44th Parl. 1st Sess.

March 3, 2022 10:00AM

Mrs. Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, CPC)

Mar/3/22 1:33:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in this chamber. It is an honour to speak on behalf of the people of Calgary Midnapore. I come here today as a proud woman who is one-quarter Ukrainian, so it is also an honour for me to be here today speaking not only for the people of Ukraine, but also for my ancestors, who come from this incredible nation that is so challenged at this time. When I arrive to this chamber, it is always after giving a lot of thought beforehand to matters of the day, like the opposition motion today. When I wonder about the situation that we find this resilient nation in, the same question comes to my mind that I ask about many of the world's problems and many of the problems we have seen in our nation recently. That question is, how did it come to this? I will give members some insight into that, according to the research I have done. If we look at an article by Bill Browder in AFP, we will see it says that Russia has “a stagnant economy, the most extreme wealth disparity of any major country, and endemic hopelessness that infects millions of ordinary citizens.” It is not a great place for Putin to begin. A New York Times article says this: Mr. Putin has described the Soviet disintegration as a catastrophe that robbed Russia of its rightful place among the world’s great powers and put it at the mercy of a predatory West. He has spent his 22 years in power rebuilding Russia’s military and reasserting its geopolitical clout. The Russian president calls NATO’s expansion menacing, and the prospect of Ukraine joining it a major threat to his country. As Russia has grown more assertive and stronger militarily, his complaints about NATO have grown more strident. Bill Browder goes on to say: Putin also knows that the West has never really held him accountable for his past actions. Since 2008, he has invaded Georgia, taken Crimea, occupied Eastern Ukraine, bombed hospitals in Syria, shot down a passenger plane, and hacked governments and businesses around the world. The West’s response? A few sanctions, removal from the G-8, and the expulsion of a handful of diplomats. How could this happen? Well, Canada does in fact have a part in this. Let us look to the Speech from the Throne. It states, “This is the moment to fight for a secure, just, and equitable world.” However, what do we see? We see the government's lack of action in Venezuela. There is no clear offer to mediate the conflict. It is ignoring the roles of Russia and China, which are scheming together, potentially, for further action. There was too little aid too late, with Digest Venezuela recently saying that 96% of Venezuelans are living in poverty. In Saudi Arabia, we saw very similar inaction by the government against a dictatorship and a lack of democracy. Twitter was used to speak against the kingdom following the imprisonment of civil society and women's rights activists. We saw the government's aid with an export permit of 1.5 billion dollars' worth of arms, yet it dragged its heels when it came to Ukraine. It never spoke up in December 2008 with the murder of the journalist Khashoggi. Let us go to Hungary now briefly, where Orbán's centralized power weakened the rule of law, academic freedom and freedom of the press. The Prime Minister's government refused to take a tougher stance against Orbán. Again I will say that it did not have to come to this. Leading up to this, Canada should not have ignored its investment in Canada's military. Maintaining our NATO commitment to invest 2% on military spending should have been prioritized, but it never was. The Conservative 2021 platform called for intensifying Operation Unifier, the Canadian Armed Forces's military training and capacity-building mission in Ukraine, supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons and reinstating the provision of RADARSAT imagery. My colleague who just spoke, the member for Brandon—Souris, indicated that the government has consistently had a lack of vision, a lack of foresight, in the protection of not only Canada but the rest of the safe western democratic world. This also, of course, is relevant when we speak about energy. Members may have seen the Globe and Mail article by Konrad Yakabuski, who said: Canada missed the boat during an LNG development boom a decade ago. It must not make the same mistake again. Yielding to pressure from environmentalists who oppose LNG export terminals and gas pipelines on the grounds that such developments prolong global dependence on fossil fuels, or prevent Canada from meeting its own greenhouse-gas reduction targets, will only end up strengthening the hand of Mr. Putin and his fellow dictators. Members can see that we are not using this opposition motion to divide Canadians. We are giving Canada an opportunity to help the world and defend the world with the use of our clean, safe natural resources. I wish I could say it ends there, with Canada not having done its due diligence and not having done its work in the world, but it goes beyond that. Did members know that Russia is currently a member of the International Court of Justice? It is the very international body that may try Russia's leader and the nation for the war crimes we are seeing. Russia also sits on the United Nations Economic and Social Council. How can it be that this dictator is determining economic and social policy between nations for the entire world? The current membership of the Human Rights Council includes nations such as Eritrea, Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela. I will talk more about these nations momentarily, but they do not have a standard of excellence historically for supporting human rights. Of course, Russia is currently on the UN Security Council too. That is unbelievable. It is not just Canada that has been derelict in its duty of holding this nation to account. It has stood beside other nations of the world that have let this happen. We saw this most recently with the draft resolution A/ES-11 condemning these actions in Ukraine. It is true that dictators are standing with Putin. It is those of Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria. However, the United Nations, an organization that promotes the safety and well-being of the world, has not done its work here. When it comes to the world and natural resources, I turn to an article by Stephen J. Blank, entitled “The Balkans and Euro-Atlantic Energy Security”, where he states, “Russia’s objectives in helping to foment this crisis are clear. They entail restoring its energy hegemony and political leverage over numerous European countries.” In addition, the European Union recently released a report on this, where it stated, “Energy policy is often used as a foreign policy tool, in particular in major energy producing and transit countries.” The commission said: As part of a revitalised European energy and climate diplomacy, the EU will use all its foreign policy instruments to establish strategic energy partnerships with increasingly important producing and transit countries or regions.... The EU will continue to integrate Norway fully into its internal energy policies. The EU will also develop its partnerships with countries such as the United States and Canada. In conclusion, Canada has failed by allowing this situation to escalate and allowing this invasion to take place, and it has done so alongside the world. The government's idea, or that of anyone in the House from the Bloc, the Green Party or the NDP, that we are putting forward this motion only for our interests is untrue. We are standing today for natural resources, for the safety and security of Canadians and for our rightful place in the world as a leader. We are protecting the safety and security of the world.

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