Foreign Affairs Committee on March 31st, 2022

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I hear the pain of what you're saying in terms of negotiating with the Russians as they commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. I do hear that.

I want to talk about some of those other things that Canadians can do, because, as we all know, Canada does not have the ability to do certain things. We simply don't, but what we have the ability to do is to help people come from Ukraine, to bring humanitarian aid and to provide whatever services and whatever materiel we can to help Ukrainians defend themselves.

I would like to talk a bit about immigration and bringing people from Ukraine. All opposition members have called for visa-free travel for Ukrainians. Would that help? I'm going to ask that of Ms. Dyczok. I'm also going to ask about the idea of how we support Ukrainians when they are here. For example, I was in Poland just a few weeks ago, and Poland is able to provide some limited health care supports for Ukrainians when they're in that country. Canada is not providing that health care support.

Could you talk about that a little, please?

[Dr. Marta Dyczok]

To my co-expert, Ukraine did offer neutrality in the last series of peace talks, and that was rejected. It's not a question of their not being prepared to do that; they did.

To the humanitarian question, I think Canada should look at this in terms of short-, medium- and long-term strategies, because right now people are fleeing because they're being attacked. Some people are just looking for a place to shelter until it's over. Others will perhaps want to stay longer. I think we need to keep in mind that there will be different asks from people who are fleeing.

I think that health care absolutely has to be part of the package. These people are fleeing war, and they could be injured. They're probably traumatized. If they have any health issues, they need to be part of the package.

The funding is always the tricky question. People who are fleeing from war.... Our university has already put together packages. It's happening across the board. I think the Canadian government is doing a really good job; however, some of the agencies that are working with the Canadian government, like the Red Cross, are spending their money on promotional materials rather than donating it to Ukrainians in need, so that's something. A friend of mine just got a package from the Red Cross. He donated $500, and they sent him this big package, including a pen with his name on it. He said, “I gave money to help Ukrainians, not to get a personalized pen, thank you very much.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

We'll have to leave it there. Thank you very much, Professor.

Mr. Aboultaif, please go ahead for three minutes.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I have a quick question, due to the shortage of time, to either one of you.

Do you believe it's a matter of leadership or a matter of an empire when it comes to Russia?

[Dr. Marta Dyczok]

Putin has imperial ambitions; that is without a doubt, and he wants to expand his influence, so that I think is very clear.

The question that nobody is asking, which I think really needs to be put on the table, is about this issue. We talk about Russia as a monolith, but it's the Russian Federation, and there are a lot of non-Russians in the Russian Federation. If you actually look where the energy is, it's not in the European part of Russia; it is in the non-European parts of Russia, so I think one of the possible negative consequences for Putin could be dissatisfaction in the republics. We've seen Chechnya squashed, but there's Yakutia and there are all these other Siberian.... Those are things that we should be watching as well, what's going on within Russia, and not just what Putin is saying—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I'm looking to ask a question of Mr. Breault.

I'm looking to the future and the future is telling us that no matter how this ends—at the end of the day we are in the course of unfortunate circumstances in history—this is not going to be the final chapter of this conflict.

Would you be able to comment on that, Dr. Breault?

[Dr. Yann Breault]

After the Second World War, the U.S. economy was about 50% of the world economy. We live in a dollar-based worldwide financial system, and this is changing. Asia is moving forward. The U.S. economy is now about 22% of the global economy, so there's going to have to be, at some point, a new deal negotiated between world powers.

The way I explain it to my students is that the tectonic plates are moving, and the question is, are they going to slide smoothly or are they going to stop at one point and then provoke an earthquake? I see what we're witnessing in Ukraine as the first major earthquake we're having in these tectonic shifts, and that is inevitable. The U.S. is not going to be the sole world superpower for the next century. How are we going to transition to a multipolar world, where India will be there, where China will be there with Russia? This is the fundamental question. The Ukraine crisis is one of several new crises that will come down the path. Watch Taiwan in the coming months—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Should we hope that this will be the last chapter before this escalates further and expands further?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Give a very brief answer, please.

[Dr. Yann Breault]

Possibly.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Aboultaif.

Mr. Oliphant, please, for three minutes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I will try to be quick. I want to have dinner with both of you because I need two hours with both of you.

Professor Breault, one of your areas is the Cold War and the re-emergence of a cold war. What are your thoughts...? We have a short-term issue. Looking ahead to the medium and long term, the plus side is the allied forces, NATO and the like-minded, are very strong. We've been never more united than we are right now. However, Mr. Putin is still at a very high level of popularity in Russia and in the federation. What are your thoughts on a cold war in the medium and long term?

[Dr. Yann Breault]

I will give you a depressing answer. I think a new iron curtain is already unfolding in the region, and Putin doesn't care about that. Since he came back in 2012, you could see the return of a very conservative ideological stance, according to which this degenerate, sodomite west is contaminating the soul of this great Slavic orthodox civilization. This seems terrible, but just listen to Patriarch Kirill justifying this war, because we're essentially fighting against the spread of LGBTQ+ ideas.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

That's right.

[Dr. Yann Breault]

This is going pretty fast. For a long while, Russians and Russia were interested in integrating the civilized world in a common house, to use Gorbachev's terminology, but not anymore.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Let's have dinner on that later. I think this is going to be something our committee needs to follow up on.

[Dr. Marta Dyczok]

Can I jump in on that one?

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I have another one for you, because I read a very interesting blog article today by a former BBC journalist, now independent, Farida Rustamova, who has done some interesting work on Putin's popularity.

In the early weeks, the disinformation campaign had not been launched by Russia the way it came in later, and her article is quite interesting in talking about the tenacity of Putin and how, if anything, the Western sanctions are creating a problem of unity among these oligarchs, not disunity.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Dr. Marta Dyczok]

Absolutely. It's a good question.

Putin's popularity is really difficult to get a clear read on, because it's a non-democratic society. That said, there are public opinion polls. In the early ones, when the war was escalated, starting in February, his popularity before that was quite low. It went up from 50% to 70%. In the last public opinion poll that came out, by the Levada-Center, his popularity had risen to 85%.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

It rose to 83%, yes.

[Dr. Marta Dyczok]

That is quite worrying. Again, we need to take that with a grain of salt, but I think that is an indicator.

As we all know, he has cut down all information coming from outside of Russia, so he is completely controlling the narrative. He is very good at stoking tropes—the West is trying to humiliate us, and so on—and that taps into Russians' feeling of post-imperial loss. We saw this in Britain, and we saw this in other imperial countries. When you lose empire, you lose status, and he's tapping into that.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

We don't want—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Unfortunately Mr. Oliphant, I apologize. In the interests of time—I hate to do this—unfortunately, we will have to end it here.

Colleagues, on our collective behalf, I would like to thank our two experts for being with us this afternoon.

Dr. Breault and Dr. Dyczok, thank you very much for appearing before the committee and giving us evidence.

Please keep safe. We will suspend to allow our second panel to come on board, and then continue very shortly. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Colleagues, we're going to move on to the second panel, and I'd like to welcome our witnesses.

We have Ms. Magdalena Dembińska, who is a full professor in the department of political science at the Université de Montréal,

and Timothy David Snyder, professor of history, Yale University.

I will give each of you five minutes for opening remarks, after which we will go to questions by members one more time.

We will try to signal when there are 30 seconds left in your questioning or testimony time. I will hold up the yellow card.

Professor Dembińska, you have the floor for five minutes.