Canada May End War on ISIS

Canada joined the war on ISIS in the Fall of last year. It has conducted over a hundred airstrikes against ISIS (mostly in Iraq.) Everyone from the Bishop of Damascus in western Syria to the Kurdish commanders in eastern Iraq have expressed gratitude for Canada's military support. But Canada is facing an election and two of the top candidates say they would end the war saying that Canada should only offer humanitarian support, here are the facts:

The election is on October 19, 2015.

The polls show three major parties: The Conservatives, the New Democratic and the Liberals are stuck within 5% of each other. (An up-to-date poll can be found here.)

And the political leaders say:

"...The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Iraq and Syria cannot be solved; cannot even come close to being solved by refugee policy alone. We must stop ISIS; we can accept thousands or tens of thousands and maybe all the countries in the world together, hundreds of thousands of refugees. But ISIS left to its own devices will create millions, tens of millions of refugees and victims on a monthly basis. That's why the international community intervened. President Obama and our allies felt we had no choice; we were witnessing mass slaughtering at an alarming, lightning pace that was sweeping across the region. And for Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Mulcair to say things like 'well we shouldn't be participating militarily, we should just be helping with humanitarian'--let me quote what the representatives of diaspora groups in Canada...have said 'If your policy is humanitarian assistance without military support all your doing is dropping aid on dead people.'
-Conservative leader Steven Harper

"Mark my words, when New Democrats form government on October 19, we are going to pull our troops out. We are going to bring them home.

Canada can play a more positive role in resolving this crisis. We can do that by helping our NATO ally. Turkey coped with 1.5 million refugees who have poured over its border. We can do that by using every diplomatic, humanitarian and financial resource at our disposal to strengthen the political institutions in Iraq, and yes, in Syria."

-New Democratic leader, Thomas Mulcair 

"We'd move away from the CF-18 [bombing] mission...This government has failed miserably to demonstrate why the best mission for Canada is to participate in a bombing mission,"

-Liberal leader Justin Trudeau 

Canada would be the first country to end its assault against the Islamic State which has killed over one hundred thousand and continues to oppress the local population.