But of course that kind of assistance is not measurable. What we could observe during Maidan, 10 years after the Orange Revolution, is the rise of a civic community. This was a truly civic uprising. What does it mean? Initially it was a civic mobilization and then it turned into an uprising as a reaction to violence. But essentially the main claim was “we want to live in a normal state”. For normality they would say Europe, but essentially it also means Canada and the United States in how they understand it, and that's without illusion that Europe or Canada are perfect states by all means. But in terms of “we want a government that's accountable; we want a government that doesn't steal”, they also want that here. They want to have a commission like in Quebec to try to clean up the mess. There is a normative understanding that this is what needs to be done.
You had that kind of mobilization that went so far that it provoked the government to reveal its ugliest face to the point of resorting to live ammunition, which in terms of reacting to a civic uprising hadn't been seen in Europe since Solidarity in the early 1980s. It was quite exceptional.
I think Canadian assistance, European assistance, the educational exchanges and so forth, have certainly cumulatively played a positive role. We hear now that we have three graduates from Mohyla university, which is in partnership with so many Canadian and European institutions including my own, who are now in the cabinet of ministers.
So in that sense it's immeasurable. We've seen the growth of, clearly, a civil society that could stand up to autocracy, but there is a long way ahead.
Perhaps regionalism.... We shouldn't use the word “federalism” because words are associated with a particular, very lasting perception. If you say federalism in Ukraine, they think Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. It will never work. But without saying the word just in terms of regional representations, autonomy, and so forth, Canada can certainly contribute because that's our history, and not just a Quebec perspective, but western Canada and so forth. That would certainly be a particular contribution.