Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2022

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to begin by first thanking the witnesses for their time with us. It's very helpful for us.

I also want to thank our analysts for preparing very extensive notes for our study, which I read last night and found very helpful, so to Allison and B.J., thank you for the work that you always do, but this was particularly helpful for me.

The one shortcoming I would say in the note—and I think I'm going to be asking for a little bit of joint effort between our officials who are here today and the Library analysts—is the need for a bit more work on the sanctions issue that was just raised by Mr. Genuis.

He's raising some important points, and I think some background on our sanctions regimes would be helpful for this committee, because it is often thrown about with a lot of rhetoric but without a lot of understanding.

I would like to give Ms. Hulan a bit longer time to talk about, again, the difference between the special economic measures and the sanctions that came out that were amended at the time Parliament adopted unanimously the Magnitsky measures, and the difficulty perhaps—I don't want to anticipate the answer—in applying Magnitsky in a pre-emptive way. My understanding—and you may correct me if I'm wrong—is that the Magnitsky sanctions are on individuals, not states or entities, and are directly related to human rights abuses as opposed to, say, a military incursion and illegal operation.

I will start with Ms. Hulan, and then I may come back with a request for a note from Global Affairs on sanctions and then some work from the analysts on helping us understand what Global Affairs tells us.

Go ahead, Ms. Hulan.

[Heidi Hulan]

Canada has three sanctions regimes. We have the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, which is often referred to as the Magnitsky regime. We have the Special Economic Measures Act and we have the United Nations Act.

I won't dwell on the UN Act. This is the act under which we are empowered to enact any sanctions that are imposed by the United Nations Security Council, as we are legally obligated to do as a UN member.

The difference between the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act and SEMA is.... There's some overlap, but there are real differences.

I will put it this way: The Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act is limited to individuals, and it is related exclusively to human rights and corruption. SEMA can also enable us to level sanctions on individuals and also has a human rights trigger; however, under SEMA, Canada can also sanction a state and can apply some prohibitions at the state level. It can also sanction entities as well as institutions, so states, their institutions, organizations, businesses and large outfits like that. Where the JVCFOA is limited to individuals, SEMA has a variety of provisions that allow us to target either individuals, entities, or even states.

As the member has correctly noted, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act has a human rights trigger and a corruption trigger. In SEMA we also have an international peace and security trigger. A grave breach of international peace and security that is likely to result in a serious international crisis is grounds under SEMA for initiating—

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you. We could go on for a long time, but I'm going to stop you there, because I want to push a little further on this.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs recently said that part of her deterring activities with respect to this potential crisis is to ensure that Russia is aware that we have already sanctioned 440 Russian individuals and entities since 2014; however, she is prepared and within half a day would be able to exercise further sanctions as part of a multilateral engagement with others.

Is that the best way for us to do sanctions, multilaterally with others and in a coordinated fashion?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marty Morantz]

It's a very interesting question, Mr. Oliphant, but unfortunately your time is up.

I don't know if we can ask for the answer to be submitted in writing or perhaps one of our next questioners will circle back to that topic.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I'd be happy, Mr. Chair, if we could get an answer on sanctions in writing from our officials in the future.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marty Morantz]

Is that acceptable, Ms. Hulan?

[Heidi Hulan]

The answer to the question that has just been posed is yes. It is also, yes, we can provide a written answer in the future.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marty Morantz]

Thank you.

The next round goes to Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Bergeron, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I'll have to keep it short. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to follow up on Ms. Hulan's response. I'd like to thank her again for it as well.

The Russians and Belarusians claim that Russia is in Belarus as part of a joint exercise.

First, is this an acceptable response, given that, as you just said a few moments ago, Russia justified the presence of its military last year by saying that it was there for exercises?

Second, last week, at our meeting on January 27, I asked whether it was possible to know the content of the response to the Russian demands. I was told that we couldn't be told the content. However, these responses were given to the whole Spanish population through a leak in the newspaper El País.

How can Spanish people have more access to information that Canadian parliamentarians can't obtain from their government?

[Heidi Hulan]

The Belarusian government, I believe, has said that they have invited Russian troops into their country. I would like to fact-check that to be certain but I believe it to be the case. I'm not aware of comments about exercises. However, I would note that the Russian government has offered no explanation for its troops in Belarus, and that is notable to us.

On the documents, l think it's well known that both NATO and the United States have presented papers to the Russian authorities in response to their demands. The papers that you mention, including the U.S. paper, have been consulted with Canada in confidence. We are not at liberty to discuss diplomatic actions of other governments that are discussed with us in confidence, but I can speak later to some of the substance of the NATO paper if that is of interest.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marty Morantz]

Thank you, Ms. Hulan.

Ms. McPherson, you have two and half minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you to our witnesses for all of these responses.

Some people in this committee and some members of our Parliament have been calling on the government to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine. I have some concerns about that, obviously.

Do you believe there are risks to providing those lethal weapons to Ukraine? This applies in terms of keeping track of those weapons, but more importantly, I'd like some information on how Russia would perceive that. Would they perceive that as an escalation instead of a de-escalation? Could I get some feedback on that, please?

[Heidi Hulan]

I'd like to turn in a moment to my colleague, Sandra McCardell, on the question of Russian perceptions. In fact, I will turn right now to my colleague, Sandra, on that issue.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marty Morantz]

You have the floor, Ms. McCardell.

[Sandra McCardell]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The approach that we are taking right now is to focus on diplomacy as the primary track. That is the way that the situation is going to be resolved. It depends very much on our having a strong and unified position with our allies and for putting, visible to the Russians, strong deterrents.

That is the message we want to take. Certainly, we want to ensure that we do not take actions that could in any way provoke the situation that we are trying to avoid. Certainly there is an important role for us in continuing to communicate with our European allies and to ensure that the consensus across Europe with our partners is towards robust support for Ukraine and robust deterrence of Russian aggression.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

The Canadian government has announced that it is creating an action team that will be based out of Global Affairs Canada. I would like some information on who will be involved in that and when they expect it to begin.

Sandra, you have the floor.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marty Morantz]

You have 30 seconds.

[Sandra McCardell]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm very pleased to say that there is, in fact, a great deal of action under way in support of Ukraine right now. The function of that team is already in place. We have close coordination across government with Global Affairs and across a number of divisions of our department, such as those you have heard from today that work on sanctions, diplomacy, consular services, mission security and regional security. As well, we coordinate on a weekly basis, and in other fora more frequently, with other departments such as National Defence, Finance, IRCC and others as required.

We have mobilized a team here in headquarters to put in place those measures we've discussed, such as robust diplomacy and robust deterrence—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marty Morantz]

Thank you, Ms. McCardell. Sorry, I have to move on to our next questioner.

Next up is Mr. Aboultaif.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Good afternoon, witnesses.

Lieutenant-Colonel Luc-Frederic Gilbert told CBC news that the Canadian military was forced to relocate about 30% of its 200 trainers in Ukraine to bases west of the Dnieper River because of the threat of Russian invasion.

How does that deter Russians from invading? Would they not be more likely to hold off on invading if they knew they would have to face the Canadian troops?

The question is for Major General Prévost. If the department and Ms. McCardell would like to weigh in on it, that would be great.

[MGen Paul Prévost]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

As I mentioned in our opening remarks, we are relocating some of our troops based on the security situation on the ground. We do that in discussions with our partners, the Ukrainians, obviously. There was little activity going out east of the Dnieper River. Most of our training was west of the Dnieper River already.

This training will continue as long as the conditions allow that training can continue. We're more worried about our troops' security at this point than the mission. The Canadian mission is a training mission. It's not a combat mission. The only deterrent effect of that mission is the fact that we actually train Ukrainians to better defend themselves and to be more professional and effective operationally. That is the deterrent effect of our mission.

The reason we are moving those troops and continuing our training will be adjusted in time as the security situation allows.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you.

Could the department weigh in on this, please?

[Heidi Hulan]

I don't think I have anything to add to the answer that has been provided by the major-general.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

The Canadian presence there with the trainers, although it's symbolic, shows the Russians that we are more serious than ever to ensure that they don't do anything to invade, or it at least to increase the chances of doing so.

I'd like to see a further commitment if things escalate further. What would that look like, Major-General?

[MGen Paul Prévost]

I would start by saying that it's not only symbolic. The work we've been doing since 2015 in training 32,000 troops has been incredible. The skills we've provided to the Ukrainian security forces will serve them now and well into the future. It's not only symbolic; it is an important contribution that Canada has made.

As we've mentioned, this mission is the most important training mission that we have on the ground. In terms of increasing this commitment, the government has already announced last week that we are doubling that mission. We're sending a contingent of around 60 troops as we speak to continue that training output. We will continue to build the institution in many ways over the years to come.

This is the commitment the government has made at this time and it's not symbolic. It is a significant contribution that we have provided since 2015 to this country.

I hope this answered the question.