Hon. Stan Kutcher: Honourable senators, I rise today with deep sadness for the citizens of Ukraine and also for the rest of the free world. I am worried about the people of Ukraine, including relatives that I — and many of us in this chamber and across our free and prosperous country — have living there.

This morning, I looked at a map. It showed places where missile and air attacks had targeted. Kyiv, Lviv and just outside of Ternopil. My family is there.

We are witnessing a criminal act against Ukraine — an attack on the international rule of law, an attack on the values all those who live in democratic freedom must resist. Although our resistance is coming late, it must be fulsome and impactful, and it must happen now.

The invasion comes as no surprise. It is not the result of an impulsive act by an unhinged mind but the cunning culmination of years of preparation — years during which we and the free world could have acted but did not, years during which the signs were clearly there for us to see but did not see, or, maybe worse, chose not to see, or, maybe even worse, aided and abetted. It was no surprise that, earlier this week, Trump praised the genius of Putin, and Fox News attacked Canada and fawned over Russia.

Sadly, many Canadians may not realize just how real dictators operate. Russia has long been actively destabilizing Western democracies, including Canada, often by interfering in elections and stoking the flames of populism and libertarianism. As the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and DisinfoWatch have pointed out, during this pandemic Russia has been amplifying anti-vaccine rhetoric, pushing narratives that question the existence of COVID, the legitimacy of Canadian public health protocols, the safety of vaccines and inciting people to attack public health measures that were designed to protect them and their communities.

My family knows these techniques all too well. The destabilization of legitimate governments that stand in the way of Russian interests has always been a hallmark of that regime. My ties are deep in Ukraine. My parents were World War II refugees. They knew real tyranny. They lost everything. Most of my relatives were sent to the gulag. Those who survived were cast aside on the scrap heap of life. Some clawed their way back; others did not.

Honourable senators, let’s see Russia for what it is. Let’s make sure it does not destabilize our country and the international rule of law. We need to stand with Ukraine, and we need to act today, not tomorrow.

As the Ukrainian national anthem says, Ukraine’s freedom has not yet perished.

[Editor’s Note: Senator Kutcher spoke in Ukrainian.]

Let’s do all that we can to prove that phrase correct. Thank you and d’akuju.

Hon. Denise Batters: Honourable senators, I rise today to condemn Russia for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. We are all horrified by the images streaming from Ukraine in the hours since this invasion. It’s a country under siege from all directions. All at once, its citizens are cowering in subway tunnels and people are gathered together with heads bowed in prayer because there seem to be no other options at this point.

As the granddaughter of Ukrainian immigrants who sought refuge in Canada 100 years ago, I feel this invasion deep in my soul. I visited Ukraine in 2014 as an observer for the presidential elections that year. I was struck then by the deep gratitude of Ukrainian people for their burgeoning democracy and was touched by the elderly women from Ukrainian villages who brought fresh flowers from their gardens to the polling station to give thanks for the opportunity to express their democratic right to vote. I am thinking of those elderly women in Ukraine today, honourable senators.

Canada cannot abandon Ukraine’s citizens to the madman Vladimir Putin. We must condemn, in the strongest possible terms, Putin’s brutal and entirely unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and we condemn Putin’s flagrant disregard for Russia’s obligations under international law. But we must do more than just stand by and condemn the evil acts of the dictator Putin. Canada must act now to stand up for a peaceful and free Ukraine.

For years, Ukrainian authorities have been pleading with Canada for defensive arms, but the Trudeau government did not provide them. It only agreed to provide some defensive arms on the eve of the invasion. They were provided so late that I do not know if they will even reach Ukrainian soldiers in the field. Now Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked every able Ukrainian citizen to take up arms themselves against Putin’s forces. The Trudeau government’s delay and virtue signalling are ineffective in the face of such a monumental threat.

On February 13, the Prime Minister tweeted, “ . . . we’ll keep standing strong in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” That was the same day that Canadian trainers in Ukraine headed for the Polish border and Canada was evacuating its embassy in Kyiv. What have all these words and those uttered by other Western leaders meant for the Ukrainian people? We can see the results of that today, and it breaks my heart.

The least we can do now is open our borders to the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who are now fleeing their country. The official opposition will support this motion, but I implore our Canadian government to understand that this is not the time for weak words. It is our moral duty to act now to help the people of Ukraine.

[Editor’s Note: Senator Batters spoke in Ukrainian.]

Hon. Peter M. Boehm: Honourable senators, I rise today to tell you what you already know. The world changed last night and not for the better. The shameless, unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine by Russia goes against all norms and rules under international law and previous agreements and violates the United Nations Charter. It defies all decent civilized behaviour and must be resoundingly condemned. This invasion was meticulously planned, and entreaties by Russia to achieve a diplomatic solution were deeply cynical and malign. That the largest country in the world by territory should seek to redraw established agreed-upon international borders through a war of aggression to gain more territory, as Russia did by invading and annexing Crimea in early 2014, is beyond credulity. It reflects Vladimir Putin’s twisted need to rewrite history and is redolent of expansionism by might not seen since Hitler’s Germany.

I support the measures taken by our government and the concerted efforts taken by G7 countries under the current German presidency, as well as NATO partners to put pressure on and take action against the autocratic regime of Mr. Putin. There has been much talk of tyrants lately, colleagues. He is one.

My own personal involvement with Russia began when I joined our foreign service. At the time, it was the Soviet Union. I watched, and like many, was encouraged by the advent of glasnost, perestroika; all those new words we learned that signified change and an opening to a freer society in Russia in 1989.

I worked with former prime minister Jean Chrétien toward the 1995 G7 summit in Halifax where then Russian president Boris Yeltsin was invited to join for a meeting. This was an important initiative that eventually led to the creation of the G8. It was felt by all that the days of bellicosity were resigned to the history books, and there were many common projects and initiatives on which we could work together.

I had the honour of being former prime minister Stephen Harper’s personal representative, or sherpa, for what became the last G8 summit in June 2013 at Lough Erne, Northern Ireland. Mr. Harper had just visited Dublin and had made some controversial comments about the value of discussion at the G8 where one member was clearly out of step. Indeed, I recall Mr. Putin dominating the foreign policy discussion with his singular view of the crisis in Syria, to the exclusion of almost any other topic. Leaders were exasperated and Mr. Harper was proven correct.

It was Russia’s turn to host the G8 in Sochi in 2014. I attended one sherpa meeting in Moscow in January and then it was all over. Russia had invaded and taken Crimea and had installed proxy forces in the Donbas region of Ukraine. At Mr. Harper’s request, G7 leaders met on the margins of the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague in March, where I also served as sherpa, and a decision was taken. The G8 again became the G7, working together for common global purpose.

What we have seen, colleagues, is Russia moving from global pariah to partner and back to pariah. Its actions are unjustified, unacceptable and reprehensible.

Let us all stand together to condemn this outrageous violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence.

Let us all stand together in support of the legitimate government of Ukraine and the strong and resilient people of Ukraine. Thank you.