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“Since the beginning of this Iraq mission, the government has been hiding the truth from Canadians,” said NDP deputy leader Megan Leslie, as she led off Question Period on Monday.

“At the beginning, we were told that the mission would involve airstrikes and training. But now we discover that our service people are on the front line. They are targeted by the enemy and there are victims among our troops.

“The prime minister has to tell us the truth. How many Canadian service people are currently in combat situations in Iraq?”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was not in the Commons, but Defence Minister Jason Kenney has repeatedly said Canada’s 69 special forces troops on the ground in Iraq are there simply to “advise and assist” and are not engaged in combat.

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He told the House on Monday that three investigations have been opened into the friendly fire incident.

There is a military police case and a technical investigation, known as a board of inquiry — both of which are standard procedure whenever a soldier dies in the line of duty. As part of the technical investigation, the special forces are conducting their own internal review.

The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is planning to join the pair of Canadian investigations, Gen. Tom Lawson told The Canadian Press.

There are differing accounts of what happened Friday night. The Kurds claim the Canadians arrived unannounced at a checkpoint in an area that had seen heavy fighting the previous day with members of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).