Mr. Chair, I'm speaking in favour of the subamendment by my colleague Mr. Chong, and I'll reply to and rebut some of the comments that were just made.
When it comes to the Ukrainian World Congress having to file an application to a Canadian court, I think this is something we need to look at. First of all, the convention of sub judice is not in play because they haven't been accepted yet as an intervenor, as their application hasn't been at all, at this point in time, accepted by the courts. We need to keep an open mind here. We should hear from them as to what motivated them and why they would have to take this step to try to take the Government of Canada to court over a very embarrassing decision.
Second, Marcus Kolga is a subject matter expert on all things Russia, and I really do believe that he and others from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and other academic voices, need to be heard. We should be putting them on our witness list.
I would also say that we have to look at how Russia has weaponized energy. This is, again, to Mr. Chong's comments. We need to have those experts and the people involved in this speak to how this is impacting Europe, how it will ultimately be used against Ukraine and how Canada has a bigger role to play in offsetting the overall impact of Russian energy on the European Union and other allies.
Let's make sure we keep an open mind here. Let's make sure we have all those experts come before us, as well as the other organizations and stakeholders that have something to say. One of the organizations I want to add as a witness down the road is the League of Ukrainian Canadians. They were the first ones to come out and denounce the government's decision to return the gas turbines to Gazprom. Let's make sure they're available.
I'll also say this. Minister Freeland is by and large the expert on Ukrainian issues within the Liberal caucus and at the cabinet table, and it almost sounds like Mr. Oliphant doesn't want her to appear because maybe she's not in favour of what both Minister Joly and Minister Wilkinson did in making this announcement. We should, in my opinion, have her appear before committee to voice either her support or her displeasure for the decisions that were made.
When we're inviting representatives of the government, we should always go to the highest ranking officer possible. In Canada, in this case, we're asking for the Deputy Prime Minister, and we'd like to hear from the foreign minister of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, who is definitely the person we should have at committee before the ambassador. If he's not available, then yes, let's have the ambassador, but we should be hearing specifically from Ukraine's foreign minister about the concerns of the government in Ukraine.
President Zelenskyy was unreserved in his criticisms of the Government of Canada on this decision, and I think it is in the interests of our foreign affairs committee, in the interests of our Parliament and in the interests of Canadians that we hear from all those witnesses, as well as the highest ranking government officials we can get, both in Canada and in Ukraine.