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Canadians could be forgiven for previous assuming that one of the first major moves taken by the new Trudeau government would be to recall our CF-18 jets from the fighting in Syria and Iraq. After all, our new prime minister said as much — to the president of the United States, no less — within 24 hours of winning the federal election with a majority mandate. Voters had reason to believe Justin Trudeau would eventually get around to restoring the long-form census, to launching an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, to cutting the middle class income tax bracket, but first things first: those jets were coming home.

It is now mid-December, and airstrikes against ISIL targets in the Middle East are continuing just as they had before under former prime minister Stephen Harper. Days ago, two CF-18 Hornets successfully struck an ISIL fighting position northwest of Mosul; two days before that, they did the same north of Al Kuwayr, Iraq. In fact, at the time of writing, there have been 25 reports from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) of airstrikes in the region since Trudeau won the election, and 21 since he was sworn in as Prime Minister. If the Trudeau government does indeed plan to withdraw Canada’s fighter jets ahead of schedule — which would have seen them withdrawn by March 2016, anyway — the CAF certainly isn’t showing signs of slowing down.