In the week that Canada lost seven Canadians to Jihadi terrorists' war on all civilization we watched the inevitable consequence of our dithering on the Iraq bombing mission. Canada was ignored, not counted in, by those that are playing a significant role in the mission against ISIS. Canada was left out of the meeting of defence ministers of Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and United Kingdom with the US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter in Paris to discuss the anti-ISIS coalition's fight against the terror group. Carter said the countries invited to the meeting are "playing a significant role "in the war against ISIS. The parliamentary secretary to the foreign affairs minister said the "not being invited didn't come as a surprise". One can be sure it didn't.
No one could be surprised at Canada being relegated to the margins to be included only in meetings "on the fringes of the NATO defence ministers' meeting on February 11". This is the extent of Canada's irrelevance in the future of the war against ISIS. Sadly it has come to this. Canada that is "back" is no longer considered fit to discuss the future of the anti-ISIS mission. Canada's defence minister had previously telegraphed the unhappiness of our allies saying "of course " they wanted our CF18s to stay in Iraq.
It is quite clear to those in the know that Canada's exclusion from the Paris meeting is the result of our allies' disagreement with the impending withdrawal of our fighter jets. Justin Trudeau's men and women made it known to whoever listened during his trips to UK, Malta and Paris that none among our allies asked Canada to keep our fighter jets flying in Iraq and then of course his minister of defence contradicted him and them. Our muddled and unilateral position on the bombing indicates a disconnect from the collective allied response against ISIS and from the truth stated by global affairs minister Stephane Dion: "terror is everywhere...We must fight [along} with our allies with military, intelligence and police services".
Our unreasoned and unnecessarily tone deaf foreign policy vis-a-vis Iraq is not the only change in our policy on terror. It seems we are giving international terrorism a bit of a pass despite losing seven Canadians to Jihadi terror in Burkina Faso and Indonesia. While Trudeau and his ministers justly and strongly condemned the pepper spraying of the refugees in Vancouver their condemnation of the Jihadi terror attacks in Indonesia and Burkina Faso killing seven Canadians has been anaemic and only faintly condemnatory.
Analysing the aforesaid weak response columnist Michael DenTandt has asked "..where are the passionate condemnations of terrorists who murder innocent Canadians in pursuit of their demented ends? Burkina Faso was not a pepper-spraying. Surely there should be horror and fury in addition to the now customary sadness." Yes, where is the vigorous Canadian condemnation of Jihadi terror? Or have we retreated from that too as we intend to from bombing ISIS?