- Member of Parliament
- Liberal
- Scarborough—Guildwood
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 62%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $111,926.23
- Government Page
- 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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