Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 14th, 2016

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Yes, because you just mentioned the opposite, where people don't want their names to be out in local news for people to know that they are police wardens who abuse human rights activists or people who abuse political party members. We've heard the opposite. We've heard that some members actually think of it as a badge of honour to be targeted by western sanctions. Do you think that's true?

[Andrei Sannikov]

No. In Belarus it was never a badge of honour. It was a badge of dishonour. It was the period in Russia, if I remember correctly, when the western sanctions were introduced after the aggression in Ukraine, there was a very feeble attempt to save face where they started to call themselves the “honoured”. If you were on the list, you were on the list of “honourable people”. Believe me that people in Belarus do welcome sanctions. Especially after the 2010 crackdown, when the sanctions were eventually introduced for those events, they were welcomed by an overwhelming majority of the people.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you.

[Andrei Sannikov]

I don't recollect anybody.... Maybe when two or three of them got real drunk they would boast about this, but it's not a badge of honour among the people. Never.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Tom, and thank you very much, Mr. Sannikov, for your time. It's very much appreciated by the committee. We'll have to leave it there for today. Your information is very useful to the committee, so thank you very much.

[Andrei Sannikov]

Thank you very much. It was my honour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Colleagues, we will take a two-minute break and then we'll go in camera. We'll suspend and clear the room and we'll go in camera to deal with budgets and a few other matters, and then we'll call it a day.

[Proceedings continue in camera]