OTTAWA—New Democrats are refusing to back Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to send special forces commandos into northern Iraq.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says it’s the only responsible position to take, given the government’s refusal to provide details of the deployment or to allow parliamentarians to vote on the matter.
Harper has confirmed that Canada has sent 69 special forces commandos to Iraq as part of a counter-terrorism campaign against the extremist al-Qaida splinter group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.
He maintains the deployment, which is to be reviewed within 30 days, is not a combat mission—that the commandos will only advise and assist Iraqi forces and
Kurdish fighters who are resisting ISIS forces in northern Iraq.
Mulcair argues that the war in Afghanistan began in the same way, with a small contingent of special forces commandos, but wound up being “the longest war we’ve ever been involved in” at the cost of 160 lives.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is backing the deployment, saying “training (the) local army and providing a support role, non-combat, is perfectly acceptable as something that Canada has expertise in and should be able to share.”
