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OTTAWA - Justin Trudeau is facing the first serious test of his leadership of Canada's Liberals in the wake of a parliamentary vote to send Canadian fighter jets to Iraq.

Trudeau and most Liberal MPs voted against the idea.

But Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, a former justice minister and a globally recognized human rights defender, abstained from the vote, saying in a statement that his "principled absention," as he called it, was a result of his recognition that military intervention against Islamic terrorists in Iraq and Syria is required, but that the Harper government's proposal lacked "clarity."

Cotler, former Liberal leader Stephane Dion and former Liberal cabinet ministers Lawrence MacAulay and Mauril Belanger, were also absent from Tuesday night's vote.

And influential Liberals like former interim leader Bob Rae, former cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy, and retired general and former Liberal senator Romeo Dallaire, all argued ahead of the vote for a combat mission in Iraq.

The apparent schism among Canada's Liberals was an opportunity for Trudeau's political opponents to pounce.

"The Liberal Party should hang its head in a shame," Employment Minister Jason Kenney said after the vote. "This is an ignoble day for the proud Liberal Party of Canada, underscored by Irwin Cotler's absence tonight."

Kenney has long admired Cotler's work in defence of human rights in Canada and around the world and Kenney even began his political career as a Liberal staffer working for long-time Liberal MP Ralph Goodale.

"The vote that the Liberal Party cast tonight is contrary to everything that party ever stood for in foreign and security policy," Kenney said.

And, indeed, Trudeau now may have more work convincing his own party, let alone Canadian voters, that he was right to reject the combat mission Iraq largely on the basis that, in his estimation, the Harper Conservatives had not made the case for a combat mission.

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A test for Trudeau? Canada's Liberals split on Iraq combat mission