From the CBC, emphasis added.
“We made a clear commitment in the campaign to stop the bombing mission by Canadian jets and replace it with a role for Canada that is still a serious military role, but leaned more towards training of local troops to be able to bring the fight directly to ISIL,” he said, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). “That’s the commitment we made very clearly throughout the campaign and we have a mandate to do that.”
Did he forget this news story from two-months ago?
A $500m effort to train Syrian forces against the Islamic State has resulted in only a handful of fighters actively battling the jihadi army, the top military commander overseeing the war has testified.
“We’re talking four or five,” General Lloyd Austin, commander of US Central Command, told a dissatisfied Senate armed services committee on Wednesday.
The training initiative is Barack Obama’s linchpin for retaking Syrian territory from Isis. The Pentagon anticipated in late 2014 that it would have trained 5,000 anti-Isis Syrian rebels by now.
US, with its global outreach and military infrastructure, was unable to do this and Canada is going to do down the same path? Good luck with that.