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Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was particular.

Last in Parliament October 2019, as Liberal MP for Etobicoke Centre (Ontario)

Won his last election, in 2015, with 53% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Committees of the House March 23rd, 2017

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two reports, in both official languages.

The first is the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, entitled “Modernization of Client Service Delivery”. Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

Mr. Speaker, I also have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, entitled “Main Estimates 2017-18”.

Operation UNIFIER March 20th, 2017

Mr. Chair, it was referenced earlier that we should be helping Ukraine to achieve the goals that it has set. One of its most ambitious goals is to be NATO compliant by 2020.

Yes, we are continuing with Operation Unifier, and we are continuing with other projects that began when Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine began in 2014. When we were in the opposition, we supported the government. Today, we are glad that the opposition is supporting us as we continue this vitally important project.

However, there are new projects that we have commenced, and one of those is the Defense Reform Advisory Board. The former assistant deputy minister of defence, Jill Sinclair, is our representative there. This board will be directly engaging with the president, and the chief of staff of Ukraine's military, helping them to become NATO compliant. Should this new project not be one of our priorities?

Operation UNIFIER March 20th, 2017

Mr. Chair, going back to the issue of the RADARSAT-2 satellites, those were images that were purchased. Our military actually does not have satellites of the sort that produce those images. They were purchased. They were not timely and did not have the sort of detail that Ukraine would have wanted in the current conditions.

Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine has changed, but also Ukraine's army has gone through an incredible evolution. Ukraine now has timely information on Russia's movement of troops. We have to be clear that Russia is moving its troops and Russian military equipment continually into Ukraine. It is timely and it is detailed, so that sort of information is no longer required.

On the comment by the hon. member as to doing anything we can do, should we not be doing things that are effective and necessary today, not what was necessary one or two years ago?

Operation UNIFIER March 20th, 2017

Mr. Chair, the hon. member mentioned Magnitsky sanctions. Sanctions have been noted a number of times during this evening's debate, as have the oligarch kleptocrats Sechin and Yakunin, who are in President Putin's inner circle. Why is it that they were on the sanctions list in Europe, on the U.S. sanctions list, but at the last minute, former minister Baird removed those two names from the sanctions list? We know that a former staffer worked as a lobbyist or was hired after his term in the former minister's office. He was hired as a lobbyist by a Russian company associated with these oligarchs.

Sometimes we have this assumption in Canada that we are not affected by this global Russian hybrid war effort. Would the member like to comment on this? Are we immune to the sort of Russian interference that we are now seeing south of the border?

Operation UNIFIER March 20th, 2017

Madam Chair, this question of federalization of the Ukrainian state has been around since 1991 when I was first engaged in Ukraine. It is a small minority that have pushed that particular political agenda. It does not have broad support among the people of Ukraine, nor does it have the broad political support. Where it did have support, in fact, was among groups such as former president Yanukovych's party, and the remnants of that party that still have some base in eastern Ukraine.

Operation UNIFIER March 20th, 2017

Madam Chair, in fact, there is no light between the previous government's positions when it comes to Ukraine and the current government's position. What we have seen on this file is a realization in the House of Commons in Canada's Parliament, by all parties, that Ukraine needs to be supported. The NDP, the Greens, the Bloc, the Conservatives, and the Liberals have come together, whether it is the free trade agreement or when it comes to Operation Unifier.

When it comes to the second point with regard to how we can expand on this, our government has the front line of this war, the hard front military line that runs from the Baltic down to the Black Sea. We have engaged in a new mission. We have taken the lead in Latvia. We are on the front line with the Russian border when it comes to Latvia.

We have also instituted the Ukrainian Defence Reform Advisory Board, and put Jill Sinclair, a former assistant deputy minister of defence, on this board to help Ukraine as it works toward this ambitious goal to be NATO compliant by 2020. That is a new effort. We are helping Ukraine to become NATO compliant. We are also working on making sure that the whole front line is covered. We understand clearly what this hybrid Putin war entails.

As I said, it is encouraging that in the House everyone stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine.

Operation UNIFIER March 20th, 2017

Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with the member for Kildonan—St. Paul.

Tonight we have heard in detail about Operation Unifier in support of our ally Ukraine. However, in my limited time, I would like to provide an historical and geopolitical context as to how this effort is the hard military front line of a global hybrid war against liberal democracy launched by President Putin.

Over 25 years ago, the Soviet totalitarian empire collapsed, and leading political thinkers declared that liberal democracy and free markets had won the Cold War. They pronounced the end of history and a great peace dividend to come.

Meanwhile, in East Germany, KGB officer Vladimir Putin watched the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the expulsion of the Soviet army and KGB bases from East Germany and the Warsaw Pact countries with personal fury. Later, President Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest calamity of the 20th century, not the Holocaust, the Holodomor, nor the two world wars, which cost 100 million lives.

Inside the KGB mind of Putin, World War II was a great victory, with the Kremlin's armies stationed on East German borders less than 600 kilometres from France. For agent Putin, the loss of this empire was an historic humiliation.

During the February 23, 2014 closing ceremonies of the Sochi Olympic Games in Russia, the world watched the pageantry in the stadium, including the ominous coming together of a giant hammer and sickle. In the west, most did not notice. As the son and grandson of refugees who escaped the horrors of the Soviet Union, I felt a foreboding. I called family in Ukraine. The symbolism was not lost on anyone in central and eastern Europe. Four days later, on February 27, an unprepared west witnessed a geopolitical event in Crimea that changed our world order. Putin ordered the military invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula on the false pretext of Russian ethnic grievances. This had not been seen in Europe since the 1930s and Sudetenland. It was the first act in Putin's plan to dismember and collapse the Ukrainian state, its revolution of dignity and democracy. This Russian military annexation violated the letter and spirit of every post-World War II treaty and agreement guaranteeing the integrity of international borders. Our rules-based international order, which has largely prevented territorial wars of expansion, has been jeopardized. Today no small state bordering Russia can feel secure.

Soon after the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, and the west's initially confused response, Russia invaded Donbass. Today, three years hence, the result is that there are over 10,000 dead, approximately two million internally displaced, and a frozen hot conflict within Europe. Weekly, we receive reports of more Russian tanks and artillery systems being moved into Ukraine. Daily, we read the front-line casualty figures. In fact, in the last 24 hours, four Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action.

Within Crimea and occupied Donbass, extra-judicial arrests are commonplace, those incarcerated are tortured, and summary executions are frequent. Crimea's indigenous people, the Crimean Tatars, are particularly targeted. Their Mejlis, mosques, and schools are raided and closed, their leaders arrested or disappeared.

As part of Putin's hybrid global war against liberal democratic values and governments, Russian hydrocarbon billions corrupts political and corporate elites in the west, such as former German Chancellor Schröder and former U.S. security chief Michael Flynn. Far right nativist parties and movements are financed, such as Le Pen's National Front, political elections are sabotaged, the U.S. presidential election is hacked, and there is Montenegro's attempted coup d'état.

However, in this amorphous borderless global hybrid war, there is a hard military front line. It stretches from the Baltic to the Black Sea. With our U.S., British, and German allies, we have placed soldiers on Russia's borders with the Baltic states and Poland. In the Black Sea, we have placed a frigate and deployed air force personnel to train with Romania's air force. On this hard military front line, there is an active regional war in Donbass. There the Kremlin is testing the resolve of the democratic west. Will the west sacrifice Ukraine in the hope of satisfying Russian revanchist neo-imperialism in the manner that Czechoslovakia was sacrificed by the west after the invasion of Sudetenland?

Canada has made it clear that there will be no appeasement. While we diplomatically engage Russia, sanctions will continue, and the Canadian military will continue to deploy into Ukraine to help train and equip the Ukrainians as they head to the front lines. With Operation Unifier, we stand shoulder to shoulder with our ally Ukraine in the face of Russia's war against Ukraine, and we are containing Putin's—

Operation UNIFIER March 20th, 2017

Madam Chair, I would like to put a question for the hon. member for Thornhill.

Numerous human rights organizations, and in fact even the OSCE monitors, have regularly reported and documented that in the Donbass and the so-called LPR and DPR, as well as in Crimea, there are extrajudicial arrests. It is clearly documented that those arrested and incarcerated are tortured while under arrest and that there are summary executions. There are untold numbers who have just disappeared.

My question for the hon. member is this: would he support a designation of the so-called LPR and DPR as terrorist organizations?

Operation UNIFIER March 20th, 2017

Madam Chair, the minister referenced his visit to Yavoriv, the base where Operation Unifier is taking place. It is a training mission. However, when I was honoured to visit with the Prime Minister, and then again in September, one of the interesting things I heard over and over from Canadian officers was, number one, how highly motivated these Ukrainian soldiers were. Most were volunteers, but not volunteers in the sense that we imagine, as novices not familiar with the front. They were coming back from a front, where there was trench warfare and deadly artillery barrages. I heard from our Canadian officers that they were not just training; they were learning.

How has that information informed our mission in Latvia as we take the lead in a NATO mission in a front-line state right on the Russian border?

Operation UNIFIER March 20th, 2017

Madam Chair, I would like to put a question for the hon. member from the NDP. He mentioned incarceration. There are over 20 Ukrainian citizens who have been kidnapped from Ukrainian territory into Russia, and they are currently incarcerated within Russia. It is well documented by international human rights organizations that they have often been severely tortured, and they have undergone show trials in some cases. Considering this, would the NDP support efforts, first, to sanction those individuals who have been involved in the kidnapping, and, second, in the prosecution and show trials of Ukrainian citizens who have been kidnapped from Ukraine and are incarcerated in Russia at this time?