Foreign Affairs Committee on May 2nd, 2022

[David Angell]

Mr. Chair, we would like to see peace talks succeed, but we see no serious Russian commitment to peace talks.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Ms. Fry.

I would also like to thank the witnesses.

Good day, Mr. Bergeron. You have the floor for six minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I apologize for these technical difficulties. That's why I was late in joining the meeting. I apologize to the witnesses, whom I would like to thank for being here and for giving us the benefit of their comments.

It's an open secret that when Canada decided to withdraw staff from its embassy even before the conflict began, we expressed a number of reservations, as we did when Canada decided to move its embassy from Kyiv to Lviv. We also expressed reservations when Canada decided to close its embassy in Lviv.

Some countries maintained their presence in Ukraine, or have since reopened their embassy. I'm thinking of Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the European Union, France, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey. We know that staff from the British embassy are also in Lviv. The United States hopes to reopen theirs before the end of May. Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs mentioned the possibility of reopening Canada's embassy when it was secure enough to do so.

How can we determine when conditions will be secure and safe? Isn't that just a way of indefinitely postponing the reopening of our embassy in Ukraine?

[Heidi Kutz]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Perhaps I'll take this question.

Of course, as the minister has indicated, Canada is working to return to Kyiv as soon as possible. Those considerations are, of course, contingent on appropriate security conditions and mitigations. An assessment is currently under way, with a view to gradually re-establishing Canada's diplomatic presence in Kyiv, as soon as possible. This assessment includes an assessment of the safety and security of our personnel.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I understood that, and even mentioned it in my question.<

But my question is rather the following. In a war, how can anyone claim that the situation will become sufficiently secure for us to do what most of our allies are doing to demonstrate concrete support to Ukraine by maintaining an embassy there? Should we not at the very least reopen the facilities in Lviv as a preliminary measure before fully reopening the embassy in Kyiv?

[Heidi Kutz]

Of course we're looking at all possible considerations. Ultimately a security assessment assesses the security threats that exist and the mitigation measures that we have in place to properly protect our staff and personnel. As I said, these assessments are ongoing. We hope to have news in the near future.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I'd like an explanation of how Canada's security considerations differ from those of Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the European Union, France, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.

What additional requirements do we have for avoiding a concrete demonstration of our support to our Ukrainian ally by doing what our other allies have done and reopening our facilities in Ukraine?

[Heidi Kutz]

Given the nature of the topic, I'm not able to go into detail in terms of the security considerations, but I certainly can assure the committee that the government is looking at the considerations on the ground, with a view to our security considerations, as well as keeping in touch with like-minded partners, with a view to returning to Kyiv as soon as possible.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

The situation is extremely difficult, to be sure. The conditions established by the Canadian government to welcome Ukrainian refugees are extremely stringent. We have made it even more complicated by requiring Ukrainians to leave their country and only afterwards approach the Canadian authorities.

Would not the presence of Canadian missions and staff on the ground facilitate the lives of people in Ukraine who want to be able to leave the country and distance themselves from the combat zones?

[Heidi Kutz]

I'll take that question as well.

I think that the responsible department, IRCC, has undertaken many measures in order to facilitate the application of individuals interested in coming to Canada, including through online applications and other methodologies—

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I fully understand, but I'm going to repeat my question.

Wouldn't having people on the ground in Ukraine facilitate the lives of Ukrainians who want to leave the country? At the moment, their lives are being made much more complicated by requirements like having to leave the country before applying to come to Canada.

[Heidi Kutz]

To clarify, I was pointing out the methodologies just to say that I understand that the department is working to facilitate applications online as well, given the challenges you have outlined with respect to mobility.

As we're able to establish operations in Ukraine, it will certainly become more accessible to those who are there.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

When he was in Quebec on April 29 to announce that a Moderna factory would be built in Montreal, the Prime Minister implied that Canada would be trying to keep lines of communication open with the Russian state and Russian civil society. What did he mean by that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Briefly please.

[Heidi Kutz]

I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with the quotation. The Prime Minister has highlighted in the past the use of diplomacy as a method of keeping lines of communication open with Russia. Perhaps it was in that context.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

Ms. McPherson, it's over to you now for six minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank the witnesses who have joined us today. This has been a very informative session so far.

My first question is for Ambassador Scanlon.

It's lovely to see you, Ambassador. I haven't had the opportunity to see you since I was in Poland visiting with you.

When I was in Poland I didn't meet with my counterparts within the Polish government, the members of parliament, who spoke back in March about the challenges that Poland is facing with regard to refugees coming into the country.

How is Poland managing that? What more could Canada be doing to support Poland at this time?

[Leslie Scanlon]

While I can't see you, it's nice to hear your voice again.

Canada is incredibly engaged, but the bulk of Canada's support goes into multilaterals like UNHCR and IOM, etc. All the multilaterals are here in force, so Canada is very present. When I meet with UNHCR or any of the other colleague international humanitarian organizations, we always get very good feedback on what they are doing and Canada is very present.

I did want to say as well that Canadians are here, like Khalsa Aid, which is the Sikh organization based in Toronto or Brampton, I believe. They are the only Canadian organization at one of the big reception centres that's providing a hot meal to 7,000 refugees every day.

The Canadian Medical Assistance Teams are here giving medical support on the border between Ukraine and Poland. Individuals are coming. Individual organizations and individual Canadians are very present, but on the higher level it's really done through the UN and multilateral organizations. We don't support Poland directly other than maybe with the CAF presence here.

We have CAF members working with the territorial defence force taking care of refugees in reception centres with medical care and with translation. We have a lot of Ukrainian ability in the Canadian Forces, so that's a very specific support for Poland.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much.

My next question is for Ambassador Angell. In terms of the sanctions, one thing I'm interested in is that it does seem like the sanctions have been rolled out over a very long period of time. Instead of having all the sanctions in place before the February 24 war began—or continued, I guess—they were rolled out bit by bit.

I wonder if that is the best strategy. Why was that strategy decided upon?

Also, could you touch on how many assets have been seized to date? What is that dollar value? Could you share any of that information with us?

[David Angell]

It's certainly the case that sanctions have been ratcheted up gradually through a process of very close coordination amongst allies and partners. In part, the reason is that these are tough decisions for countries to take. We see there's still a debate within the European Union on whether they can put in place oil and gas sanctions, for example.

What was put in place in February was already close to being unprecedented. Where we're at now, we couldn't even imagine back then.

It's a very political process of agreeing on tough decisions, country by country. As one of the questions earlier implied, these are decisions that have real impacts on populations in terms of their ability to manage inflation at home.

We believe this process of ratcheting up sanctions is not yet finished. We're watching very closely and working very closely with EU partners to encourage further ratcheting up to include oil and gas because that is what will really have an impact in Russia.

In the meantime, we're seeing a very active attempt by Russia to mitigate the impact, but this extensive propping up of the economy is probably something that cannot be done on an indefinite basis. I think we will see sanctions having a greater impact quite soon.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

The second part of that question was on the seized assets. How many assets has Canada seized to date?

[David Angell]

I'll need to take the question under advisement, Chair. I don't have that detail.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

If you would be able to share that with the committee when you do have that detail, that would be great.

You did talk about the sanctions being rolled out, because they are complicated and whatnot. I guess my concern is that when they are rolled out so slowly, we see examples where Russian oligarchs have been able to move their wealth, to hide their wealth, and to avoid the impacts of the sanctions on their wealth—because they did move out so slowly. If we had put perhaps not some of the oil and gas sanctions but some of those individual sanctions in place sooner, they wouldn't have had the opportunity to do that and those would have been more effective, I believe.

The other question I have—perhaps this is a good one for Ms. Kutz—is on the nuclear rhetoric that we're seeing. Of course, one of the concerns we see coming out of this conflict is the ratcheting up of nuclear rhetoric. The ratcheting up of nuclear war means that other countries that have nuclear weapons, other rogue states, can see this as an opportunity. If you have a nuclear weapon, you can blackmail the world, basically, so obviously disarmament is our key priority now.

Has the Canadian government made a decision on whether or not they will be sending an observation delegation to the TPNW meeting in Vienna in June?

[Heidi Kutz]

I know we're short on time, and I don't believe I have a report on that issue for you, so we'll be happy to refer it.