Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Ms. Stirk and Mr. Sarty, for being here this morning.
I enjoyed the questions from my colleagues. I think there's probably a large consensus around the table—I hope there is—that Canada has played a constructive role since the independence of Ukraine over 20 years ago. Certainly the government has taken a firm position with respect to the Tymoshenko trial, and from our perspective that's a good thing.
I wanted to ask you two specific questions. I don't have the foreign policy experience that some of the others at the table may have. You talked about re-examining our bilateral relationship. The question is not a trap. I'm actually interested in understanding what kinds of things that means. It's a sort of bureaucrat-speak that probably means a lot--or nothing, depending on what the government ultimately decides to do.
But when a government says it is looking at its bilateral relationship, I understand very clearly the often contradictory requirements: do you engage and maintain an active and constructive relationship all the while being forthright about some of the challenges in the society, or do you withdraw and allow the situation to deteriorate further and lose what influence Canada historically has had?
I understand that dynamic, but what kinds of things can...? If you don't want to talk about specific options the government will be looking at, choose another context: when a government says it is examining its bilateral relationship, what might be the menu of options that a government would look at in a circumstance like this? I'm curious to understand what this could look like as the situation evolves.
Also, if there's time, I'd be curious to hear your reaction to the comments I read in the media yesterday. The Ukrainian chargé d'affaires made a rather bizarre comment. The whole world says it was a political trial and not in fact a substantive criminal one, and I read in the media I think yesterday that the chargé d'affaires is saying no, this was actually a criminal trial and there was no political overtone. Obviously that's something with which we disagree. I'm wondering if the government has had a chance to make that clear to the Ukrainian embassy in Canada.