I agree. The threat of escalation is definitely there. Russia will be responding to anything they perceive as a threat. They perceive a lot of friendship things as threats these days. It is becoming an unpredictable spiral that may end up with a much worse situation than we are in at the moment.
I would second Ambassador Westdal's statement that we don't know enough about Russia. We've cut our ties with Russia since 2010. Even before the Crimean war we cut our co-operation with Russia, our technical co-operation with Russia by 2008, I believe. We don't have any serious leverage in Russia at the moment, but we had and we spoiled this all in a beautiful way with destruction.
Until 2008 the Canadian ambassador travelled to all the Russian regions, and it was welcomed. There was a feast of goodwill for Canadians. Now there is none.
How can we rebuild this? What can be done in a reasonable way? I'm not saying we should all love Russia, not at all. I'm saying build reasonable, reciprocal ties that will make Canadian interests more visible and help Russia, not isolate it and ignore it. That would probably be what we should do, knowing all the differences, the deep differences between us and Russia.
Also, we should help Canadian companies. There are Canadian companies that lost a lot during the sanctions. Our economic turnover is $1.3 billion, that's $300 million. In one year we have less economic activity than in one day between Canada and the U.S. This is how it looks at the moment.