Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Like all of my colleagues, I would like to thank the members from the UCC for being here today.
I'd also like to take a moment and acknowledge the generosity that they have shown with regard to their time throughout this entire period. I know that many of us request information from them and are informed by them on a very regular basis. Orest and Ihor, thank you very much for that.
I would be remiss as well if I didn't acknowledge the UCC-Alberta Provincial Council and what an amazing job it is doing in my province.
I want to start today with the waiver question; that's ultimately why we are here. Similar to my colleague, Mr. Bergeron, I just don't understand why at this point the government has not been willing to revoke that waiver.
When this first came up and we were first hearing that this was something the government was considering, similar to many of the people in this room, I wondered why on earth we would trust that Putin would do what he said; he's never done what he has said. He's clearly weaponizing energy and food; he's weaponizing all kinds of those things, so why would we put trust in this? He has made it very clear, and his government has made it clear, that they will not be shipping gas to Germany. I cannot get my head around why the government fails to revoke that waiver.
When Ambassador Kovaliv was in front of our committee, she talked about this being a “dangerous precedent”. I'd love to hear from both of you why you think this is a dangerous precedent and what examples you've seen of how this has proven to be a dangerous precedent.
Ihor, I think you mentioned that the Russians have asked for “further concessions”. Any more clarity you can give on that would be very welcome.