Pierre Paul-Hus

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

Mr. Speaker, since we started debating this motion I have noticed that when we ask questions about the mission we never get any answers. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe we are currently deploying our special forces to provide training and security and our medical forces to go into the refugee camps. The last item in the motion refers to welcoming tens of thousands of refugees. We never talk about that part of the motion.

Is the mission becoming a mission to evacuate the people over there? Instead of engaging in combat, we are taking a position and bringing in refugees. Is that the work we are going to do?

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, one thing seems clear: my colleague's speech is very relevant, despite what the member opposite said.

The worst part about this situation is the grey area. During our mission, it was clear. We were conducting air strikes and some of our troops were on the ground providing training. Our soldiers' situation was clear. I still have many friends who are members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and right now, their biggest concerns are related to the grey area. People do not really know what the objective of the mission is.

From what I understood, we are transitioning from a combat mission to a peacekeeping mission. In the meantime, the government is trying to combine the missions. Some people are saying that there will not be any combat while others are saying that there will. Nothing is clear. We are committing to a mission that is not clear and that is the worst thing for our soldiers.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, for the past few days I have been listening to the presentations by our government friends, who would have us believe that their plan is the best possible plan. I would like to start by telling my colleague, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, that this is not a NATO mission. This mission is being conducted by a coalition of countries that is not headed by NATO.

I would like to know what sense today's troops and military members, especially special forces members deployed in Iraq and Syria, will make of this new mission? What will these elite members, who are trained to carry out special operations, think of the fact that they are being sent into the battlefield and told that they are not engaged in combat? How will a military member understand that?

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague said the $1.1 billion in humanitarian assistance should go to civilians. Given that ISIS members are not military personnel per se, since they do not belong to a particular country, does my colleague consider ISIS members to be civilians and could they potentially receive Canadian assistance?

[National Defence, February 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence said that we need to be on the ground to combat the so-called Islamic State. Since he has confirmed that our soldiers are involved in ground operations where they could be exposed to enemy fire, he has the duty to protect them. However, he is withdrawing our CF-18s from the fight.

Why is the minister asking our allies to take our place in protecting our soldiers?

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 19th, 2016]

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

As I said, when I spoke to parliamentarians from allied and foreign countries, they told me, in private, that Canada's position was weakened because we were withdrawing from combat. This is not hearsay. I think the government is to blame for that.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question. I was indeed a member of the Canadian Armed Forces for 22 years. I am still in contact with former colleagues who are still members of the forces and who share their concerns with me.

At the NATO meetings, I was able to talk to colleagues from different countries. Our international allies say everything is fine, obviously. Given the nature of politics and diplomacy, people will say that everything is fine.

However, parliamentarians from other countries told me they were disappointed that Canada was withdrawing from the combat mission. Canada has decided to take a secondary role. This role can be important, but Canada's refusal to fight is a rejection. We must not forget that we are no longer in Afghanistan. We are fighting ISIL, which is an international terrorist group.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the previous government sent CF-18s into combat and special forces to train Iraqi soldiers. We have never been against the training component.

The new plan is problematic because it eliminates the combat capacity, which was effective. Even if we only carried out 2.5% of the strikes, we were one of the five countries that were bombing targets effectively.

We have nothing against increasing the number of troops providing training. We have never been against that. We are against withdrawing the combat and air protection capacity provided by our CF-18s for our troops and the fact that we will be relying on our allies to do the heavy lifting.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I want to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.

The member for Orléans is a former military member like me. Today, we are in politics and our duty is to put our soldiers first. The decisions we make are critical.

The government's plan to combat ISIL is hypocritical to say the least. People are very dissatisfied with it. It goes in every direction but the right one, the direction that will lead to combatting ISIL. The government is increasing the number of soldiers on the ground to provide more training. In other words, we will show people how to fight without getting our hands dirty.

This plan does not take into account the wishes of Canadian Forces members. It is a repudiation of their work on the ground. Many Canadian Forces members are unhappy with this government. By way of evidence, I would like to read a letter I received from Mr. Roy. It says:

Thank you [hon. member] for your commitment. I am a former infantry soldier who spent 14 years in the military. I was in Haiti in 1997, Bosnia in 2001, and Afghanistan in 2004 and 2009. As such, I often talk to other former soldiers, and we feel betrayed by the [Prime Minister's] government. It seems as though the [Prime Minister's] government is minimizing what Canadian soldiers have had to endure both physically and psychologically, not to mention what their families have had to endure with the soldiers being deployed so often. Canadian soldiers make these sacrifices to build an international reputation for Canada and to defend our values.

Thank you for saying out loud what so many people are quietly thinking.

As we can see, the Canadian Armed Forces and Canadians in general are very dissatisfied with this plan. Under this plan, the government has already withdrawn our CF-18s from Iraq and Syria, without even waiting until we finished debating the issue here in the House of Commons. That is a mistake since our allies and everyone recognized how much Canadian air strikes were helping in the fight against ISIS. The government has not given any coherent explanation for this decision.

Nathalie Elgrably-Lévy of the Journal de Montréal spoke about the Prime Minister's lack of judgment. She said:

To justify his desertion [that word, “desertion”, is very important], he claims that “...the people terrorized...every day don't need our vengeance. They need our help.”

Bombast like that from our Prime Minister is appalling and unfortunate.

...

It is appalling because it shows that [the Prime Minister] considers the fight against Daesh to be rooted in vengeance. What poor judgment!

Do we really have to explain to him that stopping a horde of fanatics who are destroying everything in their path is not about vengeance? That stopping bloodthirsty terrorists from raping people, kidnapping them, murdering them, cutting their throats, burning them alive, and beheading them is not about vengeance? If the Prime Minister can't tell the difference between vengeance and self-defence, if he can't tell the difference between Daesh's murderous instinct and the West's survival instinct, Canada is in very bad hands.

At the NATO Parliamentary Assembly meetings in Brussels, Miami, and Washington, many people told me that it is not the right time or not a good idea for Canada to recall its CF-18 fighter jets from Iraq and Syria.

In yet another episode of the current government's disavowal of logic, the Minister of National Defence says that he is considering the possibility of fighting ISIL in Libya. According to Italy's defence minister, Roberta Pinotti, who believes that action must be taken to prevent ISIL from gaining ground in Libya, some 3,000 ISIL terrorists are in Libya. Oil production facilities have been attacked, and 60 people were killed in a suicide bombing in February. After withdrawing the CF-18s from Iraq and Syria, a move that most Canadians do not agree with, the Liberals are taking their wishy-washiness to Libya. Once again, in Brussels last weekend, NATO people told us that going to Libya would be the worst thing to do.

There seems to be no end to the government's bungling. “Whatever” is the watchword, it seems. The Minister of International Development and La Francophonie even acknowledged that money sent to the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders could end up in the hands of the enemy, ISIL. Why? Because we have no way of controlling where the money goes. The minister even said that we cannot control that. As Canadian citizens, as taxpayers, we want to know what is being done with that significant amount of money. It should not be handed over to our enemies; it should be used to fight them.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs is saying that Canada will do more to help Jordan and Lebanon deal with the pressures of the civil war in Syria. However, I thought the plan was to fight a war against ISIL. When you pursue too many targets at once, you often miss all of them.

That is the problem here. This plan has too many targets, even though there is only one enemy, which is ISIL.

It is important to understand what the people who elected us here really want. Consider this example: according to an Angus Reid poll from the beginning of February 2016, Canadians are concerned about the impact on the world stage of withdrawing our CF-18s from Iraq and Syria. In fact, 63% of Canadians want Canada to continue bombing ISIL targets at the current rate or to increase the number of bombing missions conducted against ISIL. Also, 47% believe that withdrawing our CF-18s will harm Canada's reputation abroad. Two out of five people, 37%, believe that Canada should continue with the current number of bombing missions against ISIL. One-quarter, 26%, believe that we should increase the number of missions. In addition, 64% of people believe that the threat ISIL poses has increased, and half of those people, or about 30%, believe that the threat has increased significantly. In the wake of the Paris attacks, 33% of people believe that Canada should increase its involvement in the fight against ISIL.

Not only did the government miss an opportunity to show leadership by taking a position much more focused on a combat mission against the Islamic State, but it also missed the boat on public opinion, on what Canadians think, and on what they want their government to do to fight terrorists.

A government that does not listen to the public is a disconnected government and that is what this government is. It only took them a few months to get there. Who knows, maybe the Liberals want to beat their own record at becoming disconnected from the Canadian public. This is how disconnected Liberal governments have acted in the past. Let us not forget the sponsorship scandal. They are back to their old ways, making bad decisions. In short, this government is on the wrong track. It has too many targets. It has forgotten who the enemy is. Its adversary in this war is the Islamic State.

The attacks in Paris last year, and the attacks in Ottawa, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, and Burkina Faso are reminders that terrorists threaten and strike vulnerable, innocent people everywhere. We must fight these terrorists and eradicate them someday.

The Liberals are also disregarding the fact that Canada is making a mistake by eliminating from its plan the component of combatting ISIL. By withdrawing our CF-18s from Iraq and Syria, we are taking away from our experienced pilots the opportunity to use their skills in the air strikes.

Make no mistake about this mission: increasing the number of Canadian soldiers on the ground to provide training without assigning them to combat, which is what they are trained to do, diminishes their role and is an insult to the skills of the men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces.

It is a mistake to return our army to the 1990s role of peacekeepers, which was catastrophic for Canada, especially in Rwanda, where 800,000 people were killed because our soldiers were powerless to intervene.

I will be voting against this government's ill-conceived plan, and I encourage all my colleagues in the House to reject it because it diminishes Canada's international reputation, it insults the talent and dedication of the men and women in the armed forces, and it eliminates the element of combatting ISIL terrorists, which should be the basis for this plan.

[National Defence, February 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government's plan for combatting ISIS is very simple: Canada will be a spectator. Furthermore, we will do less and it will be more dangerous. The Liberals have already withdrawn our CF-18s, even though we are currently debating their motion, and this puts our armed forces in a vulnerable position.

Will the Minister of National Defence confirm whether or not our Canadians soldiers are vulnerable on the ground?