NDP leader Tom Mulcair rises during question period in the House of Commons Monday January 26, 2015 in Ottawa. The NDP on Wednesday accused Mr. Harper of breaching parliamentary privilege and asked Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer to rule on whether there’s a plausible case to be made that the Prime Minister deceived MPs last fall.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
The unexpected combat activity of Canadian soldiers on the ground in Iraq is forcing a re-examination of the case Stephen Harper made for going to war against the Islamic State – with the Official Opposition formally accusing him of misleading Parliament.
The U.S. military says Canada's military advisers are the only coalition forces it knows of that have engaged in firefights with Islamic State militants in Iraq and that American troops have not, to date, been authorized to direct air strikes from the ground as Canadians are doing.
The NDP on Wednesday accused Mr. Harper of breaching parliamentary privilege and asked Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer to rule on whether there's a plausible case to be made that the Prime Minister deceived MPs last fall. They have asked the Speaker to find Mr. Harper in breach of his duty to avoid misleading statements in the Commons. Mr. Scheer is now considering the matter.
Defence Minister Rob Nicholson and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird will face calls Thursday to explain how a military advisory mission turned into front-line gun battles with Islamic State forces and a continuing role in marking ground targets for airborne bombs. They will provide their first joint briefing to a parliamentary committee on the matter since Ottawa deployed special forces troops last September.
Nearly 70 special forces from Canada are in northern Iraq, near Erbil, where they are training Kurdish peshmerga fighters on everything from marksmanship to planning offensive operations. The special-forces soldiers are not supposed to be engaged in combat – unlike Canada's CF-18 fighters operating out of Kuwait, which regularly attack Islamic State forces.
Earlier this month, the military revealed the special forces soldiers spend about 20 per cent of their time near the front lines and that in three cases they'd come under attack and returned fire in self defence, killing the enemy. They also disclosed soldiers in 13 cases have directed air strikes from the ground.
"The Canadian armed forces are engaging in activities that our Prime Minister explicitly ruled out when this chamber was making its decision on whether or not to authorize the mission," NDP defence critic Jack Harris said.
"He misled this House and Canadians in a deliberate attempt to downplay Canada's level of engagement as well as the risk involved to our brave men and women in uniform."
Mr. Harris pointed out Mr. Harper told the Commons last September that military advisers would be assigned "to advise and to assist" but "not to accompany" Kurdish forces into combat. The Prime Minister also said "Canadian soldiers are not accompanying the Iraqi forces into combat."
On Wednesday, the Prime Minister brushed aside questions about why Canada's ground role in Iraq appears to be more combat-prone than those of other foreign military advisers, saying the soldiers are still operating within their original mandate.
"I don't know what other militaries are doing but I know that ours are doing exactly what this Parliament asked [them] to do and that Canadians are behind them," Mr. Harper told the Commons.
The government appears to be betting Canadians are so horrified by the atrocities committed by Islamic State militants, including the execution of foreigners, that they aren't bothered by an escalation of Canada's ground role there.
Government House Leader Peter Van Loan said opposition critics are misguided in thinking Canadian soldiers will be merely advising Kurds from a safe distance. "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. … Right now, in a place like Iraq, where our special forces are on the ground, everything is the front lines; everything is the combat zone."
Mr. Van Loan went even further in his defence of Canada's soldiering role in Iraq, calling the notion of front lines "archaic."
"The combat zones, the front lines, are in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, where a Canadian soldier was killed; they are at the National War Memorial," he said, where another Canadian Armed Forces member was gunned down by an assailant in October.
The U.S. military said Wednesday more than 2,490 foreign soldiers are in Iraq undertaking "advise and assist" roles now.
Retired Canadian major-general Lewis Mackenzie said he finds it hard to believe other countries' military advisers are not directing air strikes in Iraq or finding themselves in firefights with the enemy, suggesting some nations are not being entirely forthcoming about their troops' activities.
He said he thinks one reason Canada is being drawn into a more active role is because its soldiers are advising the battle-hardened peshmerga fighters, whom he rates as superior to the Iraqi government regular forces, and the Kurds are making more headway than others. "It's a function of being with the best folks on the battlefield," Mr. Mackenzie said.