44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 28, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/28/22 9:23:24 p.m.
- Watch
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.
748 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/22 9:28:56 p.m.
- Watch
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.
86 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/22 9:30:12 p.m.
- Watch
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.
93 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/22 9:31:17 p.m.
- Watch
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.
98 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/28/22 9:32:32 p.m.
- Watch
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.
105 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
