But inasmuch as the Russian state has been using that argument in the context of actually sending troops, it is not a footnote. It is something that needs to be addressed.
I wouldn't say “chaotic”, but in the high-pressure, extremely fast adoption of all these constitutional changes a weekend ago in parliament, the language law was terminated without debate, and that didn't go well, because symbolically...and it was presented as discrimination against Russian speakers. What I can say, having actually studied that language law that was passed two years ago, is that it was very controversial. We know how sensitive and controversial language laws and language politics can be. We have been living it in Quebec and in Canada for many decades, and it's never going away.
But there is one core principle. It's that you have to be respectful of the linguistic rights of the minority, but you have to create incentives for that minority to speak the majority language. In other words, it's not just about protecting the rights of Russian speakers. It's about Russian speakers in certain conditions, such as making a career, and certainly a career in politics or in business, having incentives and going to school to speak Ukrainian in a certain context, so that you have a truly bilingual situation. The last law did not provide that.
I can't go into the details, but basically it was all declarative. Russian speakers would never have to use Ukrainian, which is why it didn't go well, but of course abolishing it without debate in the context of some kind of revolution or rebellion was not the way to go. Actually, Acting President Turchynov vetoed the termination of the law and said, “We need a new law, but we need to do it right.” Of course, it doesn't matter to Russian discourse, but this is what's happening on the ground.
On the issue of inclusivity—and I would submit that perhaps this is something that Canada can contribute in closed-door negotiations, informally—it would seem to me to be imperative that the government in Ukraine be a government of national unity, with representatives of eastern Ukraine. The current government, with the exception of the minister of the interior, is exclusively from central or western Ukraine. But in the last few days, very important what I will call “businessmen”—I will not use the word “oligarch”, because the connotation is not good. Very important businessmen in eastern Ukraine, Russian speakers, have come out publicly in favour of the unity—