In Close Vote, Canada Parliament Decides to Extend, Expand ISIS War

Vote Mostly Along Party Lines

Following intense debate and in a 142-129 vote almost entirely along party lines, Canada’s parliament has decided both to extend the length of their war on ISIS and to expand the war into neighboring Syria.

The war was backed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party, who insisted the war was needed to “disrupt” ISIS across the region, saying ISIS is promoting terror attacks in Canada.

The vote was opposed by both the Liberal Party and the New Democrats, who pointed out that the war is being escalated with no planned endgame, and no obvious objective.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair accused the ruling Conservatives of “sleepwalking Canada into this war,” and of acting outside of international law in setting up the indefinite conflict.

Canada initially deployed 69 special forces troops to Iraq as their contribution to the US-led war, and those troops repeatedly ended up on the front lines, always putatively by accident, fighting ISIS.

Officials said the attacks on Syria would begin soon, but that the exact timing would depend on when the US gave them a list of assigned targets to attack.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.