Mr. Speaker, the point raised by the opposition, I think at the outset or at least partway through, was an effort to identify the three-part test you must apply. In this matter, not even the first step in that test is satisfied. Simply put, there is not a question of the House being misled. There is a question of a debate, a debate with an opposition that thinks that self-defence is combat.

We respectfully disagree. We think self-defence is not combat. We think it is common sense. We think it is what anyone would expect their troops in the field to be able to undertake. The mission is a mission to advise and assist. There is nothing in that mission to prevent our soldiers from defending themselves if they should come under fire.

The opposition, keeps using some funny terms that seem very odd to me. One is “front lines”. Another is “combat zone”. The opposition seems to think that the advise and assist mission means that our forces will never be on the front lines of the combat zone. “Front lines” is an archaic image. This is what we had in World War I, when soldiers were in trenches. There is nothing like that right now. Right now, in a place like Iraq, where our special forces are on the ground, everything is the front line. Everything is the combat zone.

In fact, today in the war on terrorism in which we are engaged, in this struggle we are engaged in, the combat zone is not just in Iraq. The front lines are not just in Iraq. The combat zone, the front lines, are in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, where a Canadian soldier was killed. They are at the National War Memorial. Those are the front lines now. It is a terminology I frankly do not understand from the opposition.

I heard the hon. member say that he expects that Canadian soldiers will be “behind the wire”. They are in Iraq. There are no Canadian bases in Iraq. There is no wire to be behind. It shows a remarkable lack of understanding of what our forces are doing there.

The fact is that they are in a dangerous place, and in that dangerous place, doing the dangerous work of advising and assisting, they have, and should have, every right to defend themselves. No one has ever told this House of Commons or suggested, not this government at least, that our soldiers should go there with their hands tied behind their backs, restricted from doing that. That is the fundamental difference in this debate, and that is what it is. It is a debate.

Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, what misleading the House would look like. It would look like a situation where perhaps a member of the government knew that these occasions of shooting in self-defence had occurred, and then once asked about them, denied to the House that they had taken place.

Nothing like that has happened here. In fact, on the contrary, this government has been most forthright. In fact, after every successful bombing mission, the minister of defence has stood in this House and reported it to the House. The government has been forthcoming. It is the government and the Canadian Forces that in fact made public the occasions of self-defence by our special forces on the ground. There has been no evidence at all or any suggestion that our Canadian Forces have undertaken any combat offensive measures, only that they have defended themselves when they came under fire.

There is some suggestion from my hon. friend that the government has downplayed the risk to our forces. I think that is actually absurd. On the contrary, our government has gone out of its way to identify how dangerous the situation is in this part of the world, how dangerous the mission is against Islamic State and why it is so important that we undertake it.

We are not there in that part of the world because it is a picnic. We are there because it is a very dangerous terrorist threat, one that has sought to be exported to our shores, that needs to be taken on. It is precisely because it is dangerous that we are there. There has been no effort to downplay that.

We quite respect the skill and ability of our special forces, all our armed forces, but particularly our special forces. That is why they are there.

The reason we want to be there, despite those dangers, is so we do not again see those dangers come to our shores, so that we do not allow what happened in Afghanistan to occur and allow a terrorist group that has stated its desire to bring terrorism to our shores to establish a geographic state, a base of operations from which it can engage in that export. That is the reason for that mission.

The real issue we face, and we see it through the lens from which the opposition look at these matters, is that their problem is not that our soldiers might have defended themselves or not, but that they are there at all, that we are engaged in this mission against ISIL. They voted against it in the House of Commons, and now they are doing everything they can to oppose and bring an end to that mission.

That is a perfectly legitimate position to take. We in the government respectfully disagree with it, but it is their right as an opposition to take that position. That does not extend to the fact that our disagreement with it and with their perspective on what should be done constitutes in some way a breach of the privileges of the House. It is not. It is anything but that.

That disagreement should not now lead to an effort to do what they are doing. It should not lead to a reason to abandon this effort to combat the terrorist fight, even though that is what they would like us to do. At its core, it is a disagreement, a debate, and we do not believe there is any evidence whatsoever that anyone in the House has ever suggested that our troops should not be able to defend themselves in this field, certainly not the government. The opposition may not wish to see them do that. We certainly believe they should be able to do it, and over that there may be a debate. It may be a legitimate debate, but I am quite confident that our side of the debate is supported by the public.

Mr. Speaker, I would like the opportunity, if possible, to review in more detail the comments made by my friend. However, I think you should be able to dispense with this matter in fairly short order as falling short of even the first test of the three-part test you must apply.

Peter Van Loan

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