44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 28, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/28/22 9:19:03 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I heard a number of ministers say today that all options are on the table.
Sometimes, we need to talk to our enemies. I know that is a measure our foreign affairs minister will consider carefully. I trust her judgment to make the right decision.
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- Feb/28/22 9:19:40 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his speech. I would like him to tell us about the humanitarian aspect of this war.
From the bits of information we have been getting, we know that the Ukrainian people are holding the line and protecting their cities thanks to their extraordinary courage and amazing ability to mobilize.
Those cities are currently under siege, however, which raises the spectre of a humanitarian crisis. I would like to know how the government plans to get help to people on the ground. Can it work with the Red Cross, perhaps?
At this point, I would like to ask if the government is planning to raise the $10‑million cap for matching donations to the Red Cross.
My priority is really the humanitarian crisis in the cities. What is the government planning to do about that?
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- Feb/28/22 9:20:40 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, as the member mentioned, our Minister of International Development made an announcement that Canada would match up to $10 million of humanitarian aid. I think he also heard, and we are going to hear from the parliamentary secretary shortly, that he was open to increasing that amount.
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, through the Canada-Ukraine Foundation has issued an appeal. We are all working in our communities to raise money for Ukraine.
While I have the floor, I want to say that I was at a rally in Winnipeg with 5,000 Winnipeggers, Ukrainian Canadians and non-Ukrainian Canadians, standing up for Ukraine, all pledging to help Ukraine on the humanitarian side, on the military side and on the sanction side.
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- Feb/28/22 9:21:46 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for his speech and for standing in solidarity with the courageous people of Ukraine as they fight for their freedom and for democracy.
I asked about visa-free access before, and I did not get a clear answer from the government, so I will ask again. Ukrainians do not require visas to travel to 141 countries, including most European countries. The NDP has been calling for visa-free access for Ukrainians for the past four years. Does the member agree that Canada should offer visa-free travel to Ukrainians? What does the member think is behind the government's hesitancy to offer this to the people of Ukraine?
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- Feb/28/22 9:22:32 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for Victoria, who I serve on the environment committee with, for standing with Ukraine.
We heard the immigration minister stand up in the chamber today and again say that a number of these things are under consideration. We should do everything in our power to help people in danger make it to our shores. We have 180,000 people of Ukrainian extraction and ancestry in the community of Winnipeg. I know that we can welcome them with open arms. Here, they could be in touch with their culture, their language and their religion, and they would find a safe home in Winnipeg.
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- Feb/28/22 9:23:24 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, it is with sadness, alarm and great resolve that I stand in the House today to speak at a moment in history when our words and actions will have great impact. I had hoped to never be in a position to speak about war in the chamber, but in the face of open aggression by Putin's Russia, which is undermining decades of peace brought about the post-World War II international rules-based order, Canada must do everything in its power to stop this.
The Russian attack on Ukraine is also an attack on democracy, international law, human rights and freedom. These actions will not go unpunished. We continue to support Ukraine.
We have all been watching heart-wrenching scenes of civilians being targeted and killed, fleeing their homes, taking refuge in subway tunnels and stepping up bravely to fight for their country and for freedom in Ukraine. These are scenes we hoped we would never again see in Europe. We have heard interviews with Ukrainian civilians who have expressed a sense of shock and disbelief that something like this could happen in Europe in 2022 and that it could happen in full view of the world. Most of them, like us, grew up in a generation that has never known war. It seems unthinkable to them, but the unthinkable has become reality.
Before entering politics, I worked in the former Yugoslavia. When I was 29 years old, I spent a year in Bosnia and Herzegovina, just a few years after the Dayton peace accords. I grew up like most Canadians, thinking of war as something that happened to our grandparents and that could never happen to us. I took peace, democracy and freedom for granted.
While working in Sarajevo, it was my peers, my friends who were then in their twenties, who had been at the front line. Eventually, my colleagues and friends started opening up to me about their experiences. They were women who had been raped, who had watched their fathers and brothers taken away at gunpoint and then shot and left in mass graves. They were young people who would go out for bread and be shot by snipers. They told me of atrocities that I cannot repeat in the House.
At the age of 29, I stopped being sheltered by a false sense that war is something of another time and another place. I lost my sense of innocence about what humanity is capable of doing to one another and the comfort that comes from a veneer of civilization, which I came to know is incredibly thin. My friends in Sarajevo were European students. They never imagined that they would see war. In fact, they told me that when they marched in the streets and their own army, the Yugoslav national army, took aim and started shooting at them. They did not run because they did not believe it was really happening. I am seeing the same incredulity on the faces of Ukrainians today.
We cannot abandon them because peace is not inevitable. Peace takes constant vigilance and sometimes peace means fighting to stop war crimes and aggression and horrors from spreading. If we let it happen in Ukraine, what does the world do when Russia comes for our north, or when other dictators learn lessons from Ukraine? We cannot allow the unthinkable to happen just because we cannot imagine it. We must do everything to stop it right here, right now.
From the beginning, the Canadian government has stood resolutely with Ukraine. We have responded with all the tools at our disposal, through diplomacy, leadership, the UN and our allies, and through sanctions targeting Putin and his inner circle, the oligarchs, Russian banks and the SWIFT financial system. We are cancelling all export permits to Russia, banning imports of Russian crude oil, offering over $620 million in sovereign loans to Ukraine, renewing and expanding the Canadian Armed Forces support to NATO through Operation Reassurance and Op Unifier, delivering lethal and non-lethal aid to civilians displaced and harmed in this illegal war, closing Canadian airspace to Russia and expediting immigration avenues for Ukrainians to settle here in Canada.
Today Ukrainians are not just fighting for their freedom, they are fighting for the freedom of all of us. We will not allow Putin and his thugs to dismantle the peace and prosperity that democracy has brought to the world. We will not waver. We will stand with Ukraine.
Slava Ukraini.
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- Feb/28/22 9:28:17 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I have been hearing from some constituents, including one who actually just passed through one of the border crossings from Ukraine into Poland, and one of the things he mentioned to me was the lack of supplies and necessities to support people at the border, such as blankets in the cold elements. Many of the individuals fleeing are women and children.
I am wondering if the hon. member would like to comment on some of the humanitarian aid that we could provide and if she would be in favour of increasing that support.
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- Feb/28/22 9:28:56 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I agree 100% with my colleague. We have already created the matching fund with the Canadian Red Cross of $10 million. That is just a start. We have already provided $35 million in development aid and another $15 million in humanitarian aid. We are working with other countries, not just for Canada to step up further but for other countries to also step up. We are taking a leadership role and I know that the hon. member will hear more in the coming days.
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- Feb/28/22 9:29:42 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, the previous speaker, my colleague, asked why Canada does not provide visa-free travel for Ukrainians when we have the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world and 141 other countries offer that.
Will the government automatically extend the visas of Ukrainians who are here in Canada now, whether they be student or work visas, so that they are not forced to go back to Ukraine at this time?
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- Feb/28/22 9:30:12 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, yes, we are extending visas for those Ukrainians who are here in Canada on temporary visas. We are expediting all immigration visas. We are creating corridors for Canadians, for permanent residents and their families to be able to come here. I thank the hon. member for his advocacy because these are incredibly important moments to be able to bring as many people as we can to safety, and for those who are already in Canada to not have the stress of worrying that they are going to have to return home.
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- Feb/28/22 9:30:56 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for her speech.
We know Canada and its allies have shut Russian banks out of the SWIFT network. However, some banks have yet to be removed from the system.
What is the government's plan to remove all Russian banks from the SWIFT system?
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- Feb/28/22 9:31:17 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, we have been working in very close coordination with our allies and with like-minded countries to make sure we are standing united in making sure that Putin, the oligarchs and the banking system will be completely isolated in the world. We heard the Prime Minister very clearly say that we want to remove Russia from the SWIFT system. We have a number of other measures, and we are working very closely with other countries and with our European counterparts to make sure that there is not impunity for what is happening right now in Ukraine.
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- Feb/28/22 9:32:03 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the member for her remarks but also for her advocacy and her work, particularly in her parliamentary secretary role.
Could she speak to and summarize for the folks watching at home what some of the key things are that Canada has done from a humanitarian perspective and what still needs to be focused on in the days and weeks to come?
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- Feb/28/22 9:32:32 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for Etobicoke Centre for his incredible advocacy on this and for his untiring and unwavering work in this area.
I would like to assure the member that in addition to what I mentioned previously, the $10-million matching fund, which I encourage all Canadians to take advantage of, and the $50 million we recently announced, which is in addition to over $240 million we provided in previous years, we are working globally. We are working with our counterparts to make sure that we are providing more humanitarian aid and that other countries are stepping up as well.
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- Feb/28/22 9:33:13 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I am splitting my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock and I want to thank her for her leadership as our shadow minister for national defence on this file on Ukraine, along with the great work that has been done by my friend, the shadow minister for foreign affairs, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills.
I also want to thank the government for coming up with the sanctions and delivering the lethal weapons that we have been calling for and that Ukraine has desperately needed. There is another bunch of weapons that were announced today that are going to go to Ukraine, which will go a long way in helping them defend their homeland.
What we have been witnessing over the last five days I think all of us find surreal. It is heartbreaking for those of us who have friends and family still in Ukraine. It is hard to watch, as I am hearing tonight that Russia has gotten way more aggressive in dropping in thermobaric warheads. This is a step down from nuclear. This is a very catastrophic event that is happening tonight and one that should be classified as a war crime. I think all of us here are keeping the people of Ukraine in our thoughts and prayers as this is playing out before the world on TV. It is heartbreaking and it is something that is going to take a long time to get over.
At the same time, we have all been inspired by the leadership of the Government of Ukraine and what it has been able to do in mobilizing its citizens. We have been inspired by the bravery and courage of regular people picking up arms to defend their country and fight side by side with their soldiers who have been courageous in warding off the invading hordes coming across the border from Russia.
Because of that tenacity that Putin did not count on, he completely miscalculated going forward with this invasion of Ukraine. We have to keep in mind why Ukraine has been able to hold off one of the greatest military powers in the world. It is because, when we look at the Russian troops, they are fighting for a tyrannical dictator. If we look at the people of Ukraine, what are they fighting for? They are fighting for their country. They are fighting for their democracy. They are fighting to protect their freedom. They are fighting because they are trying to protect the European aspirations that they have had since the Maidan in 2014. Of course, they are fighting to protect Ukraine's culture and, most importantly, they are trying to protect their families. That is why we see men and women who have picked up arms. These are true patriots.
We have witnessed already Putin's revisionist history, his toxic rhetoric, and we all know from everything leading up to this that Putin is a pathological liar and we should never trust him. That is why diplomacy will never work with this man. We have to do everything we can to help Ukraine and everything we can to stop Putin's war machine.
There are three things that we have to do. We have to go ahead with breaking Russia's financial bank. That is why sanctions are important. That is why using SWIFT to target Russian banks is important. That is why we have to replace Russian energy and take away the ability for Russia to finance its war machine. We have to keep sending more and more support to Ukraine so they have that ability to fight back. The lethal weapons, anti-tank, anti-aircraft, anti-missile systems are what they need right now so that they can continue on with the fight, and more ammo. We do not want to see them run out of ammo in the street fights that are taking place today.
We need humanitarian aid. One of the things I have heard in the last little bit is that we can use improved first aid kits and send those over. We have them here in Canada, so we can send them to the front line. We have role 3 hospitals that I know the government purchased for the purpose of COVID. They are still sitting in their containers. Let us put them on the C-17s and get those role 3 hospitals over there to deal with the trauma that is happening. Of course, we have to continue on with isolating Russia on the world stage, suspending it from the G20, the OSCE and other international organizations.
The end of the Cold War gave us peace dividends, but the whole mirage of peace dividends has now been shattered. We have to do more and spend more on defence. We cannot do defence on the cheap anymore. We have to step up with our deterrents and our investments in NATO, in NORAD and in our Arctic sovereignty, because if do not, dictators, despots and tyrants will keep redrawing international borders through force. We cannot let that happen. We have to stand with Ukraine. They are the front line today.
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- Feb/28/22 9:38:30 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank the member opposite for his vigilance on the Ukraine file and for his advocacy on many things we see eye to eye on, particularly this issue.
What I have seen at rallies in my riding and at rallies in the city of Toronto, some of which the member opposite has been at, is that the support for Ukraine is not just from Ukrainian Canadians. It is not just from Canadians generally. It is from people of all demographics and all ethnicities and backgrounds. I have seen Tibetan Canadian constituents of mine gathering forces with Ukrainians, supporting this fight against authoritarianism. I have seen Taiwanese Canadians standing up with Taiwanese flags at these rallies.
I am wondering if the member opposite could comment upon the unifying features we have seen among Canadians in rallying to this cause and what that portends in general for the fight against authoritarianism going forward and how we can rally against that and against the repression Vladimir Putin represents.
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- Feb/28/22 9:39:24 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, it has been inspiring, watching how Canadians from all walks of life come out to support Ukraine at these rallies right across the country from coast to coast to coast. I have been at a few of these in Manitoba and Ontario, and people are overwhelmingly in support of Ukraine and want to help, regardless of whether they have Ukrainian heritage. As Canadians, we are all Ukrainian today, because Ukrainians are fighting for democracy. They are fighting for human rights and they are fighting for the international rule of law. Since Ukraine is fighting for all of us, all of us have to do everything we can for Ukraine. That is why the UCC has been organizing these rallies. I encourage people to get out there and donate. I appreciate the government is matching donations with the Red Cross right now, so that we can increase humanitarian aid and use organizations like the Canada-Ukraine Foundation to help those in need in Ukraine during this unpleasant time of war.
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- Feb/28/22 9:40:34 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, my hon. colleague has been very wise. As soon as I got to this place here in the House of Commons, I learned a lot from this member, particularly about Ukrainian issues. I would like to seek this member's advice again in relation to the Russian war crimes we are witnessing right now. These crimes are truly atrocious.
What role could Canada play to make sure we hold Russia accountable for these war crimes? In particular, can Canada fund some of the observations for these missions?
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- Feb/28/22 9:41:08 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want to say that the OSCE has been active in Ukraine monitoring what was originally the line of contact under the Minsk agreements I and II and has already been documenting a lot of the things that were happening in violation of those Minsk agreements. They are also the ones who will be documenting all the war crimes that are happening. We need to make sure the UN is involved in this documentation, but there is a role to play for NATO, the RCMP, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to ensure that, for everything Russia is doing right now, we can hold Putin and his inner circle to account, including dragging them in front of the Hague at the International Criminal Court.
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- Feb/28/22 9:42:05 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, one of the conversations we are having as a result of this war crime by Vladimir Putin is around the issue of energy security in this country. Obviously, Europe is supplied with natural gas by Russia. Canada is the fifth-largest producer of natural gas. Clean Canadian energy can be exported around the world, not just used here at home. However, the issue of energy security is becoming critical, and I am wondering if the hon. member would comment on that.
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