Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm sure you appreciate as a lawyer, as I am, that it's important when you're formulating an argument to be able to set the stage for that argument, and that is what I'm doing with my comments about many former prime ministers, including Mr. Pearson.
I ask my colleagues to have a little bit of patience, and I'll continue with my argument, if that's okay. I'm sure that they will soon see the relevance of why I am revisiting this important history of our country.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ms. Bendayan, for your intervention through the chair.
In 2004 Mr. Mandela sent a letter in which he said that Mulroney had provided strong and principled leadership in the struggle against apartheid. He also said that this was not a popular position in all quarters, but South Africans today acknowledge the importance of his contribution to their eventual liberation and success.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien stood up for these ideals when he recognized that it would be wrong for Canada to get involved in the conflict in Iraq.
Prime Minister Harper stood up for these ideals when he committed Canada to the defence of Afghanistan.
Now the NDP-Liberal coalition seems to be asking us to abandon our work on Mr. Putin's bloody invasion of Ukraine to study something else entirely.
I'm not saying that other matters aren't important, but the most important foreign policy challenge of today is Ukraine.
I'm sure now my colleagues are starting to see the relevance of the comments I made in the preamble, because I'm making a direct analogy to how those prime ministers behaved and how this committee is now behaving, presumably under the direction of the Prime Minister.
I'm not saying that other matters aren't important, not at all. I think there's merit in the motion that's been proposed by Dr. Fry, in fact, but the most important foreign policy challenge of today is Ukraine. It's Ukraine. Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. That's what it is. This committee must be laser focused on pushing back on Mr. Putin's madness, plain and simple.
The pushing back must include a concerted, sustained and unrelenting focus on Ukraine by this committee. We cannot underestimate the importance of this committee in our machinery of government and how it influences our foreign policy. To try to change the channel in the middle of that is just wrong.
Let me ask this rhetorically. What would our NATO allies say about this committee changing its priorities away from Ukraine? More than that, what would Ukraine Ambassador Kovaliv say about this committee trying to change its priorities away from Ukraine? We all heard her. She just appeared before this committee. I think if we all asked her about Dr. Fry's motion, we know what she would say.
She just appeared before this committee pleading with us to do more, not to study something else, but to do more about Ukraine. She described in detail the horrors Mr. Putin has inflicted on her beloved country. I recall the end of her remarks, and I'm sure all of us here do as well. She spoke of a young mother who the Russians taped together with her living child and a mine that they detonated. This is what we should be studying, not something else.
Frankly, it's upsetting to me that we are even having this debate right now, because I thought all of my colleagues on this committee agreed. I heard what they said in the Thursday meeting. They want to study Ukraine. Mr. Genuis's amendment to the motion says exactly that, that we'll study Ukraine and then we'll get to Dr. Fry's motion, so I'm not sure what the problem is here.
In any event, let me ask this rhetorically. What would President Zelenskyy say about this committee changing its focus away from Ukraine? I think we know what he'd say. He appeared in Parliament begging us to do more. Shame on this committee for trying to change the channel right now. Shame on this committee. We need to get back to studying Ukraine.
I know my Liberal colleagues will argue that's not the case. I heard Mr. Oliphant and Ms. Bendayan trying to make the case that we want to study Ukraine, yet they continue to push a motion on another issue that's completely different.
This is another thing that I want to mention, Mr. Chair. Putting Dr. Fry's motion on notice, that's one thing. We do that all the time. There are many motions in the queue and that's fine, but to move it, to actually activate it, in the middle of the most important foreign policy work, the most important issue and the most important study this committee will likely ever do in this Parliament, and that many of us will do in our political careers, is just wrong. It should be withdrawn and we should get on with our work on Ukraine.
At the very least, we should pass Mr. Genuis's amendment so that we know what the order of business of this committee will be, but that's not what the Liberal members of this committee want. Instead of continuing to study, they want to turn the page. They want to talk about what's going on in the United States. I'm not saying that this isn't an important issue, but Liberal members apparently don't understand that U.S. jurisprudence is not stare decisis in Canada. In fact, there is no decision out of the U.S. Supreme Court. There's a leaked decision—