A statue of Winston Churchill is silhouetted against the Houses of Parliament and the early morning sky in London, Friday, June 24, 2016. Britain entered uncharted waters Friday after the country voted to leave the European Union, according to a projection by all main U.K. broadcasters. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Within minutes of Monday’s mid-morning joint ministerial announcement on the government’s plan to contribute six helicopters and up to 250 Canadian military personnel to the ongoing United Nations peacekeeping effort in the Mali, Conservative defence critic James Bezan issued the first — but by no means the last — call for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to commit to putting the proposed mission to a full House debate, and ultimately, a vote.

Indeed, as Bezan pointed out to reporters, such debates had actually become standard government practice under the previous Conservative administration.

“It is a threshold that we put in place as government,” he recalled.

“Every time our troops were moved into harm’s way… representatives of the people of Canada had the chance to fully debate it, get the information they needed to make an informed decision on the vote.”

Since taking office more than two years ago, the Liberals haven’t always followed the precedent set under Stephen Harper, but it seems as though they’re more than ready and willing to organize just such a debate this time around.

“Unlike the previous government, we are being completely transparent and are keen to have a good debate here in the House of Commons,” he told MPs in response to a question from Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus.

“We have already approached the opposition to talk about how to hold that debate, and we are pleased that plans will be finalized in the coming weeks.

In fact, he noted later in the session, the government has “already approached the opposition about how to proceed with a debate,” and “look[s] forward to having these conversations.”

Given the apparent eagerness of Team Trudeau to accede to the Conservative request, it seems to have fallen to the Process Nerd to explain why such proceedings may not always be in the best interests of Parliament — nor, for that matter, the opposition.

Just to be clear, it’s worth noting, for the record, that, outside of exceptional — and largely theoretical — circumstances in which the government is obliged to ask the House to authorize new expenditures related to a specific military operation, the responsibility of deciding when and where to deploy Canadian troops falls entirely within the aegis of the executive — which, in this case, means the prime minister and his cabinet.

But, as Bezan pointed out on Monday, since 2006, the convention has been to allow MPs to debate, and vote on proposed deployments — or, more accurately, on motions put forward as government business that outline the rationale and parameters of the putative mission — although such consultations are, as University of Ottawa professor Philip Lagasse puts it succinctly, “a courtesy, rather than an obligation.”

Here, in a nutshell, is why the trend of formally asking the House to support a proposed mission could actually erode parliamentary power: It forces opposition members — and even members of the governing party caucus without a seat at the cabinet table — to cast a vote to either endorse, or repudiate, a decision by the very same executive that the Commons is supposed to hold to account.

If opposition members vote to back even a non-binding motion of support for a military operation, they may be pre-emptively hobbling their ability to question or criticize the government over its handling of that mission in future — or, indeed, of raising concerns over the outcome of the mission itself.

Alternately, if they vote against such a motion, it will almost certainly be viewed as opposing the proposed mission itself, which may not actually be the case.

Given the complexity and uncertainty of any military operation, it would be entirely possible for opposition members to support the principle of a particular military commitment while remaining resoundingly unsure over the specific course of action that the House is being asked to consider.

Even if an opposition party collectively concludes that it can’t justify backing a particular mission at all — not in principle nor in practice — the very act of putting those objections on the record can be used against them in future, as the government can simply point to the nays as a reason to dismiss their views on the matter entirely.

(Just ask the New Democrats who voted against a motion to extend the then ongoing Afghanistan mission in 2008 — or, for that matter, the Liberals who supported it, only to be reminded of that position whenever they attempted to raise questions about its subsequent execution.)

This, in a nutshell, is why opposition members — as well as those of us who don’t want to see parliament dilute its role as overseer of the executive — may want to start harbouring an unspoken hope that the eventual agreement reached by the parties includes a debate, but not a final vote.

That would seem to address the Conservatives’ desire for MPs to have their say on the decision to deploy without inadvertently curtailing their capacity to voice concerns over how events ultimately unfold on the ground in Mali.