the government going forward. In addition, there is a lot missing from this motion. As military experts have said, there are two things we are supposed to have when deciding to engage in a mission: a clear and specific objective, and a planned exit strategy. We cannot simply get on a plane and leave, as the government is implying. It is more complicated than that. Military strategies are more complicated than getting on a plane and leaving. It is rather rich to hear Conservative ministers say that it is as simple as that.

Thus, there are these two things: establishing whether there is a clear objective and whether there is a clear and well-defined end to this mission. The answer is obviously no. That much is obvious.

Earlier I mentioned that there are several definitions for the end of the mission. Some ministers spoke about degradation and others about annihilation. The ultimate objective of the mission is not clear. When will the government say that Canada has done its part, that the mission has been accomplished and that we are withdrawing? It is not clear. We cannot support a mission that, in our view, does not have a defined objective and is still unclear. In this case, the objective is vague to say the least.

We are supposed to learn from our past mistakes. When we make a mistake, we try not to repeat it. However, if we look at the outcome of George W. Bush's war, which began in 2003, the results are mixed. After many years in Iraq, the results of the U.S. government's efforts in that conflict are uncertain.

The situation we are in today might, to a certain extent, be a result of that conflict, which created a situation and internal conflicts in that country. Perhaps the impact of those conflicts is being felt today. The resulting situations are certainly not pleasant for the civilians in those countries.

The Conservative Prime Minister supported the war back then; he was in the opposition. We might ask ourselves whether the mission being proposed reflects the Prime Minister's desire to go back to his 2003 position, which was to wage war. We could say that this is the Prime Minister's war and it has no legal basis. This will be my last point, since I do not have a lot of time left.

Today, we are talking about the motion to expand the war into Syria. I will not repeat the entire argument made so well by my colleague from Toronto—Danforth, but the legal basis is questionable and unfounded. We are having a hard time getting answers from the government on this legal basis. If the government wants to move forward, it will have to prove that there is a legal basis in international law.

Without that, I cannot support the one-year extension of the mission in Iraq.

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

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

I would like to pick up on a question that a lot of Canadians are asking and that many MPs have asked, because it is hard to get an answer. At what point will the government be able to say that the mission has been accomplished?

We have heard several definitions of “mission accomplished” from various ministers. Some say that it is about degrading the resources and capabilities of these groups; others say that it is about defeating or completely annihilating them.

Can the member tell us at what point the Conservative government will be able to say that the mission has been accomplished and whether it is even realistically possible to permanently annihilate terrorist groups like the one we are talking about today?

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

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

I wonder if my colleague can help us understand the vague objective of Canada's mission in Iraq, which the government is now trying to demonstrate. There seems to be no clearly defined objective for the end of the mission in Iraq.

The problem is that the government has decided to undertake a combat mission without having a clearly defined objective at the outset about when the mission will end and when we will be able to withdraw our soldiers from all of these conflicts.

Can my colleague comment on the problem of not identifying a clear end to this mission?