Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler says he broke ranks with the Liberal party and abstained from voting on the government’s motion to approve a Canadian air combat role in the fight against the Islamic State mainly because he cannot abide any co-operation with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

 

The longtime Montreal member of Parliament was the only one among the 137 Liberal members in the House of Commons on Oct. 7 not to vote against the motion, which will send Canadian aircraft and personnel to join an international coalition striking Islamic State targets in Iraq.

 

The motion passed 157-134.

 

In a statement posted on his website, Cotler said that he is “deeply disturbed by the [Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s] statement that Canada would require the approval of the criminal Assad regime to carry out operations in Syria. 

 

“To allow the perpetrator of war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide to green-light Canadian intervention is to turn R2P on its head. Assad should be a criminal defendant, not a coalition partner.”

 

R2P is shorthand for the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, which holds that the international community has a responsibility to intervene when the government of a country where war crimes are taking place cannot or will not take action to stop it.

 

Cotler is in favour of military action, including a combat role for Canada, against the Islamic State, a jihadist group that he accuses of “genocidal incitement and mass atrocities.”

 

But he said he could not support the government’s motion because it “lacks clarity” about the strategy and limits of Canada’s mission, including its costs.

 

“[T]he government has neither briefed nor consulted with the leaders of the opposition, nor has it shared some fulsome information about the mission that would have helped parliamentarians to make an informed choice,” Cotler said.

 

The self-declared Islamic State – also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)  – calls itself a caliphate and  controls large swaths of Iraq and Syria. In recent weeks it has gained notoriety for releasing online videos in which its members are shown beheading western hostages.