Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My thanks go out to all the committee members and you, Mr. Chairman, for considering this very important issue.
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing here today. It's very timely.
I have to go back to the period of the Orange Revolution. At that time, there was a culture of intimidation, and I was there for the whole 10 days of it. I was there for the failed election. I saw the ballot box stuffing, and I actually have pictures of that ballot box stuffing, which is pretty incredible.
There was a sense, at that time, of not taking the election process seriously. It was, I suppose, the remnant of the Soviet style of dealing with elections, and so was the culture of intimidation. I was personally very, very intimidated. Attempts were made to scare me, to have me removed from the country. There were various methods: blood in my room, things delivered to me.... There were various issues that were pretty outrageous, but I took it in stride at the time because of the importance of what was going on.
What was going on, was this very real scenario of the citizens of the country were rising en masse and speaking out for their democratic freedom. This was real. When I would speak to them on that stage in Independence Square, the resounding roar that would come back when I would say to them that Canada was with them in their interests of improving and regaining their democratic institutions, that was very real.
But at that time, we had various media concerns. TV, of course, could broadcast pretty readily. The press seemed to be able to function and do their reporting, but the telephones wouldn't work. There was control over the telephones. They would click-click, or fail, or fade in and out. There were attempts to control that.
Could you characterize today, because of these committee meetings, and because of the take note debate in the House of Commons too, whether this is coming through to the citizens of Ukraine? Ultimately, it is up to the people of Ukraine: we can share all the concern we want here in these committee meetings, but ultimately, it's the people of Ukraine who have to express their concern. Are they expressing this concern today on the streets of Kiev or is there some holdback through the media? Is this coming through? Are they as concerned as we are?