Thank you. In our region, from the people who are familiar with dealing with Russia the usual response is that you have to have a firm hand. You have to show that you believe in your convictions and will stand up for them, because history has shown in recent years that Russia will back off.
I recall that when we were candidates for NATO in the 1990s, the biggest objection we got, even from well-meaning people in the U.S. and elsewhere, was that Russia would object, that they couldn't tolerate it. Our response was that the reason they were objecting was that they were hoping they could stop you from letting us join. Some people thought that if the Baltics joined, it would launch World War III. It's just the opposite; that's what prevents it.
We saw in that case that Russia did back off. I think you have to be firm on principles here.
As to sanctions, nobody likes to use sanctions, because they're not intended to punish but are intended to coerce the other side to change their policies. I think even though it hasn't totally worked with Ukraine, it's the only weapon we have: nobody is going to actually invade to try to solve this militarily.
Concerning the Magnitsky Act, I'm meeting with Bill Browder later today. This issue has come up in Latvia before. Part of the reason it wasn't addressed a few years ago is that we have a large Russian community. While we take a strong stand on Ukraine and Crimea, there's always the problem of trying to find a balance. We have trade with Russia—80% of our rail and port business comes through Russia. We want normal relations, but we will take a stand on principle when they're violating somebody's territorial integrity.
I think after this visit, now that Canada has passed this law, some of my colleagues in parliament may want to raise this again. I'm therefore going to talk to Bill Browder today. We'll look at the details, and I suspect I will raise this issue in my committee in the coming month to see whether we could address it again and see that this is useful.
Will Russia react to it? Probably it will, but it was interesting, with the sanctions on Ukraine, that there were reverse sanctions in the case of Latvia, but we noticed that they were very selective. Two Latvian exports to Russia that were not touched were alcohol and sardines, or what we call šprotes—our Latvian sardines—because they're too popular in Russia, so they weren't sanctioned. Also, most of the rail traffic wasn't sanctioned.
Russia, then, can be selective. It may be a symbolic response, but I think you have to stand firm on it, because again, it's not to punish and not because people hate Russia, but because they're behaving badly. If they want to rejoin the world community, there are certain civilized rules that we all need to abide by, and we need to remind them of that.