Foreign Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2023

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

Mr. Chair, on that point of order, I would suggest that we do three, three, three and three minutes with the first witness. We would do the three, three, three and three with the second witness, and then we would go to the second round as we would normally and have both witnesses. That was my understanding.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

It was mine too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Is everyone okay with that?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

That was my understanding as well. Hopefully we can have a little bit more than 20 seconds, because we lost a good chunk of our three minutes because of the interruption.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Would 30 seconds—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

No. Maybe it could be a minute and a half. You guys were talking loudly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

It wasn't me. It was Mr. Bergeron

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

How about a minute and a half?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

It's all on the record, which still contains the entirety of the testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes.

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

On that then, further on the point of order, my fear is that we're going to get a squeeze today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

We will, absolutely, for the second panel.

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

I just think we need to understand that today's meeting will be on the witnesses primarily. If we get some time to go in camera for instructions, we will, but we may not finish instructions today or we may not get to them, because we have witnesses here who I think we should honour and question. We may need to postpone the drafting instructions, which I know is problematic—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

We're going to try to avoid that, Mr. Oliphant. Obviously adding all this time has a cascading effect, and we're considerably behind already because of technical problems and then the way we reconfigured this.

We'll give you 45 seconds, Mr. Genuis.

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

Mr. Chair, can you just check for a consensus that we will finish the first hour and then go to the second hour, and that we will try to honour the witnesses and then have any questions if we have time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes, as we're currently proceeding, I think we're going to be about 20 minutes behind schedule.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

I'll pass my time to Shelby.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Vasylenko, for your testimony.

Aside from this committee, I also sit on the national defence committee. As you can certainly imagine, Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine has caused great concern, and there is obviously a dovetail between national defence, foreign affairs and the health and well-being of women in the conflict area.

This has been exacerbated by the ICC's recent arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Ms. Lvova-Belova. Could you possibly share your thoughts on this? In addition, what can Canada do to help women and children—in your words, the survivors in Ukraine?

Thank you.

[Lesia Vasylenko]

Thank you for the question.

First of all, again, thank you to Canada for supporting with generous contributions the work of the ICC and the prosecutor's office there to work on the crimes of sexual violence committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

Having said that, turning to your question about the arrest warrants for Putin and Ms. Lvova-Belova, I think it's a historic, ground-breaking decision and one long awaited. It's a shame that so many violations of international law and so many war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed before such arrest warrants were issued.

Now I think our concern needs to be on how these warrants will be executed and whether they will be executed. The 123 countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute should abide by the rules and execute these arrest warrants should Putin and Ms. Lvova-Belova step foot on the territories of these countries, but at the same time, we have many past examples of arrest warrants being issued against political leaders but not being executed.

I think it's a matter of principle for the whole of the international community, all of the signatories of the ICC, to be on the same page and with the same understanding that there must be not just the formal issuance of an arrest warrant but that there must be an execution. It's the next step towards which we must work, because the criminals must bear full responsibility for their crimes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

Next we go to Ms. Bendayan. You have three minutes.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Vasylenko, for your testimony here today, and of course for the incredible strength and resilience you and your people are showing.

I too had a question about the ICC, but thank you for recognizing Canada's leadership and for delving already into that issue.

Perhaps, then, I will ask you to elaborate a bit more about the use of rape, torture and assault, as you described them, and sexual violence being used as a weapon of war by Russia. In particular, can you elaborate a little on the information you provided earlier on orders—as you put it, “commands”—being given to Russia soldiers to intimidate civilians through rape and sexual assault?

[Lesia Vasylenko]

Thank you.

It's actually one of the most difficult topics I have to comment on when speaking about what is going on on the ground in Ukraine.

Just to give you an understanding of the victims, they are aged anywhere from four years old to 80 years old. There is no discrimination between young or old or social status. Basically, the idea of rape, in the case of the Russian army against the Ukrainian people, is not to gain sexual pleasure but to intimidate the population, to inflict fear on the population and to demoralize the civilian population in their resilience and in their resistance.

I think the main thing the Russian army saw when they came to Ukraine was that Kyiv would not fall within three hours or three days and that actually the population was standing strong behind the army, behind the Ukrainian military. This is where the idea comes from that there needs to be a demoralizing factor towards the people.

The numbers that you also have to look at are those of the prisoners of war. The prisoners of war are not just the military; they are also the civilians. Among these civilians, the majority of them are actually women, because it's the women who are continuing to serve their communities as social workers, as doctors, as street cleaners. It's these women who fall prey to the Russian soldiers because, again, the Russians need to take them out of the equation so that society falls and does not function properly. This is the general idea.

I have just a final point, if I may, on the orders, as you have asked.

What we know from hearsay from the local people in the Kyiv region is that when the first elite units were coming down on the 24th of February in Gostomel, Bucha and Irpin and it was realized that they would not be able to take Kyiv, they were pulled out from the area, but they told the civilian population, “If you have the chance, leave now, because the next units who are going to be coming in are not elite units, and they have clear orders to do whatever they want with the looting, with the torture, with the killing, with the rape.”

This was a warning given by some of the elite units of Russia to the people of Ukraine to leave their homes, because the next ones would be coming in just to destroy and to exterminate everything living in these areas.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Very quickly—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'm afraid you're out of time.

We next go to Mr. Bergeron for three minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

It was going to be Madame Larouche.