Hon. Donna Dasko: Thank you very much, Senator Kutcher, for your wonderful comments. I share your Ukrainian heritage, and I very much value what you have said today, especially your emphasis on the positive. Of course, we are now in a terrible situation that’s facing Ukraine. Both of us spoke last night to Senator Omidvar’s bill with respect to the seizure of Russian assets. I appreciate your mention of the Holodomor — this is an example of Soviet terror on Ukraine.

This is supposed to be a question, so I’ll ask it this way: One of the places that I find tremendously inspiring is the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. That’s my hometown. There is a wonderful exhibit there about the Holodomor, as well as the Holocaust, and many other stories of terror.

Would you encourage all of our colleagues to visit the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in my hometown of Winnipeg? Thank you.

Senator Kutcher: Thank you very much for that question, Senator Dasko.

Hon. Donna Dasko: Senator Gold, public opinion research commissioned by Senator Omidvar and myself and released this week finds that Canadians strongly support seizing the Canadian-held assets of those Russian officials who are waging war in Ukraine and those Iranian officials who are violating human rights in Iran, and then using these seized assets to assist victims.

In fact, in June of this year, as you know, senator, Bill C-19 enhanced two of Canada’s sanction regimes, the Sergei Magnitsky Law and the Special Economic Measures Act, to go beyond freezing the assets of corrupt foreign officials in order to permit confiscating and redirecting those assets.

My questions are as follows, and I’d like to focus on how these tools are currently being used, particularly against the Russian perpetrators: Is the government using these new tools? What efforts are being made? What steps are being taken? And what plans are developing to repurpose these assets, for example, in possible reparations to Ukraine?

Thank you.