Mr. Speaker, prior to question period I had been reading into the record some of the comments from people in my riding around the mission at hand, the decision by the government to send CF-18s and our Canadian troops to Iraq.

I just wanted to give the House, and read into the record, some of the examples of the concerns that are coming from Toronto, from my riding. Just in part, one constituent said, “We should be supporting refugee efforts. We should be offering humanitarian aid and support. Stop deploying our military and foreign affairs and bring our attention to the vast array of trouble right here at home: health care; housing; food supply and security; violence against women, particularly first nations women; destruction of science and muzzling of research communications; and a whole host of issues including climate change, rising tuition and minimum wage”.

This is not the only constituent who has raised the issue or made the links between the cost of this mission in dollar terms, what it costs to our international credibility, and what it costs in terms of what we can do domestically to be an example to the world of the kinds of democracy, peace, justice and fairness that we stand for.

It is often said, and it bears repeating today, that when we talk about programs that we think are important here in Canada, we always talk about how much they cost. We try to wring every penny of savings out of every program. What we have seen in Canadian society over time has been a squeezing of the middle class and the creation of a huge gap between the rich and the poor. We have seen otherwise middle-class families in cities such as Toronto spending close to a mortgage payment just to provide day care for their children. We have seniors living in poverty. We have a whole host of issues around youth unemployment. We have young people in Ontario graduating with up to $40,000 of debt. These are serious issues.

The reason I am bringing up these issues is that the Conservatives are constantly saying to us, “This will cost too much money to implement; we cannot implement this and we cannot implement that”. However, when we ask them for a dollar amount on this mission, they go silent. Suddenly, we cannot get answers. Suddenly, it is not proper. The Conservatives question our Canadianness in asking these very questions. These are questions that Canadians want answered.

We asked whether we offered air strikes or whether it was something that the U.S. government asked us. We got no answer. In fact, what the Conservatives try to do is belittle the question. It is not leadership on the global stage when we cannot get the kinds of answers that we need from the government.

We asked the Conservatives what the rules of engagement are and what the exit strategy is. These are important questions, especially given our recent history. The Afghanistan mission was supposed to be very limited. It was supposed to last only a few months and contain a very small number of Canadian men and women in uniform. We know what happened there. Gradually over time Canadians were asked to approve a more expanded mission and then at a certain point it was impossible to reel that in. This is part of our concern here today. Given the fact that the Conservatives are not answering questions, it only ratchets up the concern around mission creep and mission leap.

The Afghanistan mission produced around 40,000 veterans. We have battled with the current government ever since to hold its feet to the fire to properly take care of the brave men and women who went to Afghanistan and came back with a variety of needs that we are duty-bound to administer to.

We are not supporting the mission. We believe that Canada must have a real, robust international role, and that role is a humanitarian role. It is a significant role. It is one that the international community has looked historically to Canada to fill. It is one that the countries in the region have asked us to fulfill. That is the role that the NDP believes is the best course for Canada in this conflict.

Andrew Cash

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