Mr. Speaker, is there a clear case to be made for Canada's role in seeking to contain the expansion of ISIL?
I have not known persecution or war, and as a Canadian of recent generation I have only known tolerance of diversity, freedom of discourse and the promise of opportunity. When we look within our borders, we seek to enshrine these principles in our policy. We strive to root out barriers to economic prosperity, to freedom of speech and to safety of person and to equality. Regardless of political stripe in Canada, we seek to better the human condition within our borders because we know that our prosperity and evolution as a nation hinge on our capacity to enshrine our nation's collective sense of humanity in our foundational policy and thinking; indeed, within its culture.
My generation is so fortunate because as a nation we have stood against, in combat, forces that espouse the antithesis of these principles and have sought to impose their way of thinking on the world. In this context, the motion in front of us seizes us with a direct request from the democratically elected Government of Iraq to assist in containing a terrorist group operating within Iraq's border that has lost its humanity, and to assist in the provision of vital humanitarian aid.
This is urgent. With every passing day ISIL operates in the open, spreading the cancer of its barbarism in taking new territory. It is bent on establishing a state that would be governed by perverse beliefs that treat women and people of religious minorities as subhuman. With every town it takes, with every new base it establishes, it attracts more finances to its cause and seduces disaffected individuals to its territory with the siren call of a warped caliphate born out of beheadings and of rape.
Our allies have recognized the threat that this terrorist group poses not only to the people of the nations affected by its current advance, but to our democracies. In a threat delivered via social media, ISIL asked supporters:
O muwahhidin in Europe, America, Australia, and Canada.... O patrons of Islamic State.... O you who consider yourselves from amongst its soldiers and patrons....
If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him. Do not lack. Do not be contemptible. Let your slogan be, “May I not be saved if the cross worshipper and...(ruler ruling by manmade laws)...survives.”