SoVote

Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)

Oct/3/22 4:29:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of commonalities in the positions taken by the official opposition and the government. We have been working in tandem on different opportunities on the question of the referendums. What I have been saying to constituents, obviously, because of my background, as someone born in communist Poland, is that these have all the legitimacy of a thief who breaks into a bank and applies for a line of credit during the theft they are committing, which is basically what the terrorist state of Russia is doing. I wonder if the member could perhaps comment on what other steps the government should be immediately taking to provide arms, logistical support and the means for Ukrainians to reach the Russian Federation's true border, the international border that we recognize and is internationally recognized, to ensure this war comes to an early end with a minimal number of casualties.

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Context: House Hansard - 106 - Oct/3/22

Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)

Oct/3/22 4:34:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would first like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia. This is a very serious issue. Referendums are being held in the territories occupied by the army. This is significant. Obviously, Quebec has had a few referendums, but we are not talking about the same thing, not at all. We have had democratic referendums, with, of course, some financial irregularities in the second one, which we could talk about all day long, but that is another topic altogether. How can the legitimacy of a referendum held at gunpoint be recognized? Four regions have just announced the results of these sham referendums, as President Zelenskyy calls them. The result in Zaporizhzhia was 93%, so it was popular. It was a little lower in Kherson, at 87%. Any politician in Quebec or Canada who won 87% of the vote in an election would be a demigod. In Luhansk, it was 98%. In Donetsk, it was 99%. This is actually similar to the percentage of votes President Putin supposedly won in the Russian election. These are totally unrealistic, astronomical results that show how fake the whole process was. I am calling on my colleagues to continue moving in the same direction. Since we started talking about the conflict in Ukraine, there has been unanimity in the House. Could we perhaps do more? I listened, as we all did, to President Zelenskyy's speech to the House. I would like to share a secret with you: I found that to be a surreal moment. At one point, I took a step back to observe the scene unfolding before me. Everyone said they were firmly behind Ukraine, but everyone also said that we could really do no more. Today, it is not up to me to decide if Ukraine will join NATO. It is not up to me to decide if we must do more. However, I would ask that we consider what more we could do. I believe that Canada has been doing more than many other countries since the start, but we are facing such a terrible situation. Imagine that it is nine o'clock in the morning and we hear someone knocking at the door. There are three or four Russian soldiers standing there, machine guns in hand, inviting us to exercise our democratic right to vote in the referendum and decide whether to join “Great Russia”. Imagine that, in the weeks leading up to that moment, the neighbourhood school was destroyed by bombs. Imagine watching the hospital burn down and seeing our brothers, fathers or uncles die. Imagine knowing several women who were beaten and raped, and children who were injured, had limbs amputated or died. We need to put this in context. Someone just knocked at our door and demanded that we go vote, escorted by Russian soldiers. That is what those votes looked like. It is a desperate move by a Russian president who is helpless and who sees military failure ahead. Fortunately, there is hope. In these moments that are so difficult for humanity, that is what we must hold on to. There is hope; Ukrainian troops are gaining ground. The town of Lyman was recently recaptured, as were others. This is a desperate move by a despot who wants to legitimize his reprehensible acts. Let us be prepared for that. It will provide justification for his next move, whatever that move will be. Nuclear weapons have been used as a threat. Should we be afraid of that? Of course we should be afraid of it, because nuclear war is a war that can never be won and therefore should never be fought. I read that in an article earlier. Unfortunately, I did not note who wrote that, but I admit that I did not come up with it. I thought it was a brilliant sentence and I wanted to share it with everyone here today. We have to do something. We need to increase our support. Russian authorities—not the Russian people, because we must not make the mistake of generalizing and painting every Russian as a villain—have acted in a spiteful and malicious way, for example by bombing the port of Odessa, blocking Ukraine's grain exports and ultimately attacking global food security. The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food heard from a number of Ukrainian elected officials during our study on global food insecurity. They came to fill us in on the situation. I was horrified to learn that Russian bombings targeted grain storage infrastructure. Anyone remotely familiar with military strategy knows that is called scorched earth policy. Weaken people by starving them to death. How are we responding to that? The Russian government is threatening to cut off several European countries' energy supply, to slow the flow to a trickle. We all remember the frenzy over the turbine that was supposed to be fixed. Well, it was fixed and sent off, but it was never installed. So much for the big rush. What we have here is a regime that deals in blackmail and intimidation, and we must not give an inch. We must ensure that all occupied Ukrainian territories are returned to Ukraine. I am including Crimea in that. If there is a lesson to be learned from this war, it is that we allowed things to happen. The annexation of Crimea happened in 2014. I taught high school for 25 years. I taught history and civics. I remember when Crimea was annexed. I talked about it with my students every year. I do not want to scare anyone, but I drew certain parallels, in terms of approach and tactics, with the regimes that gave rise to the Second World War. They start with one territory. There is not too much opposition. It is perfect. They wait a few years, go elsewhere. They find a new excuse. I think we should learn from history. As we speak, the international community in its entirety is calling for calm. Even the Chinese ambassador called for the borders of every country to be respected. Our Ukrainian friends, I would remind members, participated in developing our land, western Canada in particular. There is also a large Ukrainian community in Quebec. We must not abandon these people. I see a Russian government that is going to try to mobilize Ukrainian civilians in these regions, claiming that they are now Russian territories. It will all be in an effort to conscript them and force them to fight against their brothers and sisters in the rest of Ukraine. Let us be firm and say “no”.

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Context: House Hansard - 106 - Oct/3/22

Ms. Lisa Marie Barron (Nanaimo—Ladysmith, NDP)

Oct/3/22 4:48:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in Nanaimo—Ladysmith I am seeing residents coming together to support Ukrainians who are impacted by this horrific Russian war on Ukraine. I know the member spoke about the coercive Russian tactics being used to hold referendums in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Could the member expand a little on why this referendum cannot have any legitimacy?

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