44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 23, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Abbotsford for the leadership he has shown on this file, going back to 2014-15 when he was minister of trade. I had the pleasure of accompanying him on a trade mission to Ukraine when we started this whole process.
As the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan mentioned, he has been a very strong advocate for Ukraine and its ability to defend itself against the Russian invasion and the atrocities that Putin and his proxies are committing in Ukraine. In the trade agreement, the Liberals would be sneaking in one of their ideological platform ideas on carbon taxing and carbon pricing.
Does the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan believe that it is important to put carbon pricing on energy? Every time I have talked to Ukrainians whenever I have been in Ukraine, they want more of our energy and more of our technologies so they can produce more energy there to replace the Russian oil and gas they have to use, which fund Putin's war machine.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech on the need to provide more support to Ukraine.
The member talked about the military aid we provide for Ukraine. I can tell members that when I was in Ukraine earlier this summer, they were very grateful for the support that Canada has given them. However, as Conservatives, we have been advocating for quite some time that the Government of Canada actually provide more military aid to Ukraine, including more weapons.
One of the things that we are about to be decommissioning here in Canada, and some have already been sent off to the scrap heap, is a number of our older armoured vehicles. Armatec, in London, Ontario, has offered to take those old vehicles, refurbish them and send them off to Ukraine to help them win this war. We know that the M113 track LAVs that Canada has would be very welcome along with our old Bisons and Coyotes that are in the process of being retired.
The old M113s that were sent from the United States and Australia have actually helped liberate Kharkiv, and we know that in this fight today, the more Ukrainians are being put in armed vehicles, the more they can push back and the more they can win.
I would ask the member if he would support having Armatec refurbish old, outdated LAVs that the Government of Canada is retiring from the Canadian Armed Forces.
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Mr. Speaker, for 607 days now we have witnessed Ukraine valiantly fight back against the Russian invasion. For 607 days, we have watched Russia carry out mass atrocities, and we know that Vladimir Putin wants to commit a genocide against the people of Ukraine.
One of the things that Ukraine is begging for is Canadian energy to make sure that Ukrainians are able to survive another cold winter since this war has started and not be dependent upon natural gas and oil from Russia. Will the member commit today to making sure we can send Canadian ethical energy, our liquefied natural gas and oil, to Ukraine so that it can have a comfortable winter and not be putting money into the fuel tank of Putin's war machine?
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Madam Speaker, it is indeed an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-57. As I think everyone in this place knows, I have been unequivocal in my support for Ukraine, and that will never cease, not only because I am proud of my Ukrainian heritage, but also because Ukraine is in a battle for its life and its very existence.
For 607 days, we have watched on TV, in real time, Russia's illegal invasion. For 607 days, we have watched the barbaric acts of the Russian military. For 607 days, we have watched how Russian soldiers have used sexual violence as a weapon as they raped women and children. For 607 days, we have watched Putin trying to Russify Ukraine and commit another genocide on the soil of Ukraine against the ethnic Ukrainian people. He is trying to emulate exactly what we saw from Joseph Stalin in 1932 and 1933 in the Holodomor, except Putin is being more upfront and aggressive in his mannerisms. For 607 days, we have witnessed Putin and his kleptocrats in the Kremlin refuse to recognize Ukraine as a nation and the people of Ukraine as a people.
However, during those 607 days, we have witnessed, against all odds, the people of Ukraine standing up and fighting back. We have witnessed the valour, courage and bravery of the Ukrainian soldiers as they have fought to hold the line. We have witnessed, for 607 days, the resiliency of the people of Ukraine not only in fighting back, but also in continuing their lives and continuing to rebuild. After every missile strike, they rebuild. For 607 days, I do not think Putin anticipated that he would unite NATO and our allies to support Ukraine unequivocally in its fight for its freedom against Putin and his Kremlin kleptocrats.
It is incumbent upon all of us in the House and upon our allies to hold Vladimir Putin and his proxies to account for their war crimes in Ukraine. They have to be brought before the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. We know for a fact that Russia has been using sexual violence as a weapon. We know for a fact that it has kidnapped children and families from areas they currently occupy, taken those children, put them up for adoption and are now reprogramming them, or brainwashing them, to be Russian.
This is part of Raphäel Lemkin's definition within the United Nations declaration on genocide. A genocide is when someone is targeting a people based upon their race, ethnicity or religion or when they are going over there, taking people away, replacing them with their own people, taking the children and brainwashing them to become someone they are not.
As Conservatives, we have been very strong in our support for the people of Ukraine. It goes right back to when we were government under Stephen Harper, when the first occupation of Crimea started in 2015 and before that when the revolution of dignity started first on the streets in November 2014. In February 2015, we saw the actions of the illegal occupation and invasion of Crimea, and then war broke out in Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region of Ukraine, and Canada was one of the very first ones in, making sure we were providing military support. We started Operation UNIFIER and started pushing for Ukraine to be included as a member of NATO. That was all done under Stephen Harper and our Conservative government. It is something that I am incredibly proud of.
Since 2018, in opposition, we have been calling on the government to do more to help Ukraine. We asked the government to start sending over weapons, which we were originally going to send to help the Kurdish Peshmerga, the rifles, snipers rifles and ammunition, to Ukraine, so that it would be prepared in case a hot conflict broke out, as we witnessed in February 2022.
We asked the government to start providing RADARSAT images, which did begin under Stephen Harper, but then, of course, that was cancelled under Stéphane Dion when he was foreign affairs minister under the current Liberal government. Only recently, after the hot war broke out in 2022, the Liberals again reinstated providing those RADARSAT images so Ukrainians could see what was happening on their ground by Russian invaders.
We have been calling, since early last year, to donate our surplus armoured vehicles: our Coyote and Bison LAVs, our light-armoured vehicles; our track LAVs; and our M113s that are all destined to go to the trash heap. The Liberals under this Prime Minister want to send them to the scrap pile. Ukraine can use them to save lives as well as to liberate parts of Ukraine that are currently occupied by the Russian invaders.
We know for a fact that we saw the United States and Australia donate their M113s, and that helped liberate Kharkiv. We should be doing the same thing here because these vehicles are otherwise just going to be decommissioned and torn up and sent off to be melted down. We have a company in London, Ontario by the name of Armatec, which is prepared to take those vehicles, refurbish them and send them to Ukraine to make a serious difference in this war. We have GDLS in London that is already building armoured vehicles for Ukraine but at much slower rates than we would see if we were donating our older vehicles that are being decommissioned.
With respect to the free trade agreement, I will just reiterate what my colleague from Foothills just said, which is that we support free trade. We are a party of free trade and we are going to take our time to read through this very large document. However, I was in Ukraine just in August and I can say that the Ukrainians want to do trade with us. They want us to invest. I met with the Minister for Strategic Industries and he was talking about how they need Canada to go in and invest in industries that will not only support our economy but also could possibly support our war efforts as well, so those opportunities exist.
As someone with an agriculture background, I understand how important it is for us to be able to help Ukraine in its agriculture industries and the infrastructure Ukrainians need to get their commodities to market, especially with Russia bombing out their port facilities in the Black Sea region. Therefore, we need to help them with logistics, with infrastructure and as well with what we can pass on in agriculture production technology.
We know that through trade of things like LNG and ethical oil that we produce here in Canada, it would displace the Russian oil that right now Ukraine and our European allies are dependent upon. We are going into another winter in Ukraine and, again, Ukrainians have to continue to use the very natural gas, to heat their homes and their buildings, from the dictator Putin and his tyrants that he associates with, and make use of his energy, which actually puts cash in his pocket to fuel his war machine against Ukraine. We cannot have that happen.
Something that we need to do here in support of Ukraine is actually start building some things Ukraine is calling for. Now that war in Israel has broken out with the terrorist attack by Hamas, and the U.S. is now supporting Israel in the exchanges that are taking place, there is going to be even more need for Canada to provide munitions to Ukraine. Our production of 155 shells for the M777 Howitzers is abysmal. We are producing only around 2,000 rounds a month. We need to replenish our own stocks; plus, we need to make sure that we are providing munitions to Ukraine so that it can continue on with its attacks. Ukraine goes through 2,000 shells in a day and we are producing only that in one month, so we have to step up our production to help Ukraine.
We already donated eight Leopard tanks to Ukraine. We should donate more Leopard tanks. However, at the same time, what about buying some new Leopard tanks for our Canadian Armed Forces? Whatever we are going to be giving to Ukraine, we have to make sure that we replace those, like the M777 Howitzers, in our own Canadian Armed Forces so that we are prepared. Of course, morale continues to suffer under the current Liberals. The troops are leaving in record numbers. We are 16,000 members short. We have a recruiting and retention crisis because of the policies of the current Liberal government.
In conclusion, I will just say this: We all continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, but we know that the only way that is possible is that Ukraine must win. It must be victorious. Canada must continue to support it. Slava Ukraini.
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Madam Speaker, once again, I just want to thank the member for Abbotsford, who actually started the free trade talks with Ukraine when he was minister of trade. I was proud to accompany him on one of those trips before we lost government in 2015. He laid the groundwork. This bill, of course, has additional chapters.
One thing is, if it is going beyond trade, then I would recommend it. If we are talking about agriculture, for example, why do we not see a section in here on getting rid of the land mines? We have heard about some horrific accidents happening right now in the south of Ukraine, in the Kherson region. Farmers are out there trying to plant their winter wheat in land that has been taken back from the Russians by the Ukrainian military. The mine density in the fields is ridiculous. It is very dangerous out there.
We need to be putting more effort into helping Ukraine demine those areas. However, before they can even demine them, they actually have to push the Russian invaders back so they could have control of those lands without being fearful of being bombed while they are out there trying to remove those mines.
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Madam Speaker, this is an issue that we really have to be concerned about.
The Liberals have already allowed over $10 billion of the national defence budget to lapse over the last several years. This is money that should have been spent on our armed forces and has not been. Our troops are dealing with a number of crises right now within the forces, including the cost of living and housing. We hear stories about them actually going out and asking for donations to help offset those costs.
We know that the $1 billion that is coming out now is coming at the wrong time. As I mentioned in my speech, we have donated howitzers, Leopard tanks and armoured vehicles to Ukraine. However, every time we donate, we also have to replenish our own stock of munitions and equipment to make sure that our army, air force and navy are mobile and expeditionary and can do the job that we call upon them to do from time to time.
The world, as we are witnessing, is getting scarier all the time. If we do not have strong Canadian Armed Forces, they are not going to be able to guarantee our peace, security and way of life right here in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, this is one of the reasons that we should not be rushing through this free trade agreement.
We need to take the time to look at it and study it. We just had it presented to us over the last few days. It needs to go to committee to allow stakeholders to comment on it. We need to make sure that such things as the economic impacts and environmental assessments are thoroughly debated to see whether they are in the interest of both Canadian exporters and Ukrainian importers, and vice versa.
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