If I'm not mistaken, Canada has the largest ethnic Ukrainian population outside of Ukraine itself, so what's happening in Ukraine is obviously of enormous interest to your people and your constituents, as it is to many people here in the United States and to Europe.
It represents an assault not only against Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, but it's also an assault against freedom, against human rights, and against universal values. Putin is trying to redraw the map of Europe that was accepted with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Warsaw Pact, and this is essentially in the heart of Europe. For the vision that was laid out several decades ago of a Europe whole, free, and at peace, what Putin is doing to Ukraine right now matters tremendously.
I think it's critically important for Canada, the U.S., and Europe to join forces. I think weighing in with the German chancellor, as your Prime Minister has done, was very helpful, given that there had been some tensions, as you may know, between the U.S. and Germany over the past few months. I think this is a test of the G-7, of the democratic community of nations, to see how we're going to respond to this threat, and it is a threat. What we now can at least stop doing is pretending that we have the possibility of a strategic partnership with Russia, that we can really work together, and that we have common values. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Under Putin, Russia has gone down the road where we have the worst crackdown in human rights since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it's getting worse. It's not getting better. As long as that's the case.... How a regime treats its own people is often indicative of how it will act in foreign policy, and since Putin shows no respect for the human rights of his own people, we shouldn't assume that he's going to show any interest in the human rights of others. It's why, for example, Putin has not only blocked resolutions in the UN Security Council on Syria, but he's been arming, aiding, and abetting Assad's slaughter of the Syrian people.