It has now been nearly six months since the beginning of the brutal war begun by Russia against Ukraine. I want to begin by reiterating the unwavering support of our government for the Ukrainian people in their fight for freedom, and how important the work of this committee is, not only for our study on Ukraine, but of course for the present study as well.
I'd like to thank the ministers for appearing before the committee.
Ministers, you would agree that Canada has played a leadership role in rallying our allies around the world to put in place one of the most robust sanctions regimes ever against Russia. I believe we need to continue to strengthen those sanctions, as we did just this week on Tuesday, and continue to act in this leadership role.
That of course makes it all the more difficult to be discussing the decision today, a decision of a few weeks ago to send the Siemens turbine from Montreal to Germany at Germany's request. Fundamentally, our sanctions are only as strong as our unity and solidarity amongst allies.
Ministers, what were you hearing at the time? Reports that I have read are to the effect that Germany was making this difficult decision because if it did not get the turbine, then it wouldn't have any gas and, in the German foreign minister's words, “we won’t be able to provide any support for Ukraine at all, because we’ll be busy with popular uprisings”.
I think this makes it clear, to me and to Canadians who are listening, how consequential this decision really was to maintaining the solidarity of the allies against Russia and maintaining a strong sanctions regime.
I understand, Minister Wilkinson, that you were in regular talks with the foreign minister of Germany on this issue at that time, so I'll begin by directing my question to you.
The information that you were getting from Germany at the time, was it concerning to the point that it may have risked the solidarity and the unity of the allied group that we had worked so hard to help pull together?