- Member of Parliament
- Liberal
- Scarborough—Guildwood
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 62%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $111,926.23
- Government Page
- Nov/1/23 5:36:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I associate myself with the hon. member's observations with respect to the Conservative Party. It is puzzling, to say as a generous observation, and hypocritical may be less generous.
However, I am particularly interested in the ultimate hypocrisy that we are not here debating the free trade agreement, which was scheduled, but debating something else. It is an expression on the part of Ukraine to join the family of nations that wish to govern themselves by the rule of law. In some peculiar way and, I would say, even hypocritical way, we play into Vladimir Putin's hands, who is just simply playing for time.
Does the member join me in the worry that by not debating it and by not entering into this agreement, in fact we are not only playing into the playbook of the Russian leader but also that Ukraine is simply dropping from the media cycle and it leaves Ukraine very vulnerable?
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- Jun/1/22 9:55:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to share an experience with the hon. member about NATO. I was travelling with John Manley, the then foreign affairs minister. Our itinerary was London, Paris, Riga and Berlin. When we were in Riga, the President of Latvia came into the room and she harangued John and me for 20 minutes about getting into NATO. This was in September 2001. She did not want anything else. She just wanted into NATO, because she saw NATO as her best security guarantee against the Russians. We went to Germany and, to John's credit, he put the Latvian question to the Germans. They had the same question: “What about the Russians?”
Is the hon. member prepared to assert her judgment about the utility of NATO against the President of Latvia's judgment about the utility of NATO?
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- Jun/1/22 9:24:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member and I were on the same trip, as were the members for St. John's East and Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, and I thought that I would like her to comment on the fact that the people of Lithuania raised $5 million in the course of three days to buy a drone.
What does that mean in terms of their response to this brutal invasion by Vladimir Putin into Ukraine?
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- May/12/22 4:26:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on one of the member's latter points, which was that the Russian economy is largely oil and gas, and that is it: It is an unimportant economy. It is about the same size as Canada's, with a population of 145 million people. The Chinese economy, on the other hand, is very integrated. It is integrated into the world system, and very much more dependent upon various trade routes and supply chains.
In the member's view, is the threat of conflict greater with China or greater with Russia?
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- May/5/22 3:18:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the members for Don Valley West, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, Montarville, Saint-Jean and Edmonton Strathcona, and if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:
Whereas Vladimir Kara-Murza, a trusted leader in the Russian human rights and democracy movement, was unjustly arrested by the Putin regime for having the temerity of telling the truth;
Whereas Vladimir Kara-Murza has been poisoned twice, and has been arrested and jailed and could soon face up to a decade or more in prison if found guilty of telling the truth;
Therefore, the House calls for the immediate release of Vladimir Kara-Murza, and all other Russian prisoners of conscience; the immediate release of Alexei Navalny; the immediate cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, and the unilateral withdrawal of Russian troops.
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- May/5/22 2:19:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Vladimir Kara-Murza is possibly the bravest man in Russia today. Having been poisoned twice by Putin's operatives, he chose to return to Moscow from a comfortable and safe life in Washington knowing full well that it could lead to imprisonment or even death. Shortly after arriving, he gave an interview to CNN denouncing the Putin government as “a regime of murderers”. True to form, the Putin thugs arrested him, jailed him and will certainly sentence him to a lengthy imprisonment.
It is not inconceivable to say that Canada and other western nations would not have Magnitsky sanctions without the incredibly brave efforts of Sergei Magnitsky, Bill Browder and Vladimir Kara-Murza. Putin hates these sanctions because they are so effective at targeting his closest allies, the oligarchs, and shining a light on the poisoned money of Russian corruption.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is a very brave man and he deserves our support. Shortly, I will call upon the House to pass a unanimous consent motion demanding the release of Vladimir Kara-Murza.
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- Feb/28/22 9:48:22 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I count it a privilege to be able to serve on the Standing Committee on National Defence with the hon. member, and it has been a good relationship.
I agree with one of her core points: The Russian militarization of the Arctic is moving at a furious pace and is of considerable concern. It should be a considerable concern to every Canadian.
I want to bring the member back to a question that interested me in our hearings this afternoon. Canada has spent millions of dollars in the training of Ukrainian soldiers, and it appears this may be actually paying off. The resistance being put up by the people and the soldiers to the Russian invasion is really quite impressive, and it may have something to do with the training that has been provided over the last few years.
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- Feb/28/22 7:39:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member for this thoughts and his speech. It seems to be a general consensus that sanctions are the way to go, specifically Magnitsky sanctions.
He mentioned that he had a conversation with Bill Browder. I have always appreciated the advice that Mr. Browder has shared with me over the years. I was just wondering if the hon. member could share with the House any specific thoughts that Mr. Browder had with respect to sanctions and any specificity, particularly on Magnitsky sanctions.
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- Jan/31/22 10:26:28 p.m.
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Madam Chair, that is an excellent question, and I agree with the member completely.
Bill Browder, who is the father of Magnitsky sanctions, said last week that we, meaning all of the NATO nations, need to align the Magnitsky sanctions with each other, because the gaps are where the Russians win.
Insofar as Canada has not aligned with other nations, I would encourage alignment. I would also encourage other nations to align with the initiatives that Canada has taken on Magnitsky. As Browder rightly says, these people who are hiding money in Canada, in plain sight frequently, have gotten it from abuse of human rights, and we should, under no circumstances, tolerate those kinds of investments in our country.
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- Jan/31/22 10:24:36 p.m.
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Madam Chair, the member is my favourite Bloc member on the defence committee, and I appreciate her question.
I would like to share the member's optimism about the utility of diplomacy, but if they are interacting with a person who has a delusional sense of what constitutes Russia's rightful territorial area of influence, they are starting in a pretty deep hole. It is difficult to arrive at an agreed upon statement of threat, or an agreed upon statement of fact. If there were those agreements or some basis for moving forward on diplomacy, I would be 100% enthusiastic. However, I do not think, at this time, this is going to work.
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- Jan/31/22 10:23:00 p.m.
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Madam Chair, the hon. member asks a very disturbing question. The reason it is disturbing is that this is a buildup like nothing else we have ever seen.
It has been appropriate that the family of nations, particularly the NATO nations, have reacted as swiftly as they have in a variety of ways. I, like him, share that concern. I would like to think that diplomacy would do the trick here. I would like to think that this is a feint or something of that nature, that this is is just to trick the NATO allies. I am not convinced.
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- Jan/31/22 10:16:52 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with my former seatmate, the member for Vancouver Centre.
It is getting late, and I note that at the end of this week is the beginning of the Olympics. There will be one nation out of all the nations in the world that will not be allowed to compete under its own flag, and that is the Russian nation. The Olympic committee finally got sick of all the corruption, doping, cheating and lying that was coming out of the Russian government and will not allow Russian athletes to compete under their own flag.
This is what we, meaning the family of nations, the universe of nations, including Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Ukraine, deal with on a daily basis, because nothing happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin's express permission. When he says there might be 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border or that they are just exercises and there is nothing to see, it is just nonsense and no one should really pay much attention because he does not speak the truth very often.
I was once privileged to spend some time with Senator Lisa Murkowski. She has available to her a map of the Arctic. I do not know if it is available publicly, but it is like looking at the Arctic from 50,000 feet above the North Pole. What it shows is the remilitarization of the Arctic by the Russian government, with all of the refurbished old bases and all of the new installations as well. While Canada, even from that map, is far away from the Russian bases, the U.S. is very close, at the Bering Strait, as are Finland, Sweden, Greenland, Denmark and Norway. The remilitarization of the Arctic, in my judgment, is what contributes to why it is in Canada's best interests to fully participate in the Ukrainian repulsion of this Russian aggression.
Henry Kissinger once said that nations do not have permanent friends or enemies; they only have interests. Regardless of whether one is Ukrainian or not, or whether one has diaspora in one's community or not, in my judgment it is in Canada's best interests to fully support Ukraine.
Russia routinely launches massive cyber-attacks on Canada, the last one being at a hospital in Newfoundland. It is nothing but a mafia shakedown: “If you pay us millions of dollars, we'll let you have your hospital back.” Russia routinely steals significant amounts of industrial and commercial intellectual property. Russian oligarchs have purchased significant pieces of industrial and commercial property in order to burrow deeply into Canadian society, and that money has been generated from very dubious sources. Russia is quite skilled at the game of misinformation and disinformation.
There are many, many more reasons why Ukraine's security is our security and our security is Ukraine's security. I would ask members to cast their minds along the eastern European flank to western Russia, because if Ukraine goes, the next place to go is Poland and the Baltics. When we get past Poland and the Baltics, we get to Finland. After Finland is Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and suddenly this is at our border.
I see my time is up, and I look forward to my colleagues' questions.
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- Jan/31/22 9:21:46 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, the hon. member's speech was thoughtful and historical.
I want to get his views on a quote by Henry Kissinger where nations do not have friends or enemies, that they only have interests. I would like him to articulate, as the member for Etobicoke Centre did, why it is in Canada's best interest that we give full-throated support to Ukraine.
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