- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07
- Government Page
- Mar/20/24 10:55:43 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for his kind words toward me. I do appreciate that.
This is an issue that has all-party support, this new strategic security agreement between Canada and Ukraine.
I was not going to ask a question, but he did raise the misinformation out there. Research has been done, both in the Ukraine by NATO itself, through its Estonia cybersecurity and misinformation centre of excellence, which I had the chance to visit this past summer, as well as here in Canada. Everybody always wants to talk about the far right, and there is no doubt. The Tucker Carlsons of the world, the PPC types out there, are actually out there promoting all the Kremlin propaganda.
There is also a growing mountain of evidence to show that the far left, the alt-left, the Antifa types, are also saying that Russia is justified in its attacks on Ukraine and that Ukraine does not actually exist. It is all the same revisionist history that is pushed out by Putin and his troll farm in St. Petersburg.
I just want to ask the member if he recognized the fact that there are extremes on both sides of the political equation that are squeezing all of us who are supporters of Ukraine, and it requires us to fight back even harder on the misinformation and disinformation and to unite Canada and the world, including our American cousins, in their support for Ukraine.
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- Mar/20/24 8:47:34 p.m.
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Madam Chair, it is indeed an honour for me to be rising today as the shadow minister of national defence for the official opposition, the Conservative Party, and also as someone who is incredibly proud of his Ukrainian heritage.
I have to say this at the outset. I want to make sure everybody understands that Conservatives support Ukraine. We denounce Russia's invasion in Ukraine, which Putin has committed and has allowed his military to commit war atrocities and war crimes against the innocent people of Ukraine. Because of that, we support the Canada-Ukraine strategic security partnership, which will enhance the co-operation between Canada and Ukraine and between the Canadian Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We need to do more, not less, and we believe that this security agreement will set the tone.
We have spent the last couple of days here in Ottawa paying tribute to the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, former prime minister of Canada, who lay in state the last couple of days here in Ottawa, and I want to extend my condolences to Mila, to Caroline, to Ben, to Mark and to Nicolas. Brian Mulroney is so key to tonight's debate because of his incredible support for Ukraine. He was the first western leader, on December 2, 1991, who recognized Ukraine's independence, and I think it is very important that we honour his legacy and also the incredible work he did to make that happen.
The fall of the wall in Berlin and the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics all happened because of the work done by Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Brian Mulroney to apply increasing sanctions on the U.S.S.R. to make sure the Soviets were not able to fund their war machine and to put the Soviets into bankruptcy. Because of their incredible work of reaching across the Atlantic and of making sure they worked in partnership as western liberal democracies that shared a common heritage and loved freedom, democracy and human rights, they stood up against that Soviet bear.
Today, we find ourselves in a similar situation, where the Russian bear is now trying to flex its muscles, using its own war machine to invade Ukraine and to commit war crimes. To undermine the NATO alliance and to undermine all our democracies, Russia has been feeding out propaganda and misinformation that has only been paled by going back to Hitler's Nazis and what Goebbels did to make sure that misinformation and propaganda was disseminated, to not only their own citizens, but also around the world. As such, it is a responsibility of our western democracies to make sure people understand that what they see and what they get are actually two different things when we are dealing with the Kremlin, the kleptocrats there and their propaganda.
I think it is important, at this time, to also recognize that our friends in Ukraine and our friends in Israel are facing some horrific situations from terrorism, from war crimes and from barbarism, and we need to make sure we continue to stand with Ukraine and continue to stand with Israel in their times of need. We must call for the release of all hostages taken in Ukraine, who are being held in Russia, and all hostages taken in Israel, who are being held by Hamas. They have kidnapped over 20,000 children. They are brainwashing them and often using them in their military as cannon fodder against their own country, and I think that is deplorable.
As a Conservative, I am proud of our track record of supporting Ukraine. It started with Brian Mulroney, and many of us sat in caucus and in government with Stephen Harper. We were there for Ukraine in bringing forward Operation Unifier.
We were there for Ukraine by supplying it with military equipment as soon as the war in Donbas broke out in 2014, and with the illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea by the “little green men”, which we all know were the Wagner Group from the Kremlin. We were there providing things like winter kit, night vision goggles and body armour, and allowing the Ukrainians to be able to modernize. With Operation Unifier, they were able to train up to NATO standards and be in the position where they are today, able to fight back against what was supposed to be one of the superpowers in the world.
We had been saying this since 2018 when we saw that the war was not ending in Donbas. It was not just an insurgency happening in Luhansk and Donetsk. We knew that there were Russian troops on the ground supplying the weapons and the personnel that were carrying on the war and occupying territory in eastern Ukraine.
In 2018, Conservatives started to say that Canada should send over our surplus weapons. There was a cache of weapons sitting collecting dust in Montreal that was supposed to go to the Kurdish Peshmerga. That never happened, so we said, “Let us take those AK-47s, those grenades and grenade launchers and the Carl Gustaf anti-tank weapons, and give them to the Ukrainian military.” That did not happen until the war broke out in February 2022.
At that point in time, we immediately started saying, “Thank you for doing that, but we have more to do.” We have surplus weapons that are being disposed of, like our light armoured vehicles, our Coyotes, our Bisons and our armoured ambulances. Let us supply those to Ukraine. We have surplus Role 3 mobile hospitals that were bought for the COVID pandemic that were not getting used. They never came out of the containers. There are a dozen of them. Let us ship them over to help save lives on the front.
Let us send over more munitions. We need to ramp up our production of 155 rounds for the howitzers. Those artillery shells still have not increased in production to this very day, over two years since the war started.
Just recently, our leader of the Conservative Party called on the government to supply CRV7 rockets. There are 83,000 sitting in Dundurn, Saskatchewan, that are going to be disposed of, sent to the scrap heap. Instead of scrapping them, let us give them to the Ukrainians, who can use them to defend themselves and push back the Russian invaders.
In my last couple minutes, I have to say that I support the Canada-Ukraine strategic security partnership. In particular, I will talk about part 4.I and part 4.N. Part 4.I is “Resilience of Energy and other Critical Infrastructure”. It is important to note that this is talking about supporting Ukraine's overall energy sector. That means liquefied natural gas, which is the main source of fuel for its electricity. It is the main source of fuel for its heating. It is the main source of fuel to drive its economy.
We as Conservatives, including my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills as our shadow minister for foreign affairs, have clearly stated that the way we must stop putting fuel in Russia's war machine, the way we take cash out of the pockets of Putin and his kleptocrats in the Kremlin, is by taking away the market, the ability to sell their energy products in Europe. We need more Canadian energy.
There is also a focus on nuclear safety, and that is one thing Canada actually can do. We can do small nuclear reactors. We can actually help modernize the nuclear infrastructure Ukraine has, the power plants. I think we need to capitalize on that, and that will help Ukraine, especially as its nuclear power plants continue to be attacked by Russia.
Finally, part 4.N is “Compensation for Losses, Injuries and Damages Caused by Russian Aggression”, taking Russian assets here in Canada and around the world and using them to directly support Ukraine, Ukrainian families and Ukrainian businesses, and to rebuild Ukrainian infrastructure. It is also about the seizure and the repurposing of Russian sovereign options through compensation mechanisms. It is going to be a huge step towards actually allowing us to cover the losses, injuries and damages suffered by people who lost loved ones, and people against whom rape was used as a weapon, and to compensate people for the loss of their homes and their businesses.
This is a great opportunity for us to co-operate on all sides of the House to ensure that Ukraine is able to rebuild after the war ends, and that the Russian Federation pays for it.
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- Mar/20/24 8:42:55 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I want to thank my colleague from the defence committee, the parliamentary secretary for national defence, for her intervention tonight and for her support for Ukraine.
I would ask the member, specifically on the Canada-Ukraine strategic security partnership, how she envisions clause N., which talks about the seizure of Russian assets for compensation to Ukraine to help support the rebuilding efforts of Ukraine's infrastructure, for compensation to homeowners and for compensation to families who have lost loved ones and property because of the indiscriminate attacks by the Russian military and by Putin's war machine?
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- Nov/28/23 1:13:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as someone who is proud of my Ukrainian heritage, I am disgusted by that tirade from the member.
He is sitting here, defending putting more taxes on our farmers and creating more food insecurity at a time when we have record numbers of people lining up at food banks across this country. Does the member not realize that the food insecurity he is creating here in Canada is the very same food insecurity that he is aligned with, with Putin in Ukraine?
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- Nov/28/23 11:32:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to add some extra information to the point of order that was raised yesterday after question period with respect to the government House leader, the member of Parliament for Burlington, when she said, “Is it because there is a group of Conservative members of Parliament who are pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine and they have to cover for them?”
Yesterday, the Speaker ruled that the Conservatives could no longer say the NDP were Hamas supporters. In that light, we are saying that the Liberals should not be saying that we are pro-Putin when we are not. The Conservatives stand with Ukraine. We have always, unequivocally, stood with Ukraine in their fight.
I want to bring to the attention of the Speaker, when he considers his ruling, that—
An hon. member: Point of order.
Mr. James Bezan: I am making a point of order.
Madam Speaker, in consideration of Russia and a reference made by the government House leader, I want to remind the Chair that on March 17, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant, a red notice, for Vladimir Putin for crimes against humanity and for the unlawful deportation of population and the unlawful transfer of population from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russia Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.
As members know, currently over 110,000 war crimes are being investigated by Ukraine against the Russian Federation during its war of aggression. We know that over 9,000 children are currently being held in military camps in Russia and are being reprogrammed or brainwashed by the Russian Federation. All these are crimes against humanity and are war crimes. These atrocities have to stop.
For anyone to imply that the Conservative Party supports Russia is unparliamentary and is in contravention to the ruling that the Speaker made earlier yesterday, saying that we could not make these correlations.
I would ask that this is taken into consideration as the Speaker rules on whether those types of utterances are allowed.
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- Nov/27/23 3:31:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to say that I am very proud of my Ukrainian heritage. I am a proud Canadian, I am a patriotic Ukrainian, and everyone in the House knows how passionately I have been defending Ukraine for all these years. For the government House leader, the member of Parliament for Burlington, to actually suggest that any one of us of Ukrainian heritage on the Conservative side would at all be supporting Putin in any way, shape or form is incredibly disappointing. It is gutter politics, and she has taken it to a whole new level. I would ask that the member be reprimanded and forced to apologize in this place, because she has offended all Ukrainians and Canadians and especially everybody in our Conservative caucus for making such an allegation.
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- Nov/22/23 6:41:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do want to thank the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his passion and his advocacy, and for the leadership he has shown on this.
I was disappointed that the Liberals voted against the amendment to the act that would have provided more opportunity to produce weapons and ammunition to send to Ukraine. We started advocating the provision of weapons in 2018. We had sniper rifles and the Carl-Gustaf anti-tank weapons. We had rocket propeller grenades and side arms that we wanted to send to Ukraine that were sitting in storage, collecting dust and going nowhere. We asked the Liberals to send them, but they did not send them until after the war started in 2022, four and a half years after we started asking them to send them. The Liberal-NDP coalition called me a warmonger.
The truth is that we all knew Putin was going to try to fully invade Ukraine. We are coming up to the Holodomor commemoration on Saturday. We are having a commemoration here on the Hill tomorrow. It was the genocide of several million Ukrainians by Stalin and his Communist thugs to wipe the Ukrainian nation off the earth. It is happening again. It is being done again by Moscow, by Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin kleptocrats. We have to stand with Ukraine. It needs weapons and not a carbon tax.
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- Nov/22/23 6:39:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I forgive the member for always using bully-boy attacks and for his rhetoric. The idea of trying to tie us to something happening south of the border is ridiculous. Anyone who knows the current Conservative Party and knows the leader of the Conservative Party knows that the leader stands with Ukraine. I personally confess that I have seen him passionately defend Ukraine. He is opposed to Russia's aggression. He is opposed to Putin's dictatorship and the atrocities that Russia is committing in Ukraine. He is a leader who stands for freedom, for democracy and for human rights, and he stands with Ukraine. I have no doubt of that, and neither should any other member of the House. In spreading misinformation and disinformation, the member is only helping Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.
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- Nov/22/23 6:28:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for South Shore—St. Margarets.
The report that came forward from the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development was well done, and I congratulate the committee for that work. I particularly want to draw attention to recommendations 12 and 13. Recommendation 12 is that Canada not grant a sanctions waiver to Siemens Energy Canada, which was trying to send over the natural gas pipeline turbines to power Nord Stream 1, pump more Russian natural gas into Europe and fund Putin's war machine. Recommendation 13 was to make sure that there was a real policy goal enhancement of the energy security of Canada's democratic allies, while fully complying with Canada’s domestic and international obligations related to climate change. This speaks to the issues around energy security in Europe and in Ukraine, and how Europe is reliant on Russian LNG and Russian oil.
I can say without any argument that I am proud of my Ukrainian heritage and that I have been a long-standing supporter of Ukraine. I have been banned from Russia since 2014 because of my ongoing advocacy for Ukraine, and that support is unwavering. The Conservative Party stands with Ukraine, and its support is unequivocal. However, there has been a lot of talk over the last couple of days about the Conservatives' concerns around the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement that has been negotiated by the Liberal government.
Let us put this in perspective. First and foremost, the current Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement was actually negotiated by the former Conservative government under Stephen Harper. Our trade minister at that time, the member for Abbotsford, negotiated a very good free trade agreement that has been in effect for only seven years. The Liberals signed that free trade agreement when they formed government in 2015, and it went into effect the next year, so we have free trade with Ukraine already in effect.
We are supportive of most of the free trade agreement that is at committee, but the Liberals have stuck in a very slim amendment to the free trade agreement, which is the first one in Canadian history. No other free trade agreement has it, and no free trade agreement that the government is currently negotiating with other countries includes carbon pricing, carbon taxes and carbon leakage. That has very little to do with trade, and it disadvantages the people of Ukraine, who are today fighting a hot war against Russia, Putin and his barbarians. To put our values onto the people of Ukraine is, I think, distasteful at a time when they are dealing with their own future.
The international trade committee has been studying this issue, and one of the academics who showed up at the committee, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, when asked about the free trade agreement, the carbon tax and other parts of it, said, “I would see it more as an imposition to be honest. On the one side, I would see there is a very western value being imposed on a country that has been devastated by war. Secondly, we also need to question the mechanism itself, the carbon tax. There is literature out there suggesting that sometimes the carbon tax may not actually achieve the goals that we are trying to reach from an environmental perspective, so we need to make really sure that whatever we're imposing on Ukraine actually works, and that it actually can make a difference. I'm not sure there's consensus there.”
He went on to say, “I've said it before and I'll say it again: I actually do think we need to be careful, extremely careful, with how we see our values and how we impose our values on a great partner like Ukraine. Ukraine will absolutely need more help from Canada than we need help from them, especially over the short term. Again, I see this as an imposition from Canada, in my perspective.”
Thus, he has said that this is an unfair section of the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement.
As we know, it is fundamental to our Conservative Party to oppose the carbon tax in Canada. Why would we support any agreement that ratifies a carbon tax for both Canada and Ukraine? Again, it is something that is not welcome.
If we really wanted to help Ukraine, we would do it through the free trade agreement by ensuring that we have its need for energy security taken care of. There is nothing in the agreement that addresses the issues around helping it rebuild its nuclear energy plants, helping it adapt Canadian technology from our SMRs and helping it adapt technology in developing its LNG. It has natural gas fields. Yesterday, it found a new field in the Carpathians and needs Canadian technology to access it. It has also found the ability to claim more natural gas from fields in the Carpathians that it considered exhausted. Now, it knows there is more natural gas down there it can pump out, and it is asking Canada for more technology. The free trade agreement has nothing in it to help with that.
I was in Ukraine in August. I can say that its infrastructure has been devastated by the indiscriminate bombing done by Russia and by the war crimes and atrocities Russia has committed against the civilians of Ukraine. Ukraine needs help in rebuilding its ports and its grain-handling infrastructure in its railways, things that Canada is very good at but which are absent from the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement.
We have been arguing for years, as Conservatives, to send more weapons to Ukraine, and more munitions, especially as we listen to experts from Ukraine telling us it is using 3,000 to 5,000 artillery shells each and every day, 155-millimetre shells that go into the M777 Howitzers that we sent from Canada, and that other countries sent as well, and into the M109 self-propelled Howitzer and other artillery guns. We build the shells here in Canada, but the Liberal government has not been able to get an increase in production for the past 22 months. Ukraine has been at war now for 638 days, on the front line, pushing back against Russian barbarians who are invading it in this illegal war. We need to continue to provide everything we can, and one thing we can do here is build more munitions. However, we still build only 3,000 rounds of shells per month. That does not even give Ukraine shells for half a day.
One of the things I have heard many times from Canadian companies that want to invest in Ukraine is that there is no war risk insurance. There are Canadian companies that would go over there and build things like sniper rifles, armoured vehicles and munition plants, and set up infrastructure companies to help build Ukraine so it can build back stronger, yet there is no war risk insurance offered in the free trade agreement. The agreement is mute.
I am proud of the Conservative history on what we have done in Ukraine. It was a Conservative government that first recognized Ukraine's independence in 1991. It was a Conservative government's prime minister, Stephen Harper, who was the first western leader to go to Ukraine after Russia illegally occupied and annexed Crimea and started the war in Donbass in 2014. It was a Conservative government that made sure that Putin got kicked out of the G8, turning it into the G7. It was a Conservative government that sent the first military equipment over there. I actually accompanied some of those shipments as the parliamentary secretary for national defence in 2014 and 2015. It was a Conservative government that started Operation Unifier, training tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers. I want to thank the Liberal government for always renewing that and for now starting it in England, where I had a chance to see it in operation.
Once again, Conservatives support Ukraine. I love Ukraine. I support it 110% and will until the day I die.
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- Nov/21/23 2:09:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today, we stand with Ukraine as Ukrainians mark the Day of Dignity and Freedom, commemorating the Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity of 2013.
Ten years ago today, we saw the beginning of a new era for Ukraine. Young students craving change took to the streets of Maidan to stand up for their aspirations of Euro-integration and to reject lawlessness. They stood for justice, truth and freedom and our shared values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. The world witnessed their strength and resilience.
What started as barricades on the Maidan was shortly transformed into the trenches of Donbass, and, for the past 636 days, we have watched Ukrainians' heroic resistance against Russia's illegal invasion. What started as a defence of liberty and democracy has evolved into safeguarding Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Opposition to domestic tyrants like Viktor Yanukovych shifted to armed resistance against the barbaric raiders and terrorists led by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Every day, Ukrainians unite for democracy, peace and prosperity, not only for their homeland but also for all western democracies.
Slava Ukraini.
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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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- May/17/23 2:19:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today, on the 79th commemoration of Sürgünlik, the genocide of Crimean Tatars, we look back with horror and sadness as we remember how Joseph Stalin and his Communist thugs forcibly deported over 200,000 Tatar men, women and children by packing them into cattle cars and shipping them off to the gulag.
Nearly 10,000 people died during this brutal journey, and many more died under inhumane conditions when they were relocated. This genocide stands out among the many atrocities carried out by Stalin and his henchmen, and we remember all the victims.
Although the Crimean Tatars heroically returned to their homeland by the thousands during the 1980s and 1990s, Vladimir Putin, just like dictator Joseph Stalin, is again waging a genocidal war against Ukraine and the Crimean Tatars. Since his illegal invasion in 2014, Putin has targeted the Tatars and shut down their mosques, their independent press and their legislative assembly, the Mejlis. Moreover, he is carrying out a slew of horrific human rights abuses against them.
Putin and his barbarians must get out of Ukraine. Crimea is and will always be Ukraine, homeland of the Tatars.
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- May/4/23 5:03:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising today in my role as the shadow minister for national defence for the official opposition. I agree with my colleague who just spoke that this is an issue that all members in this House should be engaged with. It is an issue that is definitely impacting each and everyone of us and our ability to represent our constituents without the fear of a foreign entity trying to intimidate us by threatening our families abroad.
As everyone knows, I have been an incredibly outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation. I was in the original tranche of 13 members of Parliament and parliamentary Canadians who were sanctioned by Russia back in 2013. We are now witnessing a situation where one of our fellow colleagues, my friend, the member of Parliament for Wellington—Halton Hills, has been targeted by the Communist regime in Beijing and its foreign agents here in Canada, threatening him and his family back in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, what we see from the government is just dithering and delaying in the typical Liberal way when it comes down to doing things that are important to each and every Canadian.
National security and national defence responsibilities are paramount to the Government of Canada, yet we see a government that has not taken this issue seriously. It knew for two years that there was a legitimate threat made against the family of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. We knew that the Communist regime in Beijing did not like the way he brought forward a motion to call out its activities against the Uyghur population in China as genocide, for which it decided to intimidate and sanction his family in Hong Kong.
The motion we have before us today lays out a path for our House and the government to finally act. It would create a foreign agent registry, similar to what we see in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. I would say, with respect to all the comments coming from the other side during the debate earlier today claiming that as Conservatives we did not do anything, that it only became an issue toward the end of our time in government, and that our platform for the 2015 election campaign called for the need to establish a foreign agent registry.
The second part of the motion calls for the establishment of a national public independent inquiry on the matter of foreign election interference, which we have been dealing with here now for several months once we found out that the Prime Minister had been briefed that seven MPs and their ridings had been targeted for foreign interference by the Communist regime in Beijing. Instead of having that independent public inquiry that the majority of members in this House have been asking for, the government went with a Liberal insider, someone who is a family friend of the Prime Minister's, with direct ties to the Trudeau Foundation, who is the former governor general David Johnston. Everyone is questioning the independent advice that will come from that process. That is why we need to move forward with a public inquiry to establish public confidence.
The motion also calls for the government to shut down all of the People's Republic of China's police stations that are operating in Canada. We know there are a couple in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal that are still open to this day. They may be observed by the RCMP, but we know for a fact that operatives of the Communist Party of China are using their diplomatic immunity in those stations to intimidate Chinese Canadians. That has to stop now.
Yesterday, the Falun Dafa, who are Falun Gong practitioners, were on the Hill standing for their rights and liberties that are being denied to them in mainland China, to stop the genocide against Falun Gong practitioners, and the illicit harvesting and trafficking of organs across the planet. Of course, the source of those organs are persecuted, executed and butchered Falun Gong practitioners.
Why have they been targeted by the regime in Beijing? It is because they had the right to assembly, which was denied them. They had their faith, which was denied them. They could not even come together to practise a faith that promotes tolerance, truthfulness and compassion, which are the founding principles of the Falun Gong doctrine.
The fourth and final part of this motion calls for the expulsion of all diplomats from the PRC who are responsible for the affront to all Canadians, including the member of Wellington—Halton Hills, for their attack on democracy and foreign interference right here Canada. Again, the government has made the argument that it cannot do it.
However, I can tell members for a fact that, under Stephen Harper when the Conservatives were in government, we had a similar situation with the Iranian regime here in Canada where it was using its diplomats to target and intimidate the Iranian diaspora right here in Canada. What did we do? We expelled every single diplomat. They were declared persona non grata. We shut down its embassy here in Ottawa. We shut down its consulates in Toronto and Vancouver. Now we have its properties that we will hopefully be able to use to actually compensate the Iranian families here in Canada who lost loved ones on the Ukrainian International Airline Flight PS752, which was shot down as a terrorist act by the Iranian regime. Of course, we continue to fight in here on having the government honour the motion that was passed in 2018 to call the IRGC a terrorist organization and that this entity should not be allowed to operate in any way, shape or form in Canada.
What we are living through right now is an affront to our democracy. It is an attack not just on the member for Wellington—Halton Hills but an attack on every single minister, every single member of Parliament and every single Canadian. If we are going to protect our democratic institutions, then we have to act now. Enough is enough. Yet, we have not seen a single diplomat from Beijing expelled by this government. We have not seen the government carry through on its promise to shut down the police stations that the PRC has opened across Canada. The government has not taken a single step forward in establishing a foreign agent registry.
What we saw earlier today was disgusting when the member for Winnipeg North played the victim blame game and tried to blame the member for Wellington—Halton Hills for not doing anything on information that he never received two years ago. We know that this government received information from CSIS, and we know that the government did not act upon that intelligence. CSIS said that the family of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was being threatened through information that it had gathered through signals intelligence, and yet the member for Winnipeg North stooped to a new low by trying to say that it was the fault of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. That is ridiculous.
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- Mar/23/23 2:09:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in a secret courtroom in Russia, an unjust trial of a courageous freedom fighter is taking place.
Our friend, Vladimir Kara-Murza, is facing a sentence of 25 years in prison, which would beat the longest verdict ever sentenced and handed out to a Russian political prisoner. His crime is high treason, but what did he actually do? Vladimir Kara-Murza spoke out against Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. He called out corrupt oligarchs and the kleptocrats in the Kremlin. He stood up for liberty, the rule of law and democracy.
While Putin wages his genocidal war in Ukraine, Kara-Murza called for peace. He languishes in prison, exacerbating his poor health, which is a result of the poisonings that he survived from two previous assassination attempts ordered by Moscow, yet he continues to fight for a better future for the people of Russia. In the words Kara-Murza, “The biggest gift that those of us who oppose Vladimir Putin could give to the Kremlin would be to give up and run away”.
I call on the House to demand Putin to immediately end the show trial against Vladimir Kara-Murza and set him free.
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-324, An Act to amend the Special Economic Measures Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Rocky Ridge for seconding this bill.
The bill that I am bringing forward is about changing the name of the Special Economic Measures Act to the Sergei Magnitsky global sanctions act. As many in the House know, in 2015, Senator Raynell Andreychuk, as well as myself, had introduced, in the Senate and in the House, the Sergei Magnitsky law to sanction gross human rights violators and corrupt foreign officials.
Since it was passed in the House in 2017, it has only been used on 70 individuals. The first name on the list is the President of Venezuela, President Maduro. It is about making sure that we go after those who are creating the greatest crimes against their own citizens and enriching themselves through that process.
What we need to do is make sure that the Liberal government is always naming people who have committed human rights violations and who are destabilizing peace and security in the world by using the name Sergei Magnitsky. This is about the standardization of our nomenclature of our Canadian sanctions regime.
We have to remember that Sergei Magnitsky, who was a Russian lawyer and accountant, fought against corruption in Russia. He was arrested, falsely accused, tortured and killed while in detention and while he was defending Bill Browder. A lot of us know Bill Browder. He was a business person in Russia at the time and has been living in London, England, since then. He wrote a number of books, two of which are Red Notice and Freezing Order. I encourage everyone to read those books to understand how corrupt the Russian regime is under Vladimir Putin.
The Special Economic Measures Act has been used roughly 1,300 times against Russian individuals and entities. The majority of the people we are sanctioning now, because of the war in Ukraine and crimes committed against humanity, are Russian kleptocrats and Vladimir Putin himself. Therefore, let us make sure that we are consistent with our allies when we use sanctions and we say that we are using the Sergei Magnitsky sanctions to honour the legacy of Sergei Magnitsky. Let us make sure that his name is synonymous with standing up for human rights, for the rule of law, for democracy and for standing against corruption.
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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/17/22 2:00:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested in April by Vladimir Putin's thugs on a trumped-up charge of spreading false information about the Russian military. His supposed crime: condemning Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine while speaking on U.S. soil. Just last week, the Kremlin kleptocrats and their kangaroo court have upped the ante by charging Mr. Kara-Murza with treason, which carries a 20-year sentence. This is a despicable show trial by Putin and his cronies.
Clearly, the corrupt Russian court system is helping Putin punish his political opponents and muzzle anyone who dares to speak the truth about his barbaric invasion and genocide he is committing in Ukraine. These are the kinds of gross human rights violations the Magnitsky act was designed to address. If Russia refuses to bow to pressure and release Vladimir Kara-Murza, the full force of sanctions must rain down on all responsible for this abuse of authority.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is a political prisoner, a prisoner of conscience and a human rights defender. Canada must speak up on the international stage and forcefully call for his immediate release.
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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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