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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 292

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 20, 2024 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 292 - Mar/20/24
Mr. Stéphane Bergeron
  • Mar/20/24 7:58:34 p.m.
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Madam Chair, what an interesting question. The idea is not to say that we are going to send troops. The idea is to remain artfully vague about our intentions, if I can put it that way. However, we telegraphed our intentions from the outset, making it clear to the Kremlin that we were not going to intervene. Russia was free to proceed, because we were not going to intervene. I want to point out that, a few weeks back, after a meeting attended by representatives from a number of allied countries, President Macron said that sending troops to Ukraine should not be ruled out. Following the same pattern that western countries have been following from the start, several nations, including Canada, rushed to say that President Macron was totally out to lunch, that his suggestion was ridiculous and that naturally, no troops would be sent. All of a sudden, the western nations had blown any chance they had left of creating doubt about their intentions when it comes to what is happening in Ukraine. I applaud the courage of President Macron, who was not afraid to stick his neck out. Obviously, everyone thought that, since they had been talking all day, this was no slip of the tongue. I agree that it was not a slip of the tongue, far from it, but once again, there was not much solidarity from the other western countries, which once again brings us back to how slow we have been to actually help Ukraine. I want to come back to the fact that we started out by sending helmets and that Ukraine is still waiting for fighter jets. When will we deliver the fighter jets?
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Context: House Hansard - 292 - Mar/20/24
Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)
  • Mar/20/24 10:55:43 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for his kind words toward me. I do appreciate that. This is an issue that has all-party support, this new strategic security agreement between Canada and Ukraine. I was not going to ask a question, but he did raise the misinformation out there. Research has been done, both in the Ukraine by NATO itself, through its Estonia cybersecurity and misinformation centre of excellence, which I had the chance to visit this past summer, as well as here in Canada. Everybody always wants to talk about the far right, and there is no doubt. The Tucker Carlsons of the world, the PPC types out there, are actually out there promoting all the Kremlin propaganda. There is also a growing mountain of evidence to show that the far left, the alt-left, the Antifa types, are also saying that Russia is justified in its attacks on Ukraine and that Ukraine does not actually exist. It is all the same revisionist history that is pushed out by Putin and his troll farm in St. Petersburg. I just want to ask the member if he recognized the fact that there are extremes on both sides of the political equation that are squeezing all of us who are supporters of Ukraine, and it requires us to fight back even harder on the misinformation and disinformation and to unite Canada and the world, including our American cousins, in their support for Ukraine.
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