Canada is sending helicopters to assist the UN mission in Mali.

After the Trudeau government announced the mission, members of the Conservative opposition demanded that the operation be put to a vote in the House of Commons.

I’ve written about why holding military deployment votes is a bad idea here. I’ve also shown that, in Canada, the practice of holding these votes largely benefits the executive. And, in an article comparing Canada and Germany, Patrick Mello and I have shown that the votes do lead to less debate and deliberation in Parliament, particularly in Canada.

Leaving all that aside, though, there is the question of whether holding a vote on Mali would be in keeping with the practice followed by the Harper government.

Based on the Harper record, and the Trudeau government’s record thus far, it would not be breaking with the practice since 2006 to deploy the armed forces to Mali without a vote. From 2006 on, the Canadian practice has been to hold vote on combat missions. Although the Canadian helicopters that will be deployed to Mali will include armed Griffons, this does not seem to meet the criteria of a combat mission. Indeed, this helicopter deployment is far less likely to involve combat than the deployment of Special Operations forces to Iraq in August 2014 on advisory and assistance mission, which was not voted on by the Commons. (For those with short memories: the Harper government deployed the SOF in August 2014, then held a vote when fighter aircraft where deployed to the conflict in a role that explicitly involved a combat role.)

So, if the issue is respect the practice that has been followed since 2006, the deployment of helicopters to the UN mission in Mali shouldn’t require a vote.