Rob Nicholson

[National Defence, March 30th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member alluded to this at the beginning, that these jihadists have declared war on Canada. They have urged their supporters to attack “disbelieving Canadians in any manner” and vowed that we should not feel secure even in our own homes. If the hon. member is looking for a reason to support this motion, I would suggest to him, because it is the right thing to do, he should support it.

[National Defence, March 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear that members of the NDP are concerned about the legal justification and once they hear it, I take it they do not support the mission. Is that a fair comment? Those are all the questions we are getting.

We have indicated that the government of Iraq has the collective right to self-defence under article 51 of the United Nations. It has officially requested international help, so we will comply with that. We will work on the same basis as our American allies are doing and report that to the United Nations.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments of my colleague. At one point he said there was something from National Defence overriding Foreign Affairs on these things. These things are done collectively. We are given advice and we are on firm legal footing.

It was of interest to me what he said with respect to solicitor-client privilege. Yes, the government does get legal advice. I think he described it as bogus, but I would suggest to him that the concept of solicitor-client privilege actually underpins our collective legal system in the country and it is extremely important.

That being said, we have been very clear with respect to article 51 of the UN charter. We have indicated we are on the same legal basis. Iraq has asked for international assistance and we are going to do that.

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

Mr. Speaker, again, we have been very clear that we do not support the Assad regime. We have been very clear and consistent on that. However, the innocent people within Syria and our allies within Syria do need the support of the coalition, and that is exactly what we are providing.

The hon. member is worried about the legal risk. I believe that the legal risks are low, but the risk to security if we do nothing is very high. That is something that the hon. member does not seem to get. The idea that ISIL could have free rein within Syria because we do not like the government of Assad or do not support the Syrian regime is no excuse.

Consistent with international law and consistent with what our allies have had to say, we will join the coalition, and we are asking for the support of Parliament.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to. I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice for all of his help, support, and interest in this important mission.

We have been very clear that there is a direct threat to Canada. I have to say it. Maybe we will hear this in the speeches today. When I heard the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Liberal Party talk, I did not hear anything about the direct threat to Canada. ISIL has declared war on Canada. We have seen that. We have seen its rhetoric. We have seen its actions.

We have made it very clear that, yes, we are there to support Iraq. We are there to support Syria. We are supporting our coalition partners in that area, but in helping to degrade ISIL there, we are helping to protect ourselves against this menace.

ISIL has made it very clear that we are targets as well. That is another reason that we have always been so consistent that it is impossible for this country to stand on the sidelines against this threat.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to have a debate sometime and have the Liberals explain exactly where they are on this thing, but I appreciate that is for another time and another day.

The idea that just because we do not support the Assad regime—and we do not—ISIL should therefore have free rein or a free ride to move into Syria is completely unacceptable. We have seen, as ISIL has been degraded within Iraq, that they have been moving heavy equipment and personnel into Syria, and they cannot or should not be given a free ride just because we disagree with the government in Syria. We are not prepared to do that. That is exactly why we are doing this. It is so there is no safe haven for ISIL.

We know of the terrible consequences that ISIL has inflicted upon people in the region. It is completely unacceptable, and unlike the Liberal Party, our efforts have been completely consistent in that regard. The idea that we should sit on the sidelines and babble about this and be completely incomprehensible is unacceptable to this government and, I think, to the people of Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly one of the things this government has done. We have been open and transparent. We have given continual upgrades to the public and to the members of the opposition and we have brought this matter before Parliament.

It could be argued that this is within the crown's prerogative, and it certainly is within the crown's prerogative. However, the government has placed these matters before the House of Commons for its support, and I think appropriately so, so that Canadians can be aware of exactly what we are doing.

As you read out the motion before this House, Mr. Speaker, it is very clear. We are extending this mission up to a year. We will continue with our special forces and their advise and assist role with the Kurdish peshmerga, and we will extend the air strikes of the Royal Canadian Air Force in concert with our allies from Iraq into Syria as well.

We have made progress and we have been very upfront with that. ISIL is in the process of being degraded. They have withdrawn from certain areas and have been confined to certain areas. They have had equipment and individuals destroyed.

That said, we cannot let them have free rein in Syria. We cannot have a situation that allows them to cross the border, and that is exactly what we are aiming at with this motion.

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

moved:

That, whereas:

(i) the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has repeatedly called on its members to target Canada and Canadians at home and abroad;

(ii) ISIL poses a clear and active threat to the people of the Middle East, including members of vulnerable religious and ethnic minority groups who have been subjected to a brutal and barbaric campaign of sexual violence, murder, and intimidation by ISIL;

(iii) unless confronted with strong and direct force, the threat that ISIL poses to Canada and to international peace and security, will grow;

(iv) Canada desires, consistent with Canadian values and interests, to protect the vulnerable and innocent civilians of the region, including through urgent humanitarian assistance;

(v) the Government of Iraq has requested military support against ISIL from members of the international community, including from the Government of Canada;

(vi) Canada is part of a broad international coalition of allies and partners, including numerous countries of the Middle East, committed to the fight against ISIL;

(vii) the United Nations Security Council remains seized of the threat posed by international terrorism with the unanimous passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178;

(viii) the deployment of Royal Canadian Air Force assets has played an important role in degrading, destabilising, and weakening ISIL's position and operations in the region;

(ix) the advise and assist mission of the Canadian Special Operations Forces in Northern Iraq has increased the capabilities of Kurdish-Iraqi Security Forces to combat ISIL; and

(x) continuing to degrade ISIL will require striking its operations and infrastructure where they are located, including in Syria;

Accordingly, this House:

(a) continues to support the Government's decision to contribute Canadian military assets to the fight against ISIL, and terrorists aligned with ISIL, including air strike capability with authorisation to conduct airstrikes in Iraq and Syria;

(b) supports the Government's decision to extend the mission to a date not beyond March 30, 2016;

(c) notes that the Government continues not to deploy troops in a ground combat role; and

(d) offers its resolute and wholehearted support to the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces who stand on guard for all of us.

Mr. Speaker, over the last year we have witnessed the growth of global extremism and brutality. It has shocked Canadians, and it has compelled their government to act.

Instability plaguing Syria continues to spill across the borders with refugee camps the size of cities emerging throughout the region. I visited one of those camps just a couple of weeks ago in northern Iraq and spoke to the Yazidis, Syrian Christians and others. They recounted their tales of horror.

I rise before this House to report that of all those I have met, those who were persecuted, people are on the run because the tyranny that was about to be levied on them was too great to bear. Indeed, the campaign that the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has launched is also being felt around the world, from North Africa to South Asia, from social media to the streets in front of our own Parliament.

ISlL's campaign threatens Canadian citizens. It threatens the very foundation upon which our society is based. It does so through fear, oppression and tyranny. It does so through a culture of violence, ruling by brutal and barbaric intimidation.

Although the threat of terrorism continues to evolve, our reaction to this threat persists as the greatest test for this generation. This is fundamentally a test of our values, of our national character and a test of our will as a country and as a nation. The resolve of Canadians has carried us through wars and depressions, through hard times and through great uncertainty.

Like every other test of tyranny, Canadians will rise to the moment. My faith in our country to meet this moment with moral clarity, as we have in every other moment that has defined our nation, will never be diminished.

The scale of ISIL's ambition cannot be overstated. From between the ancient Euphrates and Tigris rivers, these brutal terrorists seek to establish a caliphate from which it promises territorial expansion and religious persecution.

We know that ISIL has set upon the task of organizing their campaign of atrocities. In areas where they operate from inside Syria, they enslave countless people, many Muslims, under the so-called Sharia-based courts. They fashioned a so-called capital for themselves inside Syria in the ancient city of Raqqa, once the capital of the Abbasid caliphate. Their leadership al-Baghdadi has crowned himself a so-called caliph while preaching his perversion of Islam from a Mosul mosque.

What has come of this? In their wake, they have a left an unprecedented humanitarian crisis drenched in the blood of the persecuted: millions of refugees, including religious minorities, fleeing for their lives across the region; brutal mass executions, surmountable to war crimes; the widespread use of rape and sexual violence against women and children; the emergence of slave markets where minority women are bought and sold as sex slaves by violent terrorists; the destruction of ancient relics and treasured religious heritage.

Just over six months ago, the world witnessed the Yazidis, who braved the heat with nothing but the clothes on their backs, as they made their way up Mount Sinjar surrounded by ISIL. We witnessed the Syrians being forced from the Nineveh Plains, their ancestral homeland, and early churches desecrated as they sought shelter in schools and churches in northern Iraq.

We pray for those who were unable to escape, those who have fallen into ISIL's tyranny, and those who have been murdered by ISIL's gangsters or enslaved by ISIL's thugs. We pray that their families know justice, that our efforts from our afar offer some comfort.

Needless to say, this is one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes of our century thus far. Let me be clear, this catastrophe was not caused by an act of nature. It was created by acts of unambiguous evil inspired by a fanatical ideology. ISIL is based on an ideology of hatred and brutal persecution, one that seeks to erase a history of cultural diversity and pluralism, and rewrite it based on a depraved narrative that utterly rejects the inherent dignity of every human being.

However, ISIL's ideology is not limited to Iraq and Syria alone. Beyond the region, it has inspired a cult of violence with a global reach. Left unchecked, this terrorist threat is sure to grow and continue to grow quickly. Indeed as recent events have shown, Canada is not immune to ISIL's ideology. While the loudest threats emanate from abroad, they exist here at our home and have been felt in these very halls.

As our Prime Minister has noted, ISIL seeks to destroy the kind of open, free, diverse society that Canadians have chosen and have defended throughout our history. As this menace grows, so too does our responsibility to act to do our part in defence of human dignity and values.

In his response to the statement of the Prime Minister in the House on Tuesday, the leader of the Liberal Party stated that our government's case must be, “based on clear and reliable, dispassionately presented facts”. The facts are clear. ISIL has declared war on Canada by name and seeks to wage its jihad against our people. No matter how these facts are communicated, Canadians know that the leaders of the opposition parties will dismiss them and with that are dismissing Canadian values.

Canadians want their government to take action, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Over the last six months, in concert with our western and regional allies, like the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Jordan, we have been standing in support of the Iraqi state to maintain stability in the region and to halt ISIL's campaign of terror in Iraq.

As my colleague, the Minister of National Defence, will more fully describe, we have provided valuable military resources to the coalition. Through our combat mission, Canada is degrading ISIL's operations and is advising and assisting those who aim to reclaim ISIL-held territory. However, as our government has consistently said, a military contribution is only part of Canada's response. In fact, our government is pursuing a multi-faceted approach in the face of this crisis. We are acting with both compassion and strength. That is what standing up for Canada means.

Through our humanitarian support, Canada has provided food to 1.7 million people, shelter and relief supplies to another 1.2 million in need, and has improved access to education for up to 500,000 children. Our assistance has helped to provide four million litres of kerosene to 23,000 families across Iraq.

Our assistance has also helped to provide safe drinking water for 760,000 people, half of them children.

We have provided hygiene kits for 466,000 people. We have provided rapid life-saving assistance to over 240,000 highly vulnerable people through UNICEF's rapid response mechanism. With the onset of winter, we have reached almost 60,000 children with warm clothing and materials. Almost 1.5 million people received food assistance through our support through the World Food Programme. We have also helped support Syrian refugees in Iraq with food, water, shelter and protection.

While in Erbil this month, I visited one of the refugee camps and saw first-hand the devastation caused by this crisis. However, I also saw Canadians providing medical aid at a clinic funded by the Canadian government. Seeing the tangible difference we are making to the victims of ISIL is a reminder to everyone of the important humanitarian assistance Canada is rightfully providing.

Indeed, Canada is ranked sixth among the major donors of humanitarian aid to Syria, and fifth in aid to Iraq. This makes Canada one of the largest per capita donors in the world.

We are also providing support and protection for survivors of sexual violence and assisting those targeted on the basis of their faith.

Canada must continue to address the growing abuse of women and girls, bringing justice and relief to survivors, and ensure that perpetrators are ultimately held to account. These actions are abhorrent violations of the most basic principles of civilization and of human decency.

Together, we are proud of the efforts that Canada and our coalition partners are doing to help millions of innocent civilians recover from ISIL's terror. In addition, and in concert with our coalition partners, we are working to disrupt ISIL's illicit financing, counter extremist narratives, and stem the flow of foreign fighters to and from the front lines.

Through our diplomatic efforts, Canada has also heightened its engagement with regional leaders. In the last weeks, I have met with our allies in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Iraq, including the Kurdistan region, and we will continue to work closely with them.

In the face of this ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, more will need to be done. Our government will ensure that more will continue to be done.

I can assure Canadians that our government intends to provide large-scale humanitarian and stabilization assistance to help alleviate the suffering this terror group is inflicting. However, in order for this assistance to be effective, we must degrade ISIL. This is why we seek the support of this House for our decision to extend and expand Canada's military mission for up to one year so that, with our allies, we can continue to fight Islamic jihadism, which threatens both national and global security.

Although we have seen ISIL's capacities degraded, we continue to see it move its fighters and material across the border into Syria. We cannot permit violent ideologies to fester in ungoverned spaces. ISIL cannot have a safe haven.

This is why seek support to join our allies, who have been attacking ISIL in Syria. We ask that the Canadian Armed Forces conduct air strikes against ISIL targets in Syria on the same basis as our coalition allies: the threat that ISIL poses to Iraq.

Our air strikes in Syria have one goal and one goal only, and that is to degrade ISIL. These threats cannot be wished away by pious rhetoric. Canada will not choose to stand on the sidelines during a crisis that demands both strength and compassion.

The road ahead will not be without obstacles.

The region's deep-seated ethnic and sectarian divisions will not be resolved overnight. The volatile security environments of Iraq and Syria will not be easily stabilized, and the humanitarian crisis that afflicts these nations, sadly, cannot be reversed at once. While we are working with our closest friends and trusted partners, there are others who are pursuing their own agendas at the expense of our shared goals of lasting stability and unity.

We harbour no delusions about these obstacles, but the fact remains, in responding to this threat, Canada stands at a crossroad in history. We may either stand on the sidelines or take real and measured actions.

ISIL's barbarity is an affront to human dignity and to the civilized world. It threatens the very principles that shape Canada's national identity and guide our engagement on the global stage. Its violent ideology and expansionist agenda jeopardize Canadian interests and threaten Canadian citizens.

When Canadian values and Canadian citizens are under siege, we cannot afford to stand on the sidelines and preach moral virtue. We cannot speak of supporting the mission and our soldiers in one breath while voting against them in the next. These serious and consequential times call for serious and consequential leadership.

We must act with compassion, with strength and with moral clarity. We must defend what is right.

In partnership with our coalition allies, Canada is working across multiple lines of effort to halt ISIL's campaign of terror and restore the stability that those in the region so greatly deserve.

Our resolve in this operation remains strong. Let me be clear, our commitment is ultimately to the people of Syria and Iraq for whom terror and tyranny have been inflicted, and for whom must remain the promise of a future in peace and freedom.

With that, I urge all members of the House to support this motion.

[Foreign Affairs, March 25th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, we have been very clear throughout this that Canada is standing with the people of Ukraine in the face of Vladimir Putin's military aggression and we have made significant contributions directly to Ukraine. We have been part of the NATO assurance package.

Whether it takes five months or 50 years, we will stand with the people of Ukraine for their independence and their freedom.

[National Defence, March 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, we made it clear that we are not seeking the consent of the Assad regime. However, we have indicated very clearly that ISIL cannot have a safe haven in Syria. Therefore, we will conduct our missions on the same basis as our colleagues, the Americans and our allies, on the basis that ISIL is a threat to our colleagues, our allies and to Canada itself.