But the phrase act of war, pronounced by the leaders of one of Europes biggest governments, has particular significance.
Jason Kenney, the former defence minister, was quick to assert that Hollandes statement has implications for Canada under the NATO Treatys Article 5. Article 5 is the big one: it declares that an attack on one member state is an attack on all, and will meet a response from all. There followed a tirade from Kenney, interrupted with heckling from yours truly, to the effect that from the moment Hollande said the word war, Canada had a treaty obligation to ditch Trudeaus plan to withdraw the CF-18s.
To call Kenneys reasoning shaky would be to insult Jell-O. First, as NATOs own website explains, you dont invoke Article 5 with incantations. You do so at a meeting of the alliances North Atlantic Council, and Article 5 has been invoked precisely once in the alliances 70 years: after 9/11.
Second, again using NATOs own language, Allies can provide any form of assistance they deem necessary to respond to the situation. This assistance is not necessarily military and depends on the material resources of each country. Each individual member determines how it will contribute. If Article 5 were formally invoked, that would not confer any obligation on any member state to apply lethal violence in the Iraq/Syria theatre. And as it happens, the Liberal governments policyannounced a year ago, tested in an election three weeks ago, repeated in Trudeaus mandate letter to his new defence ministeris not to drop everything and come home, its to refocus
Canadas efforts in the region on the training of local forces and humanitarian support.
Once implemented it hasnt been yet; Canadian jets are, at last report, still carrying out raids against IS targets Trudeaus policy would bring Canada into line with the activities of such honest-to-gosh NATO members as Spain, Slovakia, Norway, Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia and Romania. Jim Stavridis, the former US navy admiral who served as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, dashed off an oped calling for NATO to attack IS. But even Stavridis called troop training Trudeaus avowed goal in the region the most important project NATO could undertake if it gets involved...
On all of these elementsspeed and quantity of refugee welcome, armed intervention against Islamic Stateits easy to imagine Trudeaus plans changing in the Paris aftermath. But we just had an election on these precise questions, and the voters judgment was not vague. And its disturbing to see a former defence minister and near-certain aspirant to the Conservative leadership invoke Canadas most fundamental mutual-security alliance with little apparent understanding of what it says or means. (One presumes, of course, that Kenney knows precisely what hes talking about, and therefore that he stands on quicksand with his claims, but that he figured a little weekend arm-waving wouldnt hurt.)
Im also a little tired of these Conservative Party chicken hawks. If the fight against Islamic State is existential, then dont send a measly six CF-18s. If procuring new fighters is fundamental to Canadas security, procure some. If Canada doesnt cut and run, then dont end Jean Chrétiens Afghanistan deployment just because Stephen Harper grew weary of the fight. If the way to stop refugees leaving Syria is to make Syria less of a hellhole, then dont give Bashar al-Assad carte blanche.
If, on the other hand, you belonged to a government that ended the Afghanistan mission, deployed nothing more than cross words against Assad, and did not send more hardware to the region than Belgium and the Netherlands, then maybe do a little less chest-beating.
One more thing. For reasons that remain unexplained, except for Trudeaus comment the day after the October election that he would draw down Canadas military deployment in Iraq in a responsible way, the RCAF is still running bombing raids over there. Which means Trudeaus policy has not yet been implemented in any way. Which means that right through Fridays attack in Paris, Canadas policy against Islamic State was Stephen Harpers and Jason Kenneys policy. Thats the sort of chain of events that might inspire some humility, in a party that professes to be remorseful about its tone.
