NDP MP and former teacher Paul Dewer 'schools' Tory on ISIS combat memo

An NDP Member of Parliament has grown so frustrated by government talking points on Canada’s military presence in Iraq that he has returned to his roots as a public school teacher and graded them. Harshly.

Paul Dewar took umbrage with a “fact sheet” released by Conservative MP Denis Lebel, which sought to counter the current confusion about the Canadian military’s role in Iraq by, in part, saying the media has been dishonest about what role the military was playing in the battle against ISIS militants.

The issue stems from government claims that the military is not participating in a combat mission despite a recent front-line gunfight with ISIS militants in Iraq.

"The media now pretends that the Canadian mission against ISIL has turned into a ground combat mission, which has been contradicted by the Canadian Armed Forces itself yesterday," Lebel writes in his statement, released on Wednesday.

Dewar, the representative for Ottawa Centre, who taught at local elementary schools before being elected, contends the real story is that Prime Minister Stephen Harper lied to the public about why soldiers were going to Iraq.

He posted a marked-up copy of Lebel’s full essay to his Facebook page, giving it the kind of red-pen treatment anyone who has survived public school surely recognizes. “Once a teacher, always a teacher. I expect better from Denis Lebel, a minister in government,” he wrote in the post.

In his corrections, he challenged Lebel’s “thesis” that the media was lying about the military’s role in Iraq and clarified a list of “facts” (such as “The Liberals and the NDP … would prefer Canada sit on the sidelines while others do the fighting”) as opinion.

Lebel’s paper, not surprisingly, received an F-grade from Dewar.

"You were supposed to prove that media reports didn’t contradict what the P.M. said – you failed to do this," he wrote at the bottom of the memo.

"Denis – please submit a new draft, avoid baseless accusations, provide facts including the costs of the mission."

Dewar’s frustration with Canada’s military deployment in Iraq has certainly turned some heads in the past. Last year, he had an epic “facepalm" moment during a discussion panel on CBC News’s Power and Politics as fellow panel member Conservative MP Paul Calandra ducked questions about the deployment.

The current debate about what role Canada’s military is playing in Iraq stems from an incident confirmed earlier this week in which special forces returned fire after coming under “immediate and effective mortar fire” while on the front lines of the battle against ISIS, according to Brig.-Gen. Michael Rouleau.

The military says the troops were on the front lines as part of a planning session and that it wasn’t part of a combat mission.

But just months ago, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff dismissed the idea that having Canadian soldiers on the ground in Iraq could be considered anything other than a combat mission.

In October, General Tom Lawson said Canadians wouldn’t be put on the ground in Iraq to help with its aerial combat mission because that would be considered “combat” and therefore not part of the mission approved through Parliament.

On Thursday, Lawson released a statement backtracking on those comments.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, Lawson stated:

There’s a lot of spin going around about why Canadian forces are on the ground in Iraq, what they are doing and how it fits into the mission approved by the Canadian people.

Which is basically what Dewar was pointing out through his school teacher grading exhibition. Confusion abounds, and anyone with a red pen can point out government disparities rather quickly.