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But amid all the memorials and reenactments, there has always been an eye cast toward the next election, and now the debate over Canada’s combat mission in Iraq has given the Conservatives a perfect opportunity to shift the focus from the history books to a present-day political skirmish.

“My Canada heeds the call. Protects the vulnerable. Challenges the aggressor,” Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Monday during debate in the House of Commons over Canada’s participation in a U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIS. “There was a time when the Liberal Party believed in that Canada.”

The line is clearly drawn between the government and the main opposition parties, which both oppose Canada’s participation in the mission. “That bombing — more bombing — is a way to peace in a region that has already seen too much war, we respectfully disagree with the government on this,” NDP leader Tom Mulcair said Monday.

Sean Maloney, a history professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston, said the debate in Ottawa does not reflect any dramatic shift in Canadians’ self-image. We were never pacific peacekeepers to begin with, and Canada’s limited contribution to the campaign against ISIS hardly qualifies us as fierce warriors, he said.

“This is all internal domestic Canadian politics,” he said. “It’s disconnected from how the rest of the world sees us.”

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Liberal leader Justin Trudeau did not take part in the debate, but believes Canada should be focusing on humanitarian aid rather than dispatching Royal Canadian Air Force jets. Marc Garneau, the party’s foreign affairs critic, accused Mr. Harper on Monday of “taking us across the Rubicon” by joining the combat mission and said nobody would object if Canada sat this conflict out.