Trudeau says record-breaking sniper should be ‘celebrated’
OTTAWA — The record-breaking kill shot by a Canadian sniper in Iraq should be “celebrated,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday, even as he insisted Canada’s mission in the battle-racked country remains a non-combat one.
“What happened there is, first of all, something to be celebrated for the excellence of the Canadian Forces in their training, in the performance of their duties,” Trudeau told a news conference.
“But it’s also something to be understood as being entirely consistent with what Canada is expected — and Canadians expect our forces — to be doing as part of the coalition against Daesh.”
Daesh is another name for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.
National Defence revealed last week that a member of Canada’s elite Joint Task Force 2 special forces unit was supporting Iraqi forces when he shot an ISIL fighter who was 3,540 metres away.
That is more than a kilometre farther than the previous record, set by a British sniper in Afghanistan in 2009.
News of the shot sparked both accolades and disbelief around the world, but it also prompted NDP Leader Tom Mulcair to rekindle a long-standing debate about whether Canadian troops in Iraq are in combat.
In an interview on Tuesday, Mulcair said he was “more than surprised to hear the Canadian prime minister say that the killing of another human being is something that should be celebrated.
“The skills of our troops are something that we can all recognize, and that’s one thing,” he said. “But to use the word ‘celebrate’ in relation to the killing of another human being doesn’t reflect my values.”
The question of whether Canadian soldiers are in combat in Iraq has swirled since the previous Conservative government deployed the first troops to help fight ISIL in September 2014.
Mulcair repeated his demand the prime minister come clean with Canadians.
But Trudeau said the sniper was defending Iraqi and Kurdish forces when he took the shot, which is allowed and expected as part of Canada’s “advise and assist” mission in Iraq.