Foreign Affairs Committee on May 9th, 2017

[The Chair (Hon. Robert Nault (Kenora, Lib.)), Liberal, Bob Nault]

Colleagues, good morning. I want to bring this meeting to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we're going to have a briefing with the vice speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament this morning.

On behalf of the committee I'd like to welcome Oksana Syroid, the vice speaker, and her colleagues. With her, we have Iegor Soboliev, the deputy chair of the Samopomich Faction, and Ivan Miroshnichenko, a member of the committee on agrarian policy. And of course we have our beloved ambassador of Ukraine, who will be at the table as well.

This morning we're going to discuss Ukrainian policy and issues surrounding Ukraine. You're free to have this discussion, colleagues, as you wish, but generally the process that we follow is that the deputy speaker will have some opening comments, and then we'll go right into questions from there. We have an hour. Then we'll take a break, take a few pictures, and then go to the next part of our meeting after the hour.

I want to again welcome the deputy speaker and turn the floor over to her. If you've read the deputy speaker's very impressive CV, as I have, you'll see that she went to school here, so she's a Canadian in some ways. We're very honoured to have her here today.

Deputy Speaker, I'll turn the floor over to you.

[Her Excellency Oksana Syroid, Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Ukraine]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and honourable members of the committee.

It's a great pleasure and honour for me to speak in front of you here, together with my colleagues. We all represent the same party. Even though we are in the opposition we are great supporters of the success of our country. It's also the greatest pleasure and honour to be here before you as you celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canada, because Ukrainians were one of the first nations that came to Canada, and they contributed to the success of this country. As well, Canada was among the first to recognize Ukraine as an independent state and stood with us and stayed with us, and I believe will stay with us in our success as well.

I know that you are very well aware of what is going on in Ukraine. You travel to Ukraine. You've been to Ukraine recently. I would like to share different perspectives of the issue with you that you are quite well aware of. Those would be the perspectives of the major lessons learned after three years of our greatest challenge in the war with Russia.

First of all, I would like you to understand to what extent we are successful. We are really successful as a state. Unfortunately, the war that we are now passing through is the result of that success. If Ukraine were a failed state, as Russia very often claims, Russia would not have a reason to occupy Ukraine because Russia would embrace Ukraine in its failure. It's true that we are struggling a lot to build our institutions, and it's true that we are still suffering big challenges like corruption. Iegor will be able to speak more about that. But it is also true that we have been undertaking enormous efforts in the course of war to build those institutions, and we have done a lot already.

The second lesson that I believe is very important to understand is that currently nobody can decide for Ukraine without Ukraine. We just came from Washington, and we heard a very interesting reference that for some people Ukraine is considered an obstacle in the relations between Russia and the U.S. We understand that it is predetermined by the long tradition of the last century when Ukraine was considered not as a subject but as an object while decisions were made between big powers on the world settlement. But it cannot be like this anymore because compared to that period, Ukraine has already experienced 26 years of statehood and has has evolved into a huge nation with a very strong identity and determination. The people of Ukraine will not allow somebody to decide for them without them.

I will bring you recent examples of how the people of Ukraine have changed the path of their history. You remember the revolution of dignity, which definitely changed the path of Ukrainian history. But even in the course of the Russian occupation, decisions were changed four times because of the people's will. The first wave of the Russian occupation started as the Novorossiya project. It was a regional coup to change the governments in the regions. It succeeded only in Donetsk and Luhansk. Do you realize why? It happened only because people in Dnipro, Odessa, and Kharkiv didn't support it. They said no to the FSN guys and decided to take a different path.

Because Russia failed in the first wave, the second wave was a military occupation by Russian proxies from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russia put a lot of effort into destroying the Ukrainian army as an institution, and they expected to succeed. But Ukrainian volunteer battalions and Ukrainian volunteers actually challenged the Russian proxies, and they would have succeeded if Russia had not employed the regular army on Ukrainian territory.

Then the third wave started. It was an attempt at legal occupation. That was in Minsk, and it was through amendments to Ukrainian constitutions. Then again, when the Ukrainian people interfered and were so definite in saying no, the Ukrainian parliament didn't dare to vote for it.

Then Russia exploited the fourth wave of occupation, which was hidden economic colonization through trade with the occupied territories and the dependence of the Ukrainian economy on the occupied territories.

Again the people of Ukraine said no. Quite recently, you'll remember, there was a blockade of trade with the occupied territories. It was the decision of the Ukrainian people, of veterans who said no to this, and the government had to support the decision.

I'm giving these examples to have a common understanding that we should not even try—nobody should try—to decide something that the people of Ukraine would not support.

The final lesson concerns what we should do in this situation. The obvious idea is that, since Ukraine is now still weak as a state and as an institution, even though successful, we have to build more success in the territories we control by isolating temporarily the occupied part of Ukraine.

We have just to legally acknowledge the illegal occupation of Ukraine. With this instrument we can actually invoke international law in the occupied territories. We can protect, via international humanitarian law, people in the occupied territories and other prisoners of war. We can protect and we can support the Ukrainian army in this. We can also, of course, isolate the danger existing in the occupied territories.

It was like the case between western and eastern Germany when western Germany had to decide—Mr. Adenauer had to decide—between freedom and unity. They chose freedom at that moment to re-establish unity later on. When we spoke out on this to one of the very high officials in the EU, he told us that Europe could afford that, because Germany had an offer from the world. Germany had an offer from the EU and from NATO. The official said that they had not offer for us.

That is what was said, and we are quite aware that nobody except Russia has an offer for Ukraine right now, but Ukraine has an offer for the world already, because we believe that.... First of all we have the army. It is the biggest army in Europe, just so that you understand. Even though it may not be the best equipped, it's the most experienced, having its own unique experience and your soldiers, who are helping Ukrainians to raise their professional standards. They probably benefit from this experience as well.

We have a very great economic potential to develop, but most of all I believe we have the inherited memory and understanding of the Ukrainian people. I believe that this essential knowledge, which came from history and experience, has to be learned by all of us to understand how it can be used for the reset of the future international legal and security order.

With this, I would like to give you the floor for questions, because I believe you have a lot of them.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker Syroid.

I'm going to go right to Mr. Kmiec, please.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker for coming in and speaking to us about the situation in Ukraine.

I just have three questions, mostly about the military situation. Maybe I'll start with my non-military-related question. It has to do with Crimea.

I know you've spoken about Luhansk and Donetsk. What are the non-military options being used to ensure that Crimea returns to Ukraine? I know there are military combat operations that Ukraine could undertake eventually, but what are the non-military means you are using to ensure that both Crimean Tatars and then Ukrainians who are still trapped under Russian occupation have a chance, some day, of returning to a united Ukraine.

[Oksana Syroyid]

Thank you very much for the very important question and I know that this committee has launched, actually, sanctions based on the human rights violations. I am very grateful for this in particular, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

Yes, you are right. The non-military means in this, in the fight for further reintegration or integration of those territories back to Ukraine are very crucial. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people, actually, cannot reach those territories, it is very difficult to work on those territories even though we understand that in Crimea, we have even more passionate pro-Ukrainian population than probably we have on occupied Donbass.

So what are we doing in particular from our side? I know that the government has its own activities, but from our side, we are now co-operating very closely with human rights organizations, both Tatar and Ukrainian human rights organizations. We are trying to, first of all, collect all the evidence, first of human rights violations but also of military control of the Russian federation and economic control of the Russian federation, because we believe it's very important for the international community to have all this evidence collected and have it at its disposal to have an opportunity in the future to stand in front of international tribunals and to keep Russia accountable for all the violations.

I believe that what we can do now is first to collect all the information. I also think that we should put more efforts toward communicating with people, reaching people in those territories, first of all in Crimea. What the government is doing now is providing administrative services for people from the occupied territories so they can maintain their citizenship, like birth certificates and death certificates. We also voted in the parliament for a number of very important decisions—for example, helping students from the high school to enter Ukrainian universities—and we believe it's also very helpful to maintain the context and for further reintegration in those territories.

I believe that we have to think more, and we will be working more on the most sustainable decisions in this area.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Two years ago, the previous Conservative government had been providing the Ukrainian military with RADARSAT-2 satellite imagery, with information on Russian and separatist troop movement across occupied Ukrainian territory, as well as troops massing on the Russian Federation side. It was proving valuable to the Ukrainians. Troops on the ground actually understand troop movements and logistical supply lines. That was taken away by the new government. Would that be something that you believe your government would be interested in seeing returned, that type of information gathering and then sharing with the Ukrainians?

[Oksana Syroyid]

I have to be honest. Very often due to the lack of sufficient power of the Ukrainian parliament to do this parliamentary oversight of defence and security, very often we lack prompt and accurate information about our government commitments in the area of defence and security. Very often it happens, also unfortunately, that we learn about assistance when we go, for example, to Wiesbaden, to Ottawa, or to Washington. That's true. And this is why one of our key issues in the reform of the defence and security sector is to establish this parliamentary oversight over the defence and security.

But when we come to the specific support, I believe that I have to learn more to be responsible in this. If you want me to respond accurately, I have to learn more about this issue.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Okay, I'll move on to another one.

This is also tactical. I'll explain it as well.

We're on the opposition side, so one of the things we're proposing is that Ukraine be added to the automatic firearms country control list, which would basically allow the Canadian government and companies here to export lethal defensive equipment to Ukraine.

Other countries in Europe are already on this list, such as Bulgaria, Romania, and many of our NATO allies. It would basically facilitate that transfer of equipment.

I have a two-part question.

First, do you think that would be useful for Ukrainian troops on the ground? Obviously.

Second, I know that a lot of your current equipment comes from the Russian Federation or is nearer to the Soviet style of equipment. To your knowledge, how is the integration of western equipment going, whether it be medical equipment or troops.

Then, obviously, the other part of it is that you may get equipment, but then you need the parts, the knowledge, and the training for your troops to maintain that equipment, to keep it up to date, and everything that comes with adopting another region's equipment specifications.

Would being added to the list be something that your government would like to see, and how would the integration go so that the equipment is quickly used and deployed in the field?

[Oksana Syroyid]

Thank you.

Definitely, such an agreement would be of great importance to Ukraine. We believe this is the way we should go. I believe also that it will be mutually beneficial for both countries, not only for Ukraine, and I'll explain why.

Yes, you're right that we still exploit a lot of equipment that is produced either by Ukraine and Russia or even sometimes in Russia. We do understand that we cannot continue like this because, definitely, having the enemy at our border, we cannot exploit the weapons that are designed and developed in those territories.

We have a proposal, and we are standing by this. I believe that we will be able to implement it also, with the support of international partners. We would like to have your support here as well to reform the military industry sector in Ukraine.

The current design of the military industry sector, Ukroboronprom, was established by Yanukovych, actually, to undermine the military industry and to make it corrupt. So we have to change it.

The first step should be to provide for the international audit of Ukrainian enterprises, to corporatize them, and then to ensure that investment, even private investment or international investment, comes to Ukrainian military enterprises. That would help us to resolve the issue you are mentioning.

This is already in strategic Ukrainian defence documents like the strategic bulletin, and we hope it will also be reflected in the quite recent bill. We expect to have the bill on national security passed quite soon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec.

We'll go to Mr. Fragiskatos, please.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here today.

This committee had the privilege of visiting Ukraine recently, among other countries, and witnessed a great story. Ukraine is not perfect, but no country is perfect, and the strides you have made over the past few years and continue to make are nothing short of quite impressive. Thank you for the work you're doing and for sharing your insights here today.

I want to ask a question about the recent creation of the office of business ombudsman. I was reading in the Financial Times that this is a new development. The article describes the office in this way:

...a forum for the business community to file complaints about unjust treatment by the state or municipal authorities, state-owned or controlled companies, or their officials.

I went to the website for this business ombudsman, the Business Ombudsman Council. It seems quite detailed. Already it lists a number of complaints, over 1,800, of which 40 are in review, 184 are open, more than 500 have been rejected, and 1,029 have been closed.

This is a very interesting development. Again, I say that no country is perfect. Countries that are well-developed democracies deal with corruption.

The question is certainly not a criticism, but I'm intrigued by this. Could you talk about your view of its potential in helping to combat issues of corruption. That's something we heard as a committee when we visited Ukraine, this idea that corruption could hold back Ukraine's future economic prospects. It was something that was emphasized particularly by the youth business leaders with whom we sat down.

[Oksana Syroyid]

Mr. Chairman, I would like Mr. Soboliev to respond.

[Iegor Soboliev, Deputy Chair of the Samopomich Faction]

I am responsible for that problem in parliament. I am chair of the anti-corruption committee, unfortunately.

First, thank you for your warm words about our progress. We totally agree with you. We have a new society now because of the war of independence, because of the Euromaidan revolution. Unfortunately, at the same time, at too many levels, we have old state, post-Soviet, very corrupt, especially at the central level, institutions. If you are talking about the general prosecutorial office, the most important courts, especially courts that are responsible for business conflicts—let's be honest among colleagues—their corruption remains the main problem inside our parliament, inside our government.

What is our proposition on that? Of course, this corruption blocks every important initiative, blocks the defence of property rights, and blocks what business strongly needs for success. What are our propositions?

First, we formed very ambitious legislation for transparency after Euromaidan, and now we joke in our parliament that corruption is very open to every citizen in Ukraine. State and local budget expenditures are open. All information about all ownership is open. It's the same with e-declaration systems. We now have more than 1,100,000 e-declarations of our officials, including politicians, judges, prosecutors, and so on.

Second, we have now made unique progress in bringing top corrupters to justice. The current chief of tax administration is now under investigation. The acting head of the central election commission is under investigation. Some very important MPs also are under anti-corruption investigations. All these investigations are the result of a newly established anti-corruption bureau and an anti-corruption prosecutorial office.

Having an ocean of corruption, we have decided to establish something like islands in that ocean, and we have given them good salaries by law and prohibited hiring people from old structures to this new one.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Soboliev, I don't mean to cut you off, but the time is limited, so I wanted to—

[Iegor Soboliev]

Yes, so next and combined with the interest of business propositions is to establish an anti-corruption court, because what is the main problem with this business ombudsman's work? He has no power to defend business. He can only complain. Now our proposition is to complete the mission. The corruption begins from the top now. The business problems are a result of this political corruption. If we defeat it with this new anti-corruption court and prosecutorial office, of course then we can liberate business from ugly post-Soviet, very corrupted rules or regulations.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I see that there have been recent reforms to the gas market that are opening up opportunities for foreign investment. I see that the prime minister is intent on moving forward with privatization in a huge range of areas, including alcoholic distilleries and sea port utilities. The aim is to put poorly managed state enterprises in private hands.

What do you think of the prospects of this? Could you speak to, first of all, an opening for foreign investment, firms from Canada and other areas, for instance, and how promising that could be from your perspective, and also the potential positive impact of privatization?

[Iegor Soboliev]

Ivan Miroshnichenko was a businessman before he was elected to parliament, and I think he's the most competent on this subject.

[Ivan Miroshnichenko, Member of the Committee on Agrarian Policy]

First of all, I thank you.

One of the success stories is that we have deregulated a lot of things in the economy in the last two and a half years. We cancelled around 40% of different paperwork certificates, and doing that is good for business.

You asked a question about privatization. Unfortunately, there is no big success story so far. During the last two years, we have not privatized anything. We have been only talking about it. There are different reasons for this. Some of the plants that are of high value for the economy should take time to be properly sold. But this is only one side. Second is that we have hundreds of state enterprises that should have been sold a long time ago. We could even have sold them during the last two years. They are also the reason for corruption, as Iegor mentioned. That's why privatization so far is not a success story in Ukraine.

You mentioned some enterprises such as the alcohol industry and sea ports. I think during 2017 we will make progress, and some of these enterprises will be sold. They should be sold.

Another significant part, and I think you will ask this question, is related to agricultural land. It's also a big part of the story for 2017. If you have this question, I can answer it later.

We liberalized the market. You mentioned the gas industry. We voted for the legislation that created the market for the gas industry and would allow foreign companies to get access to the market, not only to trade, but also the prospect of investing in the infrastructure of the industry. I think this is also big progress.

[Oksana Syroyid]

I have one thing to add.

We also have an offer from the other party to suggest how the privatization approach should be changed. The biggest problem, and why it has not been privatized, is that first, we don't have proper management of state enterprises. Second, there are no transparent procedures for privatization. And third, the state property fund, as an institution, is designed, unfortunately, for corruption, not for transparent operations.

We suggest that first we have to establish appropriate management of state enterprises and corporatize those that shall be held by the state, such as critical infrastructure. We have to change the privatization procedure to make it transparent and accountable to the parliament, in particular, and establish the state property fund as an institution that is accountable to the parliament so we can follow all the procedures that have been happening with privatization.

That would be the precondition for appropriate privatization.

[Ivan Miroshnichenko]

That's our approach for strategic enterprises. We want to split the state companies into different categories. Strategic enterprises, as Oksana mentioned, should be managed this way. Some small enterprises, and there are hundreds of them, should have different processes and should be privatized as soon as possible.

But for the strategic enterprises, yes, with the proper audit process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

We'd like to go to Madam Laverdière.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for joining us this morning and for your very insightful presentation.

I would like to talk about the anti-corruption court, but I would first like to put a question to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that it was very apropos and interesting that you mentioned that nothing can be done for your country without working with Ukraine—with Ukrainians—and without knowing what they want.

During testimony in some of the committee meetings, people talked to us about what is referred to as reform fatigue.

It's basically fatigue when it comes to reforms, perhaps because many people feel that those reforms are imposed from the outside instead of stemming from the inside, from the population.

That is why I would like you to, first, comment on that and, second, tell us—if it is applicable—how Canada can improve its approach to work better with Ukrainians, instead of working from outside the country.

[Oksana Syroyid]

Thank you very much, Madame.

I will leave the anti-corruption court for Iegor to respond to.

With regard to reforms and everything that relates to the supposed fatigue, sorry, but it's Russian propaganda. When we hear, for example, about Ukraine's fatigue, I'm always asking the question, why is there no French fatigue or Bangladeshi fatigue? There is only one country in the world that somehow is referred to as having “fatigue”. Definitely it's imposed because of the first thing that I've been mentioning, that Ukraine has been considered as an object. You cannot take it seriously and consistently.

Reforms are demanded by society. Even more, we've been saying that people no longer expect just the legislation; they expect the outcomes. They want to see the results of those reforms.

When we speak about international support, it's true that in a lot of cases we can push for the reforms only with the help of international assistance. You have to have the parade of three planets to push for any significant step. First is the demand from society. Second is the will of those hundreds of people who are in parliament and are devoted to changing something. And third is the support of our international partners. When we have all those three factors together, we can push for the step forward. But this all for Ukrainian people. And the demand for this is just increasing in Ukraine.

Now if we speak about how Canada can change and improve this, I was wondering yesterday what we should do more of. We should talk more. We should spend way more time talking to each other, to Ukrainian MPs and government officials coming here to talk to you, and you going to Ukraine, but not only to Kyiv and the parliamentary committee, but also to Odessa, Kharkiv, and Kramatorsk. You should reach as far as you can to understand Ukraine and to form your own opinion, to work with us together. I think that would be the first way to do this. Your government is always supportive towards Ukraine. This is just about our common decisions and anti-corruption.

Thank you.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I would like to add the following. When it comes to the anti-corruption court, my understanding is that you would also like to obtain assistance from Canada, especially in terms of judge selection.

Can you tell us more about that and give us an idea of what response you are currently getting from the Government of Canada?

[Iegor Soboliev]

We have registered our draft law for this purpose.

There are two key ideas behind this proposition. First, this court should be absolutely independent from the system, because now we have only justice for corruption. It is very important to have such independence. Second, we propose inviting the Canadian government, the U.S. government, the European Union to send representatives for the selection of the judges, because we have, unfortunately, many examples of manipulation of the rules—even good rules now, imitating the process.

We realize that the presence of foreigners in such procedures would allow us to have more honesty, more principles, and better choices. When we adopt the legislation, of course, the minister of justice of our government will candidly ask your government to send representatives. We will be happy to have your support.

I also want to add to your question about possible co-operation in support and reform. I am very grateful. With Andriy, we used to be journalists in the past. I am very excited at how important and how effective your support is in establishing a public broadcaster in Ukraine.

All central TV channels now are in the hands of oligarchs, unfortunately. Having a strong public broadcaster is also a good anti-corruption measure and a very important tool for building democracy with the citizens. Fortunately, we have finished the formation of the legislation for such public broadcasting. Last month, a good first director of the company was selected in a very open process.

You have a great tradition here, with Great Britain also, and having your support is very important. Simply, please continue this very effective co-operation.