- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, this is one of the reasons that we should not be rushing through this free trade agreement.
We need to take the time to look at it and study it. We just had it presented to us over the last few days. It needs to go to committee to allow stakeholders to comment on it. We need to make sure that such things as the economic impacts and environmental assessments are thoroughly debated to see whether they are in the interest of both Canadian exporters and Ukrainian importers, and vice versa.
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Madam Speaker, this is an issue that we really have to be concerned about.
The Liberals have already allowed over $10 billion of the national defence budget to lapse over the last several years. This is money that should have been spent on our armed forces and has not been. Our troops are dealing with a number of crises right now within the forces, including the cost of living and housing. We hear stories about them actually going out and asking for donations to help offset those costs.
We know that the $1 billion that is coming out now is coming at the wrong time. As I mentioned in my speech, we have donated howitzers, Leopard tanks and armoured vehicles to Ukraine. However, every time we donate, we also have to replenish our own stock of munitions and equipment to make sure that our army, air force and navy are mobile and expeditionary and can do the job that we call upon them to do from time to time.
The world, as we are witnessing, is getting scarier all the time. If we do not have strong Canadian Armed Forces, they are not going to be able to guarantee our peace, security and way of life right here in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, once again, I just want to thank the member for Abbotsford, who actually started the free trade talks with Ukraine when he was minister of trade. I was proud to accompany him on one of those trips before we lost government in 2015. He laid the groundwork. This bill, of course, has additional chapters.
One thing is, if it is going beyond trade, then I would recommend it. If we are talking about agriculture, for example, why do we not see a section in here on getting rid of the land mines? We have heard about some horrific accidents happening right now in the south of Ukraine, in the Kherson region. Farmers are out there trying to plant their winter wheat in land that has been taken back from the Russians by the Ukrainian military. The mine density in the fields is ridiculous. It is very dangerous out there.
We need to be putting more effort into helping Ukraine demine those areas. However, before they can even demine them, they actually have to push the Russian invaders back so they could have control of those lands without being fearful of being bombed while they are out there trying to remove those mines.
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Madam Speaker, it is indeed an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-57. As I think everyone in this place knows, I have been unequivocal in my support for Ukraine, and that will never cease, not only because I am proud of my Ukrainian heritage, but also because Ukraine is in a battle for its life and its very existence.
For 607 days, we have watched on TV, in real time, Russia's illegal invasion. For 607 days, we have watched the barbaric acts of the Russian military. For 607 days, we have watched how Russian soldiers have used sexual violence as a weapon as they raped women and children. For 607 days, we have watched Putin trying to Russify Ukraine and commit another genocide on the soil of Ukraine against the ethnic Ukrainian people. He is trying to emulate exactly what we saw from Joseph Stalin in 1932 and 1933 in the Holodomor, except Putin is being more upfront and aggressive in his mannerisms. For 607 days, we have witnessed Putin and his kleptocrats in the Kremlin refuse to recognize Ukraine as a nation and the people of Ukraine as a people.
However, during those 607 days, we have witnessed, against all odds, the people of Ukraine standing up and fighting back. We have witnessed the valour, courage and bravery of the Ukrainian soldiers as they have fought to hold the line. We have witnessed, for 607 days, the resiliency of the people of Ukraine not only in fighting back, but also in continuing their lives and continuing to rebuild. After every missile strike, they rebuild. For 607 days, I do not think Putin anticipated that he would unite NATO and our allies to support Ukraine unequivocally in its fight for its freedom against Putin and his Kremlin kleptocrats.
It is incumbent upon all of us in the House and upon our allies to hold Vladimir Putin and his proxies to account for their war crimes in Ukraine. They have to be brought before the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. We know for a fact that Russia has been using sexual violence as a weapon. We know for a fact that it has kidnapped children and families from areas they currently occupy, taken those children, put them up for adoption and are now reprogramming them, or brainwashing them, to be Russian.
This is part of Raphäel Lemkin's definition within the United Nations declaration on genocide. A genocide is when someone is targeting a people based upon their race, ethnicity or religion or when they are going over there, taking people away, replacing them with their own people, taking the children and brainwashing them to become someone they are not.
As Conservatives, we have been very strong in our support for the people of Ukraine. It goes right back to when we were government under Stephen Harper, when the first occupation of Crimea started in 2015 and before that when the revolution of dignity started first on the streets in November 2014. In February 2015, we saw the actions of the illegal occupation and invasion of Crimea, and then war broke out in Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region of Ukraine, and Canada was one of the very first ones in, making sure we were providing military support. We started Operation UNIFIER and started pushing for Ukraine to be included as a member of NATO. That was all done under Stephen Harper and our Conservative government. It is something that I am incredibly proud of.
Since 2018, in opposition, we have been calling on the government to do more to help Ukraine. We asked the government to start sending over weapons, which we were originally going to send to help the Kurdish Peshmerga, the rifles, snipers rifles and ammunition, to Ukraine, so that it would be prepared in case a hot conflict broke out, as we witnessed in February 2022.
We asked the government to start providing RADARSAT images, which did begin under Stephen Harper, but then, of course, that was cancelled under Stéphane Dion when he was foreign affairs minister under the current Liberal government. Only recently, after the hot war broke out in 2022, the Liberals again reinstated providing those RADARSAT images so Ukrainians could see what was happening on their ground by Russian invaders.
We have been calling, since early last year, to donate our surplus armoured vehicles: our Coyote and Bison LAVs, our light-armoured vehicles; our track LAVs; and our M113s that are all destined to go to the trash heap. The Liberals under this Prime Minister want to send them to the scrap pile. Ukraine can use them to save lives as well as to liberate parts of Ukraine that are currently occupied by the Russian invaders.
We know for a fact that we saw the United States and Australia donate their M113s, and that helped liberate Kharkiv. We should be doing the same thing here because these vehicles are otherwise just going to be decommissioned and torn up and sent off to be melted down. We have a company in London, Ontario by the name of Armatec, which is prepared to take those vehicles, refurbish them and send them to Ukraine to make a serious difference in this war. We have GDLS in London that is already building armoured vehicles for Ukraine but at much slower rates than we would see if we were donating our older vehicles that are being decommissioned.
With respect to the free trade agreement, I will just reiterate what my colleague from Foothills just said, which is that we support free trade. We are a party of free trade and we are going to take our time to read through this very large document. However, I was in Ukraine just in August and I can say that the Ukrainians want to do trade with us. They want us to invest. I met with the Minister for Strategic Industries and he was talking about how they need Canada to go in and invest in industries that will not only support our economy but also could possibly support our war efforts as well, so those opportunities exist.
As someone with an agriculture background, I understand how important it is for us to be able to help Ukraine in its agriculture industries and the infrastructure Ukrainians need to get their commodities to market, especially with Russia bombing out their port facilities in the Black Sea region. Therefore, we need to help them with logistics, with infrastructure and as well with what we can pass on in agriculture production technology.
We know that through trade of things like LNG and ethical oil that we produce here in Canada, it would displace the Russian oil that right now Ukraine and our European allies are dependent upon. We are going into another winter in Ukraine and, again, Ukrainians have to continue to use the very natural gas, to heat their homes and their buildings, from the dictator Putin and his tyrants that he associates with, and make use of his energy, which actually puts cash in his pocket to fuel his war machine against Ukraine. We cannot have that happen.
Something that we need to do here in support of Ukraine is actually start building some things Ukraine is calling for. Now that war in Israel has broken out with the terrorist attack by Hamas, and the U.S. is now supporting Israel in the exchanges that are taking place, there is going to be even more need for Canada to provide munitions to Ukraine. Our production of 155 shells for the M777 Howitzers is abysmal. We are producing only around 2,000 rounds a month. We need to replenish our own stocks; plus, we need to make sure that we are providing munitions to Ukraine so that it can continue on with its attacks. Ukraine goes through 2,000 shells in a day and we are producing only that in one month, so we have to step up our production to help Ukraine.
We already donated eight Leopard tanks to Ukraine. We should donate more Leopard tanks. However, at the same time, what about buying some new Leopard tanks for our Canadian Armed Forces? Whatever we are going to be giving to Ukraine, we have to make sure that we replace those, like the M777 Howitzers, in our own Canadian Armed Forces so that we are prepared. Of course, morale continues to suffer under the current Liberals. The troops are leaving in record numbers. We are 16,000 members short. We have a recruiting and retention crisis because of the policies of the current Liberal government.
In conclusion, I will just say this: We all continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, but we know that the only way that is possible is that Ukraine must win. It must be victorious. Canada must continue to support it. Slava Ukraini.
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Mr. Speaker, for 607 days now we have witnessed Ukraine valiantly fight back against the Russian invasion. For 607 days, we have watched Russia carry out mass atrocities, and we know that Vladimir Putin wants to commit a genocide against the people of Ukraine.
One of the things that Ukraine is begging for is Canadian energy to make sure that Ukrainians are able to survive another cold winter since this war has started and not be dependent upon natural gas and oil from Russia. Will the member commit today to making sure we can send Canadian ethical energy, our liquefied natural gas and oil, to Ukraine so that it can have a comfortable winter and not be putting money into the fuel tank of Putin's war machine?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech on the need to provide more support to Ukraine.
The member talked about the military aid we provide for Ukraine. I can tell members that when I was in Ukraine earlier this summer, they were very grateful for the support that Canada has given them. However, as Conservatives, we have been advocating for quite some time that the Government of Canada actually provide more military aid to Ukraine, including more weapons.
One of the things that we are about to be decommissioning here in Canada, and some have already been sent off to the scrap heap, is a number of our older armoured vehicles. Armatec, in London, Ontario, has offered to take those old vehicles, refurbish them and send them off to Ukraine to help them win this war. We know that the M113 track LAVs that Canada has would be very welcome along with our old Bisons and Coyotes that are in the process of being retired.
The old M113s that were sent from the United States and Australia have actually helped liberate Kharkiv, and we know that in this fight today, the more Ukrainians are being put in armed vehicles, the more they can push back and the more they can win.
I would ask the member if he would support having Armatec refurbish old, outdated LAVs that the Government of Canada is retiring from the Canadian Armed Forces.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Abbotsford for the leadership he has shown on this file, going back to 2014-15 when he was minister of trade. I had the pleasure of accompanying him on a trade mission to Ukraine when we started this whole process.
As the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan mentioned, he has been a very strong advocate for Ukraine and its ability to defend itself against the Russian invasion and the atrocities that Putin and his proxies are committing in Ukraine. In the trade agreement, the Liberals would be sneaking in one of their ideological platform ideas on carbon taxing and carbon pricing.
Does the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan believe that it is important to put carbon pricing on energy? Every time I have talked to Ukrainians whenever I have been in Ukraine, they want more of our energy and more of our technologies so they can produce more energy there to replace the Russian oil and gas they have to use, which fund Putin's war machine.
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- May/1/23 3:15:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present a petition today on behalf of Canadians who are very concerned about the unprovoked and illegal war Russia is waging against Ukraine. They are concerned about those Ukrainian refugees who have come here seeking asylum and are being shut out of the Canada summer jobs program.
A lot of the youth who are over here are not eligible to apply to the Canada summer jobs program. The petitioners are calling upon the Government of Canada to open it up to the children of those Ukrainians who were authorized for emergency travel to come here, work and be safe, as their children should be given the same opportunities.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to rise in this place today and speak to Bill C-26, a bill that we as Conservatives are supporting to get to committee.
I have a lot of concerns around the bill itself, in terms of making sure that the government did not make a number of errors in judgment in putting it together. These concerns are based on the feedback we have received from Canadians and from organizations, especially on the issues surrounding privacy and the costs that have been offloaded to the private sector.
I also have to raise my concerns. Here we are, eight long years under the Liberal government, and we know that, when it has come down to cybersecurity, it has been slow in responding. A good case in point was banning Huawei from our critical infrastructure, our 5G network. We know that the Liberals sat on their hands and tried to do nothing for most of the past seven years, before they were finally forced to act after a great deal of pressure was brought upon them by our allies, especially within the Five Eyes.
Cybersecurity and national defence go hand in hand. When we talk about our national defence and national security, we know that hybrid warfare has evolved.
It is now about more than just targeting military assets; it is about targeting the entire government as it is at play. All we have to do is look at what is happening in Ukraine today, as well as what has happened to a number of other allies we have, through NATO, in eastern Europe.
We see the troll farms in St. Petersburg constantly attacking, on Facebook and on Twitter, the military individuals, the soldiers and troops, serving there. They also attack things like critical infrastructure in countries where Canadians are currently deployed, like Latvia. As we have witnessed in Ukraine and Estonia, they have not just gone after them through direct kinetic means to take out critical infrastructure, but they have also gone through cyberwarfare as well.
The Russians have done this very effectively in knocking down financial systems, knocking down transportation systems, and taking out power and water infrastructure in places like Estonia. As a prelude to the war in Ukraine, before they had actually started bombing these civilian targets in Ukraine, they were attacking them on cyber. It is part of hybrid warfare and it is the evolution of war.
There is a responsibility upon the Government of Canada to ensure that we are protecting not just our national infrastructure and the Government of Canada, that we are not just using CSE, or Communications Security Establishment, to protect national defence, but that we are also using a plethora of capabilities to ensure that our infrastructure here in Canada is protected.
That includes preventing our adversaries from going after our soft targets. That is what I think Bill C-26 is trying to accomplish, to ensure that telecommunications companies in Canada are stepping up to do their share to protect Canadians from cyber-attacks. We know that cyber-attackers have gone after things like our health care systems. They have gone after the medical records of Canadians. They have gone after the education records of students at schools and at universities. They go after retailers. They can go in through a retailer's back door, harvest all sorts of personal data, especially credit card information, and then use that for raising money, for transnational criminal gangs or for ransomware, as we have witnessed as well.
We must remember that we have a number of a maligned foreign actors at play here in Canada now and against our allies. It was just reported, again, that the People's Liberation Army was found guilty of hacking into U.S. critical infrastructure.
We know that the People's Liberation Army, under the control of the communist regime in Beijing, continues to attack cybersecurity assets around the world, including trying to break through the Canadian cybersecurity walls of our government and national defence on a daily basis.
As I mentioned, Russia has become very good at this. That does not mean that it is concentrating only on its near sphere of influence, NATO members in eastern Europe like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but it is also targeting Ukraine. We know that it is targeting Moldova. We know that it has gone after countries like Romania, but it also does cyber-attacks here in Canada and in the United States.
Russia continues to be an adversary and we have to stand on guard to protect Canadians from those attacks.
We know that Iran, the regime in Tehran, is continuing to be a government that attacks its neighbours and attacks Israel and Canada through cyber-means. North Korea has developed an entire cybersecurity and cyberwarfare unit and continues not to just wreak havoc with the democratically elected, peaceful South Korea, but has also gone after Japan and the Phillippines, and is going after U.S. infrastructure as well. Therefore, we have to take the necessary steps to make sure we can deal with transnational criminal organizations, with nefarious foreign states and with those who are trying to get rich through ransomware.
Here in Canada just a couple of years ago, we saw a situation in regard to the Royal Military College in Kingston, which the member for Kingston and the Islands is certainly aware of. The Department of National Defence stated that RMC had been a target. It originally called it a mass phishing campaign, but a month after the incident, it was established that the phishing campaign was actually a cyber-attack going after financial information and personal data of cadets. These had been compromised and published on the dark web, and were made available to a lot of people who participate on the dark web to profiteer from that information.
According to several observers who looked at the hack of RMC Kingston, it was attributed to a cybercriminal group called DoppelPaymer that did not seem to be connected to a nation-state actor. There are criminal organizations out there that are going about their criminal activities in such a way as to extract dollars from governments, retailers and private citizens, as well as from other corporations, to line their pockets and continue doing other nefarious things that sometimes go beyond the cyberworld.
I have said in the past, when we have talked about other legislation here dealing with cybersecurity, that we not only need the ability to defend, but also that the government has the responsibility, especially under national defence, to attack using cybersecurity. We cannot just be here deflecting the arrows; sometimes we have to be able to shoot down the archer. The way we do that is by having a very robust cybersecurity system. We need the best capabilities and the best personnel who are able not only to sit here and defend, that is to put up shields and fight off the attacks, but also are able to go out there and take out the adversaries, to knock out their systems, so that we are safer here at home.
With regard to some of the criticisms that have come out, I know that letters have come in from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and the Business Council of Canada wrote a very detailed brief, as did the Citizen Lab in looking at the bill. When we read through the documentation, we see that one of the concerns that has been raised, especially by the Business Council of Canada, is that there seems to be an imbalance. We are telling members of corporate Canada to go out there and make sure they have the proper cybersecurity systems in place, but at the same time we realize that it is not just up to them to do the defending. What we see is that the corporations are saying that either they have to do it or we are going to fine them up to $15 million or five years of jail time, and that the individuals who work for them could also be held criminally responsible for not doing enough.
Sometimes resources are not available. Sometimes there are new companies that may not have the ability to put in place the proper security systems. I look at a lot of the Internet service providers that we have, for example. They are covered under the Telecommunications Act, yet, as new start-ups, they may not have the personnel or the equipment to properly defend their networks. Would we go ahead and fine these companies up to $15 million? Then what would we do in regard to jail time and fines for those criminal organizations that are profiteering through cyber-attacks? Where is the balance in this? That is one of the concerns we have and one of the things we have to look at through our study at the industry committee when it brings this forward.
A huge concern has been raised, especially by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, on how this would be implemented and how it may affect the privacy rights of Canadians at the individual level. Corporations have broader responsibilities and do not necessarily fall under the charter, but their clients who they are going to protect and the information they are going to be required to share with the Government of Canada could very well be violations of their clients' privacy rights.
When we look at section 7 of the Charter of Rights, we have to balance the right to life, liberty and security of a person with section 8 of the charter which says that we have freedom from search and seizure. When we drill down on section 8 and go to some of the legal analysis of our charter, as all the rights and freedoms are laid out, it tells us that the underlying values of freedom from search and seizure when it comes to individual privacy is the value of dignity, integrity and autonomy. Again, I think we are all concerned that when we look at Bill C-26 at committee, we ensure the bill balances those rights of the individual to be both secure and safe from cyber attacks, but do it without compromising privacy rights and charter rights as described in freedom from search and seizure. The way we do that is through warrants.
We know that through National Defence, the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, which has a long-standing history of defending the Canadian Armed Forces, has to comply with the charter. It has to comply with all Canadian legislation and it cannot do indirectly what it is prohibited doing directly. Therefore, CSE cannot go to the National Security Agency, or NSA, of the United States, say that it is concerned that a Canadian maybe talking to a terrorist organization offshore and ask the agency to spy on that individual because CSE is prohibited from spying on the person and listening in through the Communications Security Establishment. CSE cannot go to the NSA and ask it to violate Canadian law on its behalf to find out what is happening in the same way CSIS cannot go to the FBI or the CIA and ask it to spy on Canadians. It cannot do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing directly under Canadian law. The way to get around that is to apply for warrants.
Judicial appointments are made to have supernumerary justices over these organizations to ensure that charter rights are protected, even when conversations take place inadvertently. In the past, CSE has listened in on people who may have been in Afghanistan funding the Taliban or al Qaeda. They may have family in Canada and were talking back and forth about something that had nothing to do with operations on al Qaeda or the Taliban. However, because it involved a Canadian citizen, it had to go through the proper processes to ensure that his or her charter rights were protected by getting a warrant to listen to those conversations. Whether they were listening electronically or through wire taps, it is all mandated to watch that we do not trip over the rights of Canadians under legislation.
Bill C-26 would not address this like we have under the National Defence Act, under the Criminal Code and under the whole gamut of cybersecurity that has been in place up to date. The privacy rights are paramount.
To come back to Bill C-26, the Supreme Court of Canada said in 1984, as well as in 1988, that privacy was paramount and was “at the heart of liberty in a modern state”. Again, did the Liberal government ensure the bill was tested first to ensure those privacy rights were protected? This is what we will have to find out when we get Bill C-26 in front of committee.
We can look at information that has come from places like the Business Council of Canada. One of the concerns it raises goes back to this whole issue of huge fines on Canadian corporations, as well as the employees of those corporations, if they are found to have been not responsible enough to put in place proper security protocols to protect their clients from cyber attacks. Because it goes against individual employee as well, we will create another brain drain from Canada.
We are unfairly targeting Canadian employees who are going to be working for these cybersecurity firms, working in the telecommunications sector and in our financial institutions. If they are found to have erred, which a lot of times it is by error or by a lack of resources, then they are held criminally responsible and they are fined. The question becomes why they would want to work in Canada when they are afforded better protections in places like the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom or Australia, which was held up by the Business Council of Canada as the gold standard we should be striving to achieve, and what it has done through their own cybersecurity protocols.
We want to ensure that we protect critical infrastructure, but we do not want to chase away very good Canadian employees and force them, with their skills, to go offshore where they have better protection and probably better pay. We want to ensure we keep the best of the best here. We want to ensure we do not go through a brain drain, as we have witnessed before when the Liberals have targeted professionals in Canada, such as lawyers, accountants, doctors or anyone who set up a private corporation. Now I fear the Liberals are going after individuals again who we need in Canada to protect us here at home, that they are creating a toxic work environment and those individuals will want to leave.
The Citizen Lab wrote a report entitled “Cybersecurity Will Not Thrive in Darkness”. It brought forward a ton of recommendations on how bad this bill was. It suggested that there needed to be 30 changes made to the act itself.
We realize that the government has not done its homework on this. We need to ensure we get experts in front of us who are going to look at everything, such as there is responsibility upon government to help corporate Canada ensure we have the proper security mechanisms in place to prevent cyber attacks. We have to ensure that those corporations are not being coerced into sharing private information with the Government of Canada that could be a violation of private rights, which may be a violation of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA. We want to ensure that privacy rights will be cohesive, but, at the same time, collectively, we need to balance all federal legislation that is in contravention of each other.
We need to bring in the legal experts. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association needs to be before committee. The Citizen Lab, which is very concerned about individual privacy rights, has to be front and centre in the discussion. We need to ensure the Business Council of Canada, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and others are brought forward, along with the department officials who were responsible for drafting this bill at the direction of the Liberal government.
I will reiterate that I will be voting in favour of the bill to ensure it goes to committee and the committee can do its homework. I would hope that the government will allow the committee to do a thorough investigation, as well as a constructive report with recommendations on how to change and amend the legislation.
Finally, I would remind everyone that the Supreme Court of Canada said, “privacy is at the heart of liberty in a modern society”, and we have to take that to heart to ensure we protect Canadians from cyber attacks, as well as to ensure they have their privacy, dignity, integrity and autonomy respected.
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- Feb/16/23 2:10:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, February 24 marks 365 days since Vladimir Putin gave the order for his Russian war machine to further invade Ukraine, 365 days of Putin’s barbarians committing war crimes and atrocities against innocent Ukrainians, 365 days of Russian soldiers and mercenaries raping Ukrainian women and children and pillaging homes and villages in Ukraine, and 365 days of Russian missiles and drones indiscriminately bombing Ukrainian hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, day cares and energy infrastructure.
Over those 365 days, we have witnessed Ukrainians fighting back valiantly. For 365 days, they have bravely stood up to Moscow by destroying Russian tanks, aircraft, missiles and drones and liberating Ukrainian communities. For 365 days, Canada and our allies have stood with Ukraine, supplying it with weapons, humanitarian aid and financial assistance.
Over the past year, Conservatives said Canada can and must do more by sending our soon-to-be-retired LAVs, Canadian-made sniper rifles and Role 3 hospitals to Ukraine. We must stand with Ukraine so it can defeat Putin’s war machine to ensure peace and security for all.
Slava Ukraini.
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- Nov/24/22 2:12:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Saturday marks the 89th anniversary of the Holodomor genocide.
In 1932 and 1933, Josef Stalin and his communist Soviet thugs used food as a weapon to starve upward of 10 million Ukrainians. Stalin's brutal regime was determined to destroy Ukraine's identity, language and culture. However, Stalin's communist dictatorship failed despite murdering in Ukraine the equivalent of every man, women and child in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C.
Unfortunately, Ukraine's very survival is threatened today by another genocidal maniac, Vladimir Putin. Again, the only crime Ukraine has committed is being patriotic Ukrainians.
It has been 274 days since Russia's barbaric invasion and Ukrainians have been fighting for their sovereignty, their democracy, their liberty and the freedom for all of us. Stalin failed to exterminate Ukrainian nationalism, and Putin will also fail.
This Saturday, we stand together to remember the victims and honour the survivors of the Holodomor. We will also remember the heavenly hundred from the Maidan, and the heroes who are dying today defending Ukraine from Putin's war machine.
Vichnaya pamyat. May their memories be eternal.
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- 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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- Oct/3/22 6:17:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is no evidence yet to determine who did it. There are only a few countries that have the capabilities to fire upon a pipeline that deep in the sea. As the member said, it was in three places.
It would not surprise me if it was a false flag operation done by Russia itself. It has already rejected the turbines from Canada. They were erroneously provided back to Gazprom and have been able to pump more natural gas from Russia into Germany and the rest of Europe. I would not be surprised if Vladimir Putin, who is famous for doing false flag operations, actually orchestrated this one as well.
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- Oct/3/22 6:15:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with the member that more needs to be done, especially on the diplomatic front. I am always worried about some of those eastern European countries, former members of the Soviet Union, that are not members of NATO. They do not have the luxury of an attack on one being an attack on all. Article 5 does not apply to places such as Moldova and Georgia. I have already seen nefarious actions from Russian players, whether from the state itself or individuals who continue to undermine their own democracies and economies.
We need to continue to stand with those countries and find ways to strengthen them, knowing that right now the west is spread pretty thin in trying to deal with the Russian threat as well as what is going on in the South China Sea. We will have to continue to work collaboratively to find ways to support all member countries. Right now, the best thing we can do is defeat Russia in Ukraine. Then it would not be that big of a threat to all the rest of the nations in the region.
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- Oct/3/22 6:13:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North and I know all too well that there are definitely things that we can do in Canada and things that we cannot. I am speaking to the things that we can do to supplement what our allies have already done for Ukraine. They are under pressure as well and depleting their own stocks, especially in the United States and the U.K. Nobody has done more for Ukraine than the United States, the United Kingdom and Poland have.
We can continue to say that we are working in a coalition in support of Ukraine, but let us not forget that we are one of Ukraine's biggest friends. In Winnipeg, as we said, we have the sniper rifles we should be building and then sending to Ukraine, paid for by the Government of Canada.
We also have Peerless Garments in Winnipeg. What does it build? It builds uniforms and winter kit. Winter is coming, and Ukraine is asking for more winter gear. We should be sending that as well.
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- Oct/3/22 6:02:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock, the whip for the official opposition.
I am honoured to be able to participate in the debate today and denounce the very crass move by the Russian Federation and President Vladimir Putin to annex both Donetsk and Luhansk, which have been at war with Russia for the last several years, and also now moving to annex Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
I want to say at the onset that Canada, Canadians and all of us here as parliamentarians will never accept Russia's claim to one square inch of Ukrainian territory, and that does not just mean Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. It also includes Crimea.
Crimea will always be Ukraine, and as Ukrainian forces are currently demonstrating in the war against the Russian Federation, in this illegal, tyrannical invasion by Putin and his proxies, they will continue to stand against the Russians and continue to make gains in winning this war. We know that the Ukrainian forces have been able to do this because of the tenacity, the patriotism and the valour of the people of Ukraine who are serving in the armed forces, in their militias, and are fighting to protect their country as well as their citizens. I know that each and every one of us here are so impressed with what they have been able to accomplish.
Ukraine will never accept the sham referendums, which were done at gunpoint. This goes beyond coercion. This is about military intervention going door to door forcing, at gunpoint, the people of the oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to vote for the annexation. This is something that can never stand the test of time and must be denounced by every democratic nation around the world.
I am glad that we are here adding our voices to this debate to make sure that the international community knows clearly where Canada stands, more importantly, that the people of Ukraine understand that we are standing with them, and that the Russian Federation and those who are sitting in the embassy right now in Ottawa watching this debate know that we will never accept any of this tyrannical, dictatorial way that Russia has invaded Ukraine and tried to steal Ukrainian territory.
Here we are in 2022 and we are playing out old war games. A lot of people like to compare this to World War II or beyond, but it is unbelievable that it is happening in our lifetime.
The Russian forces have been put on their back heel. They have lost, it is estimated, over 100,000 soldiers already. They have lost materiel, tanks, artillery and supply chains because of the tenacity and the skill of the Ukrainian armed services. A lot of what we did when we were in government under Stephen Harper and what has been carried on with the current government was, over the last eight years, started with Operation Unifier. In training Ukrainian soldiers up to NATO standards, along with our partners in the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Australia and others, we have made these professional soldiers into a formidable force going up against what was thought to be one of the great superpowers in the world. They have proven the world wrong in what Putin and his war machine was going to do to Ukraine.
There is no question that we have witnessed war crimes. There is no question that there is a genocide being perpetrated upon the people of Ukraine, and that is why we have to continue to stand with Ukraine. We can never let down our guard on how the Russian Federation is behaving in the global sphere, especially within their spheres of influence in former Soviet states. That is why our role in NATO, our role in supporting Ukraine, can never weaken.
The Ukrainian forces have also been able to get a lot of materiel from Canada and other nations. It is because they now have a lot of modern equipment, as well as the planes and tanks they had in service and the equipment they already had in place, that they have been able to take the fight to Russia.
However, every time we hear President Zelenskyy, he asks us to send more, and we can send more. I know we have already sent over half a billion dollars' worth of materiel, including of lethal weapons and non-lethal weapons and of RADARSAT images that we have, which we used to provide under Stephen Harper and the Conservative government and which the Liberals cancelled but then reinstated after the war broke out on February 24.
As a lot of nations are starting to see their own supplies dwindle, Canada has to step up and do more. As we hear from President Zelenskyy and from the minister of defence in Ukraine, they are asking the west to send more supplies, including more artillery shells as they are running out and more bullets as they are running out. They need more sniper rifles. Guess what we build in Canada, right in Winnipeg? We build sniper rifles at PGW Defence. They are already starting to build more sniper rifles for Ukraine. Some of those are sitting there, unable to move, because the government will not buy them and send them. Why is the government not buying them? They are there. It is a small chunk of change when looking at the big scheme of things. The Ukrainian forces are standing on the front line, stopping these Russian marauders, these barbarians, from coming further into Europe and destabilizing the whole world rule of law that we have come to accept as the norm. We need to send them more.
They are asking for more armoured personnel carriers. Guess what we have in Canada? I just asked a question on the Order Paper about this: How many LAVs do we have available that we might be able to have in service that we can send to Ukraine? We are about to retire our entire fleet of armoured vehicles. The new Super Bisons that are to replace them are already built and sitting on a parking lot in London, Ontario, at GDLS. They just need to be certified by National Defence.
I know that the 39 LAVs that were sent or are in the process of being sent to Ukraine are actually coming out of that inventory, and I thank the government for sending them. Let us make sure they are equipped the same way that we equip our LAVs here in Canada for fighting in places like Afghanistan, as we did in the past. Let us make sure they have the 25-millimetre machine guns on them and the heavy armoured plating to withstand IEDs as well as artillery shelling. Let us keep and protect as many Ukrainian soldiers as possible, as they are in this fight against these barbarians out of Russia.
The government is saying it cannot do more. I asked a question on the Order Paper, which the parliamentary secretary responded to in the last couple of weeks. It was Question No. 705. They said that currently, in Canada, the older LAVs that we used in Afghanistan are still in service. There are 149 LAV II Coyotes and 140 M113s, which are the tracked LAVs and also the armoured personnel carriers that both the United States and Australia have now donated to Ukraine, so the Ukrainians already know how to operate these tracked LAVs. We can move these M113s over at any point in time. They can jump in and go. There are also 196 LAV II Bisons.
The Coyotes, the Bisons and the M113s are all sitting here. It is a great inventory and all about to be replaced with brand new Super Bisons, the LAV 6s, coming out of GDLS in London, Ontario. Why are we not taking these now and getting them over to Ukraine as they have Russia on the back heel, retreating away from territory? Why are we not making sure they can win this war? The only way this ends well is if Ukraine wins this war. We have to push Russia out of every inch of the country, and we know that we need to also add to that.
I have been calling on the government since this war broke out in February to send more of our medical hospitals. We have Role 3 hospitals in the Canadian Armed Forces. For the COVID-19 pandemic, the government purchased another dozen mobile hospitals, which are still sitting in containers. We should be shipping them over there to make sure we have triage capability for the soldiers who are getting injured on the front lines. The most critical time is to get them into the hands of a doctor and a medic in a good facility, who can save lives after soldiers have been traumatized through very bad battle wounds.
Let us continue to support Ukraine. Let us make sure Ukrainians get the materiel they have asked for and the defensive weapons they need, and that we continue to stand together to make sure Ukraine is victorious.
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- Oct/3/22 6:01:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his service as a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Space Agency, and of course for the work he did as the former minister of foreign affairs in standing up for Ukraine and cleaning up the mess that was left by his predecessor, Stéphane Dion.
I want to ask the hon. member about NATO membership. I think the secret to all of this is one of the greatest aspirations Ukraine has right now, which is to become a member of NATO. Does he have any brief comments on the path toward completing its membership within the NATO family?
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- Jun/1/22 10:14:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's strong support for Ukraine as well.
Canada needs to start planning ahead for a Marshall Plan to help rebuild all the infrastructure that has been destroyed by the Russian military in Ukraine. We know that there are a number of assets that have already been seized from Russian oligarchs and corrupt kleptocrats who have been hiding their wealth and own businesses here in Canada. Those assets need to be liquidated, and those are the first dollars that should be going into the rebuilding of Ukraine's hospitals, schools, roads and bridges.
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- Jun/1/22 10:12:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know we are sending sniper rifles that were bought by the Ukrainian military from Canada that are very advanced and require training. I agree that if we are going to send more technologically advanced weapons, it means we have to be able to move personnel who built the equipment to train individuals on it.
Not all of the equipment takes weeks and months to train on. It is not like selling them new fighter jets that they have not flown before, which would take years to master. A lot of this stuff only takes a matter of days or weeks before it is in operation.
That is why I would encourage the government, which has $500 million earmarked in the budget to go toward military equipment for Ukraine, to buy the equipment that Ukraine already uses from the world market and get it there as soon as possible, so that we do not have to train the troops and they can actually put it into use immediately.
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- Jun/1/22 10:10:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe I did mention that I was splitting my time. I am sorry about that.
One of the other things we have been asking the government to do is supply our Harpoon maritime and coastal missiles. They would really strengthen Ukraine's ability to protect Odessa and other coastal cities. We asked for that and Canada did not do it; the U.K. did. We asked to send over our LAVs, like our M113s. Canada did not send them, but the United States and Australia sent M113s.
We need to step up and do more, not less. I again want to reiterate that having Sweden and Finland join our NATO alliance speaks volumes, and I know we all welcome their applications.
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