Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Oliphant. I did appreciate the chance to have a sip of a glass of water.
That's an interesting idea. It wasn't exactly what I was proposing. What I was proposing was looking at the inability or the lack of—in certain countries that we work with in multilateral organizations—implementation of those critical sanctions that Canada has.
I think these sanctions should be expanded. Certainly, if the subcommittee on agenda, which is, I assume, where such a thing would go, and Mr. Oliphant wanted to look at that, that would be of value, but I don't think it's necessary in the context of something separate. We already have an ongoing study on Ukraine where those things could be presumably incorporated by the committee into that study and the witnesses could incorporate a discussion on that.
I think it would make a very interesting part of this to analyze that, both the effectiveness of the existing sanctions and whether or not those sanctions should be broadened to include other areas that aren't included now for Canada, such as, as I said, some of the things that some might consider more as luxury foods and that perhaps are not things that Russia needs to survive day to day in terms of foodstuffs. Personally, coming from the south shore of Nova Scotia, I believe that lobster is a critical day-to-day foodstuff. I'm not sure everybody else would agree with me, but I certainly do. At the end of the day, what we're missing, I think, for the effectiveness of the sanctions is that broader question, Mr. Oliphant. Why are other countries not coming to the table the same way that Canada is, and what should Canada be doing to push forward an agenda that gets more effectiveness into those existing sanctions by bringing in our partners from around the world?
Going and having meetings with the western hemisphere, and the recent meeting in California, without actually coming forward with pressure on those allies to be part of our team, to be part of the team that is opposing the sanctions.... If anybody knows the effect of imperialism, it's countries in Central and Latin America. I would think that, more than most, those countries would be more sensitive to what's going on between Russia and Ukraine and would want to be partners in what we're doing, more than perhaps even other countries around the world. They are very sensitive to that in the OAS.
In 1991 they passed a declaration at the OAS declaring, for the first time—when 34 of the 35 countries were for the first time democratic and we first joined—a NATO type of solution, which is that any failing of democracy in the western hemisphere would be met with immediate action by the Organization of American States. That was a revolutionary thing. You have to remember that the meeting was held in Chile, in Santiago. I was at that meeting. Augusto Pinochet had given up the presidency only in the last year but was still heading the army in Chile when that declaration happened, so it was quite remarkable that this declaration happened.
Given that this is the declaration, it's all the more surprising when the Prime Minister gets together with the western hemispheric and foreign ministers, with the western hemispheric countries, as he did recently, that he wouldn't be using that important turning point in the OAS as a reason, as a sensitivity barometer for them, as to why they need to join with us and not be trading with Russia, not providing financial services to Russia and not providing them with technology, military or other goods so that they can continue their illegal war machine.
This happened at a time when the U.S. had some history in central America, in Nicaragua and other places, and there is a deep sensitivity in Latin America to any country that interferes in the sovereign borders and the sovereign issues of other countries. It's why, in the past—although, for the most part, they have gotten together multiple times since then in the western hemisphere—they were initially reluctant to impose sanctions. They saw it as interference. Mexico and other countries saw it as interference in the domestic politics of a country.
I think most of the western hemisphere has grown since then in terms of joining the global nations. In their view, if you're going to protect democracy, you have to protect it with the use of all the tools you have. Some of the most effective tools, as we saw in South Africa and Haiti....
In fact, the Government of Canada currently has 21 countries it has economic sanctions against. Some of these go back to the 1990s, including Indonesia, Myanmar and others. Another great area for this committee to study at some point is why is it that we have sanctions—