One more time, I would like to thank this committee and Parliament for their united support of Ukraine. You've done a lot, including the motion on the genocide and the support of legislation to seize assets. Canada has been a leader in and an example for many sanctions, which Canada was the first to impose. We value it.
This is, as President Zelenskyy mentioned, a very dangerous precedent. None of us wants to be the negative precedent that others follow.
In terms of the decision, we heard the arguments today and we heard these arguments while we were discussing.... The Ukrainian government and Ukrainian ministers had some discussions with Canadian ministers and the German government on this. From the beginning, we were very blunt because we, as Ukraine, have gone through this Russian energy terrorism. I don't know if everybody knows, but Russia has switched off gas to Ukraine during the winter three times. It did it in 2006, 2009 and 2014.
When we said from the very first time that Russia was bluffing and there would be no renewal of gas supply—I don't want to say it bluntly—we were saying that we are where we are and even more so, because when the turbine arrived in Germany, Gazprom further decreased the gas flow. This is what we understand from both the history of dealing with Russia's energy terrorism, but also from dealing with the direct and very barbaric war in Ukraine.
Putin understands only power. Putin understands strength. In this particular situation, we see that Putin and his gas monopoly, Gazprom, are using the power of supply. All of our European allies, together with Ukraine, are ready to support or use the power of the consumer and not undermine this. That is why we proposed not only very pragmatic actions not to just cut the gas flow to Ukraine, but also alternatives that are on the table. By the way, they are delivering gas today to many European countries.
Thank you.