Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to discuss Canada’s development assistance program and its role in responding to Ukraine’s current situation.
Through Canada’s development assistance program, we continue, as we have done for two decades, to support economic and democratic transition in Ukraine. Our support takes a long-term view, but sometimes requires short-term actions.
In the immediate term, as Matthew mentioned, our responses have included emergency medical treatment for those injured in the civil unrest. Canada has provided assistance to the Ukrainian Red Cross to train 500 first aid volunteers and to establish first aid points to treat the wounded. Canada was also quick to respond with legal assistance to democracy activists charged by the previous government.
Looking forward, we need to maintain our focus on the upcoming presidential election and Kiev municipal elections on May 25. After several questionable election processes in recent years, Ukrainians demand and deserve a clean election, with a level playing field, with real choice, and with real competition. We're working with like-minded countries and domestic partners to support Ukraine in addressing such key election process issues as adequate ballot security and fraud prevention.
Canada has been a leading promoter of free and fair elections in Ukraine. For example, through our support of the largest ever elections monitoring mission for the 2012 parliamentary elections, there were 500 Canadian observers. Working closely with their international partners, Canadian observers were indispensable in identifying electoral fraud and misuse of public resources. We know what to look for the next time around.
Free elections, an independent judiciary, a strong civil society, and a free media are all essential components of an effective democracy in which accountable and transparent decision-making is the norm and in which individuals and rights are respected and safeguarded. All of these things have come under attack in Ukraine, and Canada has responded.
Canada is working hard to support reform-minded judges and lawyers and to improve the access of regular Ukrainian citizens to justice. Together with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, Canada will train judges in how to apply European human rights law in their courtrooms. A new project will help Ukraine to roll out legal aid to Ukraine's most vulnerable people so that they too can have access to the justice system.
As you know, some of Ukraine's independent media outlets have been under attack during the past few weeks. Through a recently approved project, Canada will support local journalists to produce investigative reporting for distribution via social media and original TV stations. We're currently examining other possibilities to support free media.
Looking forward a bit further, but not much further, it's clear that Ukraine will require support for the difficult economic transition it will need to make. With our international partners, we will be working with the IMF and other international financial institutions to support Ukraine when it makes that commitment to reform. Already, through the development assistance program we're funding IMF technical assistance to Ukraine to assist with modernizing banking regulations and monetary policy.
I'd like to close by highlighting Canada's long commitment to Ukrainians across all regions. Through our development activities, we engage with Ukrainian citizens, civil society organizations, farmers, businesses, and public officials across all regions in Ukraine, east, west, and south. We bring them in touch with Canadian approaches to local governance, citizen consultation, accountability, small business, and democracy. Through our programming we facilitate communication and understanding between people from these different regions and strive to help them achieve an effective, inclusive, transparent, and accountable rule.
I'd be pleased to answer any questions regarding DFATD's development and assistance to the Ukraine.