44th Parl. 1st Sess.
January 31, 2022 11:00AM
- Jan/31/22 6:58:00 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I would ask the Prime Minister what his government is doing to ensure that the feminist foreign policy is front and centre as we deal with this current crisis in Ukraine and what his government is doing to ensure that women are at all negotiating tables right now. The Canadian government is advocating for women to be present and to be at all of those tables at this time. If he could answer that, that would be great.
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- Jan/31/22 7:26:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one thing that bothers me the most about the member's comments today is that he speaks about lethal force and action, but I do not hear him talking about diplomacy. I do not hear him talking about using what we can to de-escalate the situation right now. What I want him to understand is that it is the Ukrainian people who will die if there is a war in Ukraine. It is the women and children in Ukraine who will die if we continue to escalate the situation.
Now, his party, when it was in power, was the one that decimated foreign aid. It was the one that decimated our diplomatic corps. Perhaps he does not believe in diplomacy. Perhaps he does not believe in sanctions and the power of the international community to find a peaceful resolution.
I am wondering why he thinks, as someone who will not have to go to war in Ukraine, that war is such a wonderful idea for the Ukrainian people right now.
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- Jan/31/22 8:00:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his support for the Ukrainian community.
We have seen, under the Conservatives and then the Liberals, a decimation of international development, our foreign policy and Canada's role in the world. Can he comment on what this could look like if Canada still had strong peace keeping, diplomatic and international development efforts?
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- Jan/31/22 8:01:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my leader, the member for Burnaby South, for his comments tonight in support of the Ukrainian community.
As many people have said before tonight, Canada has a very special relationship with Ukraine. Canada was the first country to recognize Ukraine as an independent sovereign country 30 years ago. There are over 1.4 million Canadians who identify as being of Ukrainian heritage in Canada, and while Ukrainians have chosen to settle in communities across Canada, nowhere else has their impact been as great as within the prairie provinces, such as my own home province of Alberta. Ukrainians have been instrumental in building our communities, our cities, our provinces and our country.
Edmonton has a strong, vibrant Ukrainian community. Recently, I visited one of my dear friends, Theodora Harasymiw. She is a Ukrainian artist. She makes unbelievably beautiful mosaics that celebrate the pride and the history of the Ukrainian people in Canada, and I am very proud to say that the New Democratic Party stands strongly in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.
Over the years, my NDP colleagues have called repeatedly for greater support for Ukraine through increased development aid, for democratic and governance support, for Canada to extend visa-free travel to Ukrainians and for increased trade relationships, such as the 2016 Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement. Linda Duncan, my predecessor in this position, with whom many members have worked, was actually awarded the Executive Hetman Award for her support of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Canadian community.
As the NDP foreign affairs critic and the vice-chair of the Canada-Ukraine Friendship Group, I will continue the work that has been done by my NDP colleagues to strengthen Canada-Ukraine relations, and it is that special relationship that has me rising to speak in the House today. At this moment in time, when Ukrainian Canadians are so worried about their friends and families, and people in Ukraine are increasingly being threatened by an aggressive and belligerent Russia, Canada must do more to work with its allies. We must work with the United Nations, we must work with the OSCE and we must work with NATO to find real diplomatic solutions to this looming crisis. Canada must not escalate and inflame an already precarious situation, but rather focus its efforts on diplomacy, non-lethal assistance and economic sanctions, including Magnitsky sanctions, to deter Russia from escalating this conflict.
I am worried about my friends, and I am worried about everyone in Ukraine. We cannot give Putin a further excuse to invade. We have to use every diplomatic tool we have, including sanctions, to prevent a devastating war that would cost lives. If Russia further invades into Ukrainian territory, Ukrainians would pay the price. Ukrainian civilians would be injured, displaced and killed. Children and women in Ukraine would bear the brunt of this violence, and those impacts would be felt for decades or longer.
UN Secretary General Guterres has urged the use of diplomacy, stating that there should not be any military intervention, but rather that diplomacy is the way to solve the problems. Under-Secretary General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo repeated that any military intervention involving Russia or NATO alliance forces must be averted.
Canadian Global Affairs Institute fellow Andrew Rasiulis, a defence expert and former Department of National Defence official, has explicitly said that if Canada sends arms to Ukraine, it would aggravate the situation:
You’d be neutralizing your effect. If you put arms in and then try to negotiate—you could do both, there’s no law against it—but you’d be neutralizing your effect.
There is still time. Working with its allies, Canada can de-escalate this conflict. We can use economic sanctions. We can include removal of Russia from the SWIFT international payment system and place sanctions on Russia's sovereign debt. How we respond to this crisis and how we use diplomacy and sanctions to de-escalate this crisis will be an indication of whether Canada is indeed back on the world stage.
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- Jan/31/22 8:08:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for again highlighting just how important the relationship is that we have with Ukraine. There are many things we could do right now.
We could work with sanctions. We should in fact be investing more in our diplomatic corps so that when there are conflicts around the world Canada could take back that place that we have seen so diminished, under both the Conservatives and the Liberals. We do not have a peacekeeping diplomatic corps. We are no longer the convener of world peace. We are no longer who we should be, and it is disappointing.
I would like to see Canada invest in things like international development, in our diplomatic corps and in peacekeepers. We had promises of peacekeepers going out into the field that have not been met. It has not even been close. There are so many more things we could do that would help in situations like what we are facing in Ukraine and in future situations. This is not the first time, and it is not the last time, that a bully is going to try to invade and impose its will on another country.
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- Jan/31/22 8:10:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have to disagree with my colleague across the way. Hitting a bully is not the best way to deal with bullying. Realistically, I have a 13-year-old son, and I certainly would not want the member advising him how to deal with bullying at his school.
I think there are better ways for us to do that. There are more responsible ways to do that. I would say that, for example, if someone is dealing with a person who is being aggressive and they punch them in the nose, it is not going to de-escalate the situation. It is not going to turn down the temperature. To be perfectly fair, I am not going to be in Ukraine. The member is not going to be in Ukraine. There are women, there are children, and there are civilians who are going to get caught in the middle of this.
When this is escalated, those are the people who pay the price. It is not him, not me and not anyone in this chamber. We have an obligation to be responsible. We have an obligation to seek a peaceful resolution.
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- Jan/31/22 8:39:45 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I would also like to thank the member for his comments. I have worked with him in the Canada-Ukraine Friendship Group. He is extremely knowledgeable on this topic, and I have also learned a great deal from him.
Earlier in the year, we were on a television interview together and he brought something up that has been sitting with me for a very long time. As I listen to Conservatives talk about how we need to escalate, have lethal weapons and amp up this war talk, my thoughts go back to when he said the Conservative government would concede not one inch. How did that work out in 2014? That was the government of the Conservatives, and it gave more than an inch.
Why does he think that a Conservative government, which was not able to prevent the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, would be able to prevent the invasion with the exact same rhetoric in 2022?
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- Jan/31/22 9:02:18 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the minister for his intervention this evening and for providing some clarity for us on Canada's intentions with regard to international development. However, I would be remiss if I did not raise the fact that right now Canada is giving a very low amount of overseas development assistance. We are at 0.31% of GNI, which is much lower than we should be at, and much lower than the government has repeatedly promised to get to.
While what we are seeing in Ukraine right now is a very urgent need, I think what we can be very clear on is that there is going to be more conflict around the world. The best way we can deal with conflict is to prevent it from happening, and international development plays a key role in that.
Will the minister commit on behalf of the Government of Canada to increasing our overseas development assistance to be able to fully implement the feminist international assistance policy?
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- Jan/31/22 9:33:07 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I know that my colleague, the member for Lakeland, has as many Ukrainians in her constituency as I do in mine. It was lovely to hear that commitment to the Ukrainian diaspora in her community.
The member will not be surprised when I talk about the need for de-escalation and the need for a peaceful resolution on this conflict. She spoke about the tools that we have in our tool box and all of the things that we could be doing.
From her perspective as a member of the Conservative Party, what are those things that Canada should be doing to de-escalate? Aside from providing weapons, aside from escalating with lethal-force weapons, what are those things that she sees that the government should be doing to de-escalate and to turn down the temperature on the conflict happening in Ukraine?
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- Jan/31/22 9:44:01 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, one of the things I asked earlier, and I would like to extend the question to the member as well, is around the assurance by the Government of Canada that it will be implementing some of those key lessons in our feminist foreign policy. One of those is that we do what we can to advocate to ensure women are at all tables, that women are part of all the discussions that lead to de-escalation, because we know that when women are at the table, different decisions are made.
I just want to be very, very clear. How is the government ensuring women are there, that they are part of the solution and part of the de-escalation efforts happening in Ukraine?
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- Jan/31/22 9:53:54 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I would like to thank my colleague for her intervention this evening.
In the previous intervention, there was some discussion about Canada and its efforts with regard to diplomacy and our diplomatic corps. I am not referring to ministers going for visits to Ukraine. I am referring to our diminished diplomatic corps.
Under the Conservatives, we had massive cuts to our diplomatic corps, especially when Global Affairs became something where they took away trade and development and put it all into one place. We lost a lot of our diplomacy, our ability to do diplomacy and our ability to have that role in the world, and we do not see that being built back up. We have not seen our international development and our ODA being built up. We also have not seen our peacekeeping efforts being built up.
What I want to know from the the government is this: Will it commit to doing these things, building back our peacekeeping, building back our diplomatic corps and building back our international development, so that Canada can be back and we can be better suited for future conflicts like the one we are seeing right now in Ukraine?
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