OTTAWA—Canada’s air and ground mission battling Islamic State extremists in Iraq has cost $122 million so far, new figures show.

Defence Minister Jason Kenney on Monday overturned weeks of silence by the Defence Department on the issue and revealed the price tag of the mission to date.

“We think these costs are entirely reasonable given the importance of this mission,” Kenney said in a statement.

Kenney, who took over as defence minister a week ago, said the final cost will be higher but the final tally depends on when the mission, now due to end in April, wraps up.

“Costs will ultimately be higher than that, but how much higher will depend on whether we wrap up the operation at the end of March, or extend it, so total final costs are still difficult to calculate,” he said.

He said Canadian special operations forces soldiers — working as advisers on the ground — and Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft are having a “meaningful impact against this genocidal terrorist organization.”

Kenney cited the latest atrocities — the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya by an Islamic State-affiliated group and the burning alive of a Jordanian pilot — as further justification of the Conservatives’ decision to launch the military mission over the objections of Liberals and New Democrats.

“This is a vicious death cult that is a threat to regional and international security, they have declared war on Canada and our allies, and that’s why Canada has a responsibility to be there,” Kenney said.

“We do not agree with the opposition parties that we should be on the sidelines,” he said.

The Conservative government first dispatched 69 special operations soldiers to northern Iraq on a noncombat mission to act as advisers to local Kurdish and Iraqi fighters battling Islamic State fighters.

In October, the government sent six CF-18 fighters, supported by a CC-150 Polaris refueller aircraft and two CP-140 Aurora reconnaissance aircraft, to join the multinational campaign striking Islamic State targets.

The military has revealed that the Canadian soldiers have been directing airstrikes and on four occasions have engaged insurgents after coming under fire, prompting opposition questions whether their mission is truly noncombat.

As of Feb. 14, the aircraft had flown 489 missions, including 320 sorties by CF-18s. On Feb. 13, CF-18s bombed a factory near Hit, Iraq, where improvised explosive devices were being made, according to the military. Two days before that, fighters struck an Islamic State fighting position east of Mosul.

The revelation of the price tag marks a turn for the department. Kenney’s predecessor, Rob Nicholson, had rebuffed opposition efforts to learn the ongoing cost of the mission, saying the figure would not be available until months after the mission was complete.

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And the department had refused a request made by the Toronto Star under access to information seeking cost estimates prepared by military planners.

But just days after taking over the post, Kenney revealed the figures in a statement released Monday. He said estimates to be tabled later in the week in Parliament would reflect the incremental costs to the department of the Iraq mission.

The revelation came a day before the parliamentary budget officer was to release his own estimate of the cost of the mission Tuesday morning.

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