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Member of Parliament

James Bezan

  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
  • Manitoba
  • Voting Attendance: 68%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 112 - Oct/18/22
Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)
  • Oct/18/22 12:58:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise and close the debate this morning on this important concurrence motion. I was disappointed to hear the member Winnipeg North say that he wanted to shut down this debate on the condemnation of the Russian invasion and genocide being committed in Ukraine. We need to reaffirm our position of standing with the innocent people of Ukraine, who are now civilian targets of the Russian Federation. We know Russia has been brutally attacking infrastructure, as well as places like hospitals, apartment buildings, and using not just cruise missiles and artillery but kamikaze drones it has acquired from Iran. We have to stand against these terrorist actions that the Russian Federation has taken. We have to continue to point out that when it is brutalizing the innocent people of Ukraine, it is committing war crimes. When it is wildly saying that it is going to try to take away Ukraine's language, culture and, again, revisiting that Stalin era under the Soviet Union of the Holodomor when it tried to stamp out Ukrainian nationalism, we have to call it what it is: an atrocity, a genocide. Everyone who is responsible for raping women, murdering children, attacking seniors in Ukraine must be held to account before a higher authority. I want to thank my colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound for his articulation of what Canada could do, and should do more, in support of the Ukrainian forces in their war of defending their territory from the barbarians of the north. Russia continues to recruit and conscript more Russian men to join the battle. It continues to reach out and hire mercenaries from places like Syria and Chechnya, using the Wagner Group, which should be listed as a terrorist organization. We are now hearing that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, RGC, of Iran is also fighting in Ukraine to support Russian efforts. We have to ensure that we are properly equipping all the Ukrainian armed forces and meeting the demands and requests they have made of Canada and our allies. As has already been articulated by the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, we are sitting on a fleet of armoured vehicles, Bisons, Coyotes and TLAV, all which are about to be retired and replaced with brand new super-Bisons, the new LAVs that are being built in Canada, at GDLS in London, Ontario. Those will be replacing this fleet very shortly. Why are we not sending those LAVs. These armoured vehicles have proven themselves in places like Afghanistan, to support Ukrainian troops on the ground, providing them with the armoured ambulances, the Bison ambulances, so they can get their wounded off the front lines and into hospitals. We need to actually provide them with Role 3 Field Hospitals. We bought a bunch to support Canada's pandemic efforts. We know these mobile hospitals are sitting in containers, never used. Let us put them on a plane and get them over there so Ukraine can properly triage battlefield wounds, save lives and help soldiers recover. One part of the motion also calls on helping those who are resisting Putin's hypocrisy, who are opposing the war in Ukraine and are in Russia today. Just yesterday, I met with Bill Browder, who has advocated for the Sergei Magnitsky legislation around the world. I met with with Vladimir Kara-Murza's wife, Evgenia. Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is a political opponent of Vladimir Putin, has now been jailed on trumped up charges of high treason, He has been given a 22-year sentence. His crime is that he called out Vladimir Putin for his illegal invasion of Ukraine, a Russian criticizing a Russian. We are talking about free speech, which no longer exists in Vladimir Putin's Russia. It is about ensuring people have informed debate. Of course, with the disinformation campaign put on by the Kremlin, there is no way to get the truth into the hands of the Russian public. As Russia conscripts another 200,000-plus men to join the fight in Ukraine, people are leaving in droves and fleeing as refugees from Russia. It is not just having to deal with the displacement and the refugee crisis that has been created in Ukraine because of this illegal invasion, but fighting-age Russian men know this war is illegal. They know Putin is going to lose this war and they are not about to sacrifice their lives for a dictator. We have to provide them with the opportunity to flee the country and come to allied nations, including Canada, so they can have safe haven, because they are taking up a very principled stand as conscientious deserters. Therefore, we have to be there as they object to this unnecessary war. I also want to comment on the comments by the new premier of Alberta, which has come up a few times today in debate. I will say this. She needs to educate herself on what is happening in the war in Ukraine. She needs to actually go and talk to the thousands of Ukrainian refugees who have now decided to call Alberta home. If she talked to those refugees, she would realize very quickly that neutrality, as she has suggested, is not an option. We cannot trust Vladimir Putin. He is a pathological liar. We cannot trust any piece of paper he has signed, because he has already violated the Minks 1 and 2 agreements, never mind throwing away the treaty on the nuclear disarmament of Ukraine, the Budapest memorandum. If we cannot trust him, how can we negotiate with him? How do we maintain a level of neutrality? There is something to be said about respecting the will of their Parliament, the will of the people. Through free will, the people of Ukraine have demonstrated, first through the Orange Revolution and then the Euromaidan on the streets of Kyiv and across the country, that they want to have closer relationships with the West. They want to be a member of the European Union. They want to be a member of NATO. If the people want that, which is one thing that President Zelenskyy came to power on, then we had better support them, because that is a democratic right and a democratic thing to do. I congratulate Premier Smith on her ability to get elected as the premier of Alberta. She is respecting the democratic process there. I hope she respects the free will under the democratic process that is taking place in Ukraine today and that she will support those people from Ukraine who have decided to call Alberta home.
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