44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 28, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/28/22 2:32:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada, like Ukraine, shares a border with Russia, our Arctic.
We can no longer afford to take our sovereignty and security for granted. Russia considers the Arctic to be its most important theatre, its most important region, and has spent considerable resources over the last decade building up capabilities there.
Will the government now act urgently to protect Canadian sovereignty and security by purchasing the F-35 jets, by fixing our naval shipbuilding program, and by immediately modernizing NORAD's early warning system?
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- Feb/28/22 2:33:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government is not participating in joint military exercises between the United States and Scandinavian countries that have been taking place over the last year in the Arctic.
Russia supplies 40% of Europe's natural gas and uses this to threaten European democracies by threatening to cut off gas. Canada is the fifth-largest natural gas producer in the world.
Will the government now commit to fixing our broken pipeline approval process so that we can get new pipelines built to Atlantic tidewater and come to the assistance of European democracies by replacing Russian gas with Canadian natural gas?
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- Feb/28/22 8:52:51 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I will share my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
The attack on Ukraine by the Russian Federation, ordered by President Vladimir Putin, is the first European war since the Second World War and a serious violation of international law and our collective humanity. This attack threatens not only Ukraine, but also Canada, because our security has always been inextricably tied to that of Europe. Canadians know well the price we paid in two world wars in Europe. A hundred thousand Canadian war dead can attest to that.
This attack, coming on the heels of an autocratic pact between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, threatens the rules-based international order that has existed since 1945, an order that Canada helped establish. It is an order that has ensured the longest period of relative peace and prosperity in the modern period. It is an order that, if dissolved, threatens Canada’s peace and security here at home.
We support the actions taken to date by the Government of Canada, but more needs to be done. The government should expel Russian Ambassador Oleg Stepanov and recall Canadian Ambassador LeClaire from Moscow. It should seek Russia’s removal from multilateral fora such as the G20 and OSCE.
Diplomatic isolation is needed because diplomacy did not work. In fact, President Putin used diplomacy for his own purposes to disinform and distract.
The government should direct the CRTC to adopt a new policy to terminate licences of state-controlled broadcasters that spread disinformation and propaganda, so that Russia Today, RT, can be removed from Canadian airwaves, as should other authoritarian state-controlled broadcasters operating here in Canada. We must get serious about the disinformation and propaganda spread by proxies of Russia and China here in Canada.
The government should also immediately implement visa-free travel for Ukrainians wanting to come to Canada, as member states of the European Union already have done.
We must be clear-eyed about these proposed measures. We must be clear-eyed that these proposed measures are not going to stop the invasion in Ukraine. We must be clear-eyed that the measures announced to date by the Government of Canada are not going to stop the invasion in Ukraine. We must be clear-eyed that a middle power like Canada can only do certain things to counter the threat from Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation. If we are clear-eyed, there are two things we can do.
First, we must understand that energy is vital not only to our economy, but also to our security. Russia understands this. Canada has not. Russia supplies 40% of Europe’s natural gas and uses this to intimidate Europe and Ukraine, threatening to cut off supplies. If supplies are cut, people will freeze, factories will shutter and Europe’s economy will plummet.
Canada is the fifth-largest natural gas producer in the world, but we cannot get gas to Europe to assist European democracies, because we cannot get pipelines built. Getting natural gas to Atlantic tidewater is vital not only to our economic interest, not only to our environmental interest, but it is also vital to our security interest. We were an arsenal for European democracy decades ago. We can be energy for European democracy today.
We must understand that Russia considers the Arctic its most important region. It has spent considerable resources there in recent years. Canada, like Ukraine, shares a border region with Russia, the Arctic Ocean. We no longer can afford to take our security for granted. We need a robust plan to defend Canadian Arctic sovereignty and security that includes purchasing F-35 jets, modernizing NORAD’s early warning system, fixing our national shipbuilding program, joining ballistic missile defence, and closer co-operation with Scandinavian and American allies in the Arctic region.
The world has irreversibly changed in the last week. We must get serious about the threats presented by China and Russia. That starts with treating energy as vital not only to our economy, but also to our security, and treating seriously the Arctic as crucial to our sovereignty and to our security.
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- Feb/28/22 8:58:56 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, the most important role that Canada can play is to bring members of the NATO alliance more closely together. The single biggest threat that has created gaps between the positions of the various members of the alliance is energy. Russia has used energy as a weapon, as a hard power tool, to cow and intimidate central European democracies, particularly democracies like Italy and Germany, into not taking certain positions in defence of our collective security and our collective defence with the threat of cutting off the 40% of natural gas that Europe uses to heat homes, power industry, produce fertilizer for agriculture and so many other things.
If we in this country can understand that energy is essential not only to the economy but also to our security and get pipelines built to Atlantic tidewater, we can help replace Russian gas in western Europe with Canadian natural gas and bring the alliance more closely together. That is one of the two most significant things we can do to strengthen our collective defence and security.
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- Feb/28/22 9:00:51 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I think China is watching us and our allies very closely right now to see what we do in response to Russian aggression in eastern Europe.
The actions taken by western democracies today are going to dictate the actions of the People's Republic of China for years to come in the Indo-Pacific region. That is why we have to get serious about our foreign policy. We have to get serious about our defence policy, and we have to get serious about our energy policy. If we are clear-eyed about these interests, I think we can defend our values both here and abroad: our belief in freedom, human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
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- Feb/28/22 9:02:30 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, our energy is vital not just to our economic interests and not just to our security interests, but to our environmental interests. The single thing that the world could do in the next decade to meet our Paris targets and to reduce global emissions is to replace coal-fired electricity generation with natural gas-fired electricity generation. It is the single biggest step we can take to reduce global emissions.
European countries, many of them in western Europe, still rely on coal and gas to fire their electricity plants. We should be working to replace that with natural gas, a more environmentally friendly way to produce electricity in the transition to a renewable, non-emitting future.
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