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House Hansard - 292

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 20, 2024 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 292 - Mar/20/24
Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ)
  • Mar/20/24 7:25:18 p.m.
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Madam Chair, as a member of the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Group, this week, I had the pleasure of speaking with French President Macron's special envoy for Ukraine. As part of those very interesting and meaningful discussions, we talked about how Canada and other countries have been somewhat lazy lately when it comes to providing help and support to Ukraine. We talked about the post-conflict recovery, obviously, but we also talked about the current situation. It seems to me that, when President Macron announced France's strong support for Ukraine a few days ago, he was sending a message to the international community. I think that we should consider that message, understand it and acknowledge the fact that we need to step up our efforts. We need to do more to help Ukraine get through this conflict and defeat Russia as quickly as possible, so that we can start rebuilding Ukraine and its economy. We need to allow our domestic investors to establish economic partnerships with Ukraine as quickly as possible. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.
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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
Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (London—Fanshawe, NDP)
  • Mar/20/24 8:03:52 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am a little concerned, so I would love some clarification from the member. He spoke about how supportive he was of the actions of Emmanuel Macron. In response to Macron calling for soldiers to enter into Ukraine's land, the temperature was raised by Putin, in terms of threats of further nuclear responses. I would love to hear the member's clarification on that. It seems to me that is not helping what we are trying to accomplish. We want to ensure that Ukrainians have a peaceful, fast resolution to this, as opposed to raising the temperature.
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