Conservatives urge vote on any military role in Iran, accuse Carney of flip-flopping

Plumes of smoke rise as airstrikes hit the city during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

OTTAWA — The Conservatives are calling for a parliamentary debate before any sort of Canadian military deployment to the ongoing war in Iran, a day after Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada could get involved if allies asked it for help.

“It should be up to Parliament itself to say yea or nay on whether or not we’re ever going to be deploying our troops into a conflict,” Conservative defence critic James Bezan told reporters on Thursday in Ottawa.

“Let’s have the conversation where it should be, in public so there’s transparency, in the House of Commons.”

The prime minister originally expressed unequivocal support for the U.S. commencing airstrikes on Iran last weekend -- then said later he did so with “regret” because the bombing campaign seems inconsistent with international law.

Bezan argued those shifts make no sense - and neither does Ottawa’s insistence on a diplomatic solution to end the airstrikes it had endorsed.

“Mark Carney has been all over the map on this,” Bezan said. Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong was not made available for an interview Wednesday.

Carney has said Ottawa has no plans to join the military campaign launched by Washington and joined by Israel. When he was asked about it on Wednesday, however, he said he could not categorically rule out a military deployment in response to a call for help from allies.

The MP overseeing defence procurement, Stephen Fuhr, said he had not been part of discussions on any possible military involvement in Iran.

“The region’s very unstable and there’s a conflict going on there, so Canada will make a decision on what that looks like for Canada,” he told reporters.

Lt.-Gen. Steve Boivin, commander of Canadian Joint Operations Command, told reporters at a defence and security conference in Ottawa Thursday that there are about 200 Armed Forces members deployed to the Middle East on six operations.

Boivin disclosed the number after Defence Minister David McGuinty and his department refused to offer a figure earlier in the week.

Some of those troops have been moved to another country in the region, Boivin said, and some have been brought back to Canada since the war broke out.

Canadian Joint Operations Command is the unit that would be called upon to help the federal government in the event of an evacuation or assisted departure of citizens in the area.

Boivin said Global Affairs Canada has not asked for the military’s help at this time.

“We are always conducting contingency planning. It is a standing task to be prepared for those things,” he said.

Boivin said there are no Canadian Navy vessels or Air Force planes in the region to help with such a mission at this time. He said the military is in the process of sending six liaison officers to the Middle East in case it is asked to help.

Turkiye reported Thursday that a NATO defence system had shot down an incoming ballistic missile. Iran insisted it had not launched the missile.

Also Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte played down the idea of an alliance response to Iranian actions, saying no one has been talking about such a move. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand posted Thursday morning that she had spoken with Rutte within the previous 24 hours.

Stephen Saideman, a Carleton University defence expert, said Article 5, NATO’s collective defence clause, is not likely to be invoked in this case because Spain has said it is opposed to the war, while Greece would be unlikely to support using Article 5 to defend Turkey.

“We don’t have to worry about NATO being embroiled in that way. We have to be worried about NATO being divided, because countries within it take different sides,” he said.

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East said Carney ought to categorically rule out participating in the war. The organization said the war is not popular with Canadians and the prime minister has suggested already it might violate international law.

The Liberals have been criticized further over inconsistencies in their stance on the Iran war since video surfaced of a town hall meeting at least a week before the American strikes.

Anand said Wednesday she was not aware that her parliamentary secretary, Rob Oliphant, had said Ottawa does not support military action that isn’t sanctioned by the United Nations.

“We do not support an American strike,” Oliphant was recorded telling constituents at a town hall where Iranian diaspora activists called for military action.

“That is the Canadian position. We do not believe in non-UN-sanctioned military action. We don’t do that,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 5, 2026.

By Dylan Robertson.

With files from Sarah Ritchie.