44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 16, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/16/22 6:58:28 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am really concerned about the situation where food and hunger are being used as a chip in Putin's war against the people of Ukraine, and now the world. It speaks to a larger destabilization that is happening. We are just learning about the Colorado River. With 80% of it going to agriculture, it feeds 40 million people, and the climate crisis in the southwest is now going to have severe impacts on agriculture. We depend on that agriculture as well. We have Putin blocking the ports, using food as a hunger weapon, and we can see increasing destabilization from climate change.
I want to ask the minister what steps Canada will be taking in the long term to ensure food security and to ensure that we can actually respond to this destabilizing global reality that we are living in 2022.
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- Jun/16/22 9:17:43 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I think we all agree in the House about the illegal and egregious genocide that is happening against the Ukrainian people. Yevheniya Kravchuk is one of the MPs who was here from Ukraine this week. In her remarks, she said that Putin was relying on democracies thinking that democracies are weak because we are under pressure when our populations have inflation, increased food prices and increased fuel prices, and he thinks this is going to cause us to have pressure from our populations and therefore not be as resolute.
Could my colleague comment on the fact that the food prices, fuel prices and inflation happening around the world and here in Canada are very much because of what Putin is doing in Ukraine? What are his thoughts on that?
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- Jun/16/22 9:21:23 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for his intervention. I appreciate him also raising the Holodomor as a serious issue. I wanted to ask him about some of the Canadian companies that continue to do business in Russia.
What should be done about their continued participation? In regard to Putin, how long should sanctions remain in place if we are able to see this resolved at any point in time? I would be interested to hear his perspective on that.
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- Jun/16/22 9:21:53 p.m.
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Madam Chair, in terms of companies that are continuing to do business with Russia, there are two possible circumstances. We could speak about those that may be violating sanctions, and we could also speak about cases where the sanctions are not preventing them from doing that.
We need to continue to push for tougher sanctions, and we also need strengthened sanctions enforcement. The member has talked about how we respond to this food crisis. There are many different actions that are required, and part of it is ensuring that victory, supporting our farmers and supporting international development. A lot of work needs to be done, and I hope we are prepared to do that work and have the resolve.
On his second question about how long the sanctions should be in place, very clearly we need to be committed to sustaining these sanctions until the Putin regime withdraws from all of Ukraine's sovereign territory, as was recognized by the government of Russia in the Budapest Memorandum.
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- Jun/16/22 9:49:44 p.m.
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Madam Chair, what is really concerning is that we are dealing with an unprecedented situation where hunger and famine are being used as tools of war. It is really important for Parliament to be looking beyond our own backyard and how we might benefit.
I have lots of farmers in my region who could help, but we are dealing with a much larger international crisis, with Russian disinformation and war crimes. I am asking my colleagues about their willingness to put a larger frame on this. How are we going to deal with this in an age of destabilization, with the failure of globalization and the fact that the modern norms we have trusted in the international community are not helping us deal with a war criminal like Putin?
We need to have a broader, bigger picture. I am asking my colleague if can he articulate where he sees this going in an age of growing instability.
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- Jun/16/22 10:12:14 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am really concerned that we are not looking at the larger issues here, the fact that we are dealing with war crimes being pushed by Putin. We are dealing with destabilization.
What is the plan to actually put in a new world order, a new understanding of the world in an age of destabilization? Where are we going, given the crimes that we are watching in Ukraine, the destabilization, the break-up of supply chains and the climate change? Canada needs to have a whole new vision.
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- Jun/16/22 10:22:42 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I really appreciate the question from my hon. friend from Ottawa West—Nepean.
These are not separate crises. If we look at the role Putin has played in undermining our own democracy, the Russian government has been using disinformation websites for quite some time to undermine democracies by provoking a whole series of false narratives. Donald Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin, disrupting democracies in the western world, increasing incivility in the way we deal with each other and increasing the risk of white supremacy, which is an example of something that threatens our democracy.
We cannot take these things as separate and siloed. We need to defend democracy and attack autocracies and fascist states. In doing that, we need to be conscious of the fact, to be biblical like David Beasley might want me to be, that we cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time. We have to identify the enemy, and the enemy is multinational corporations that seek to profit from every one of these crises.
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