Foreign Affairs Committee on April 25th, 2023

[Yuliya Kovaliv]

Ukraine seeks peace, but Ukraine seeks real peace. Ukraine—President Zelenskyy—developed and presented a peace formula that has 10 points, and the most crucial of them is the restoration of Ukrainian borders, bringing justice.

We're grateful to the 141 states that voted for that UN resolution supporting the basic principles of the President Zelenskyy peace formula. We value all of our partners who support this formula, including all of the European countries.

This is the framework for future peace.

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

Thank you very much. I agree completely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We will now move to Mr. Zuberi.

You have five minutes.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Madam Ambassador, thank you for being here today and for coming to our committee again.

We are all together, steadfast in support of the Ukrainian people and your country to defend against this illegal Russian aggression—this illegal war.

I want to touch briefly on the status of refugees in your homeland of Ukraine. We in Canada have welcomed 209,000 Ukrainians who are seeking refuge. This has been supported by the 1.4 million Canadians of Ukrainian heritage.

Can you speak a bit about how Canada is helping to resettle Ukrainians, as you have seen this happen, and how other European partners are also involved in that?

[Yuliya Kovaliv]

Unfortunately, the war has forced a lot of people, mainly women and children, to temporarily leave Ukraine and find a safer place. We're really grateful to Canada for launching a special program, CUAET, for this. The Canada-Ukraine emergency travel program, which expires on July 15, helps those Ukrainians find a safer place. We are really grateful for the support that Ukrainians who come to Canada get, including in terms of health care and financial support, but also many in other activities.

I would like to thank the Canadian people who opened their doors and helped families with accommodations, finding jobs and finding schools. They opened their houses to host Ukrainian families. This is incredibly impressive, and I would like to thank them.

Of course, we now have millions of people displaced. The biggest numbers of those who are outside Ukraine now are in Poland and Germany, each of which is hosting over a million temporarily displaced Ukrainian people. For many in Ukraine, Canada is treated as being more like a good country and as kind of a very close neighbour and friend. Moving to Canada is moving to a good friend's, where they welcome you and help you go through this hard time.

Thank you for that. I believe it will increase the enormous collaboration between our people.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Certainly. We are happy to welcome people who are seeking refuge. This speaks to the Canadian tradition, a tradition that we honour and value. During COVID-19 we resettled more refugees than any other country, including America. We are happy to help.

I want to pivot for a moment and speak about what the Chinese ambassador said in relation to Baltic states. In particular, he said that Crimea is Russia, and these borders have no legal basis. Do you want to comment on that?

[Yuliya Kovaliv]

Ukraine is a member of the United Nations. The independence of Ukraine in 1991 was recognized by many countries. I am grateful to Canada for being among the first to recognize Ukrainian independence. Ukrainian independence as a sovereign country means all Ukrainian borders, including Crimea.

Coming back to Crimea and the situation there, what's happening with the indigenous people in Crimea, the Crimean Tatars, is that they are now under immense pressure from the Russian regime. Many of them are imprisoned. A lot of them have been prosecuted and put in jail. Russia for many years was trying to give the message that because people in Crimea were also speaking the Russian language, it was a Russian population, but it was not and is not the case now. The people who are now fighting on the front line speak over 10 different languages. That includes the international legion and volunteers.

Crimea is Ukrainian, and Crimea will be Ukrainian.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I want to underscore what you have said, that these borders are internationally recognized and that any world leaders who question that.... Those statements are erroneous.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We now go to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

You have five minutes, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us. I'm sure you can see that all parliamentarians from all parties in the House are supporting you as best they can.

Let's go back to what you said during your speech, particularly on the issue of the power grid. We learned in the February 17 edition of La Presse that Hydro-Québec had responded to your embassy's call to help Ukraine rebuild its power grid. This included sending equipment there, such as transformers. Do you know if that equipment was sent to Ukraine, if it was helpful to you and what the current status is?

[Yuliya Kovaliv]

In the winter, Russia started precise targeting of all the critical infrastructure. The losses are now over $11 billion. We are very grateful to Hydro Québec and other energy companies in Canada, but Hydro Québec was the first to respond, to help with the equipment.

Mostly it's transformers, cables for the grids and the other different equipment that is not so easy to produce. We in Ukraine were trying to find everything, even used equipment, that can be deployed and can help. We appreciate the efforts of Hydro Québec to help and to provide the needed equipment. We are now working on that file and finalizing the equipment that can fit. Unfortunately, we had slightly different energy systems and energy requirements in terms of the technology, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank Hydro Québec, Manitoba Hydro and the other companies that were the first to come and offer support.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

My colleagues talked a lot about China. China is sort of the elephant in the room all over the place, from the Canadian news to the conflict in Ukraine. To what extent do you feel China's influence in the conflict? Are you seeing any concrete effects of China's interaction with Russia right now?

[Yuliya Kovaliv]

The first time President Zelenskyy talked about the peace formula was at the G20 summit, and then it was the UN General Assembly that made the resolution.

What Ukraine offered to every country was a peace plan that is actually is based on international rules and order. This is the basis for what Ukraine offered to all of the countries to work on, and Ukraine is open to many of the countries to join in working together on this peace plan.

We are open and encouraged, and we are grateful to Canada for supporting the efforts of this peace plan, along with many other countries. I would say that Ukraine wants a very stable but also a very fair peace. All of the negotiations that could come to the different platforms need to stick to the basic principles: respect of the sovereign country, respect of the sovereign borders, and justice, because without justice, we cannot be assured that it will not be repeated.

It needs to exclude food security, because food security is not only an issue with Ukraine. It's also a global issue, which we have already faced. There's also what's now happening with the grain initiative, which is once again at risk. Nuclear security is important for everybody, as is countering ecocide, because that is also happening in Ukraine.

Ukraine set the important milestones on what we feel needs to be restored. That platform is open for discussion, but it is precisely based on this recognized principle of the UN Charter.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Ambassador.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Ms. McPherson, you have five minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's very nice to see you again. Thank you very much for being here, Ambassador, and sharing this update with us.

Obviously, we all wish that this was not necessary and that the Ukrainian people had won the war already and were able to continue on with their lives. I also want to thank you for helping me arrange some meetings when I was in Ukraine earlier this year. That's one of the things I wanted to talk about a bit. As you know, I was able to visit Irpin and see some of the really horrific devastation that has been done to what is very clearly civilian infrastructure. The destruction of a playground is something I will never, ever forget in my entire life. The violence that has been done to civilians is such a clear indication of war crimes, such a clear indication of genocide.

One of the things I also saw in Kyiv—and we talked about this—is that Ukrainians are living their lives. They are continuing to be strong in the face of what Russia is doing. When I spoke to the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, she mentioned the idea that Ukraine is trying to rebuild. It's trying to rebuild these communities. One of the ways Canada can help is by helping to provide insurance to Canadian companies that are, in fact, interested in working in Ukraine but perhaps can't take on that risk.

Can you talk about the ways Canada could help Ukraine rebuild at this time?

[Yuliya Kovaliv]

Thank you for visiting Ukraine and taking the opportunity to see all the horror and damage the war has brought. Just a few weeks ago, the World Bank published an assessment of the damage to Ukraine—it now exceeds $411 billion. That is huge. Of course, Ukraine will need help rebuilding. Russian frozen sovereign assets and the assets of Russian oligarchs need to be channelled to finance the rebuilding of Ukraine. Also, the private sector, with its technology and with its capacity, needs to help with the rebuilding of Ukraine.

We had our Prime Minister visit Canada two weeks ago, and we were talking with the private sector about involvement in the rebuilding. This rebuilding is already happening. Rebuilding happens a maximum two hours after a missile hits the power grids, for example, because we need to restore them. We have no time to wait until the war ends. We need to rebuild schools. We need to rebuild them so that the children can go underground when there are air raids and continue their classes. We need to rebuild schools, hospitals and all of the other infrastructure, including over 35,000 homes that were completely destroyed.

For the private sector to enter, war risk insurance is crucially important. We've started to work with institutions like the World Bank's MIGA, but also with the expert credit agencies throughout G7 countries and the world to find this instrument, to secure the so-called war risks for the private sector so that it can have more clarity and insurance about entering Ukraine.

Also, I would like to mention one example of how during wartime, the Canadian private sector is stepping into a strategic partnership with Ukraine. An agreement was signed, witnessed by our Prime Minister who was here in Canada, with one of the biggest Canadian companies that produces uranium. That uranium will be supplied to produce fuel and will replace Russian nuclear fuel in all of the nuclear power stations in Ukraine. This is an example of building a strategic partnership between our companies and others from the private sector. It was widely mentioned during the meeting with Prime Minister Shmyhal and the private sector that they want to see these supporting instruments in order to de-risk their activities in Ukraine.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

One of the other groups I met with was the Soloma Cats, which is a group of young people who are doing incredible work to support their communities but also incredible work to demine. We can't ask populations to come back to rebuild Ukraine without demining efforts being taken. Unfortunately, these are teenagers and people in their early 20s doing this demining work without the supplies they need, without the best material to do that very dangerous work. I have an 18-year-old, so for me it was shocking to see what they have to do this demining with. Is that another way Canada can help—providing some of the supports for demining?

[Yuliya Kovaliv]

Demining is a great issue for the safety of all the civilian population. Unfortunately, to bring those territories we have liberated back to life, we need to work deeply on demining. Also, a big thing is the demining of the agriculture fields. Unfortunately, we have over 100 cases where farmers have died due to mines in the fields, and unfortunately there is also part of the territory of Ukraine that will not have any harvest this year because of mines. We are really grateful to the Canadian government for its response to the Ukrainian call on the demining file and for providing equipment, but we need much more, and we will be grateful for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much.

We now go to the second round of questioning.

We start off with Mr. Epp. You have four minutes.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Your Excellency, for returning.

You mentioned in one of your earlier comments the closeness we share as nations—our relationship. That is not only between countries. For many of us, that is also personal, as we have heritage from Ukraine—all four of my grandparents were born there. You also mentioned energy security, and we were just talking about agriculture. My own roots come from the farming fields of Ukraine. My grandparents were there.

In your opening comments, you talked about the grain exports and that program. Can you talk about the status of that? As a committee, we have a notice of motion on file to look at the global resource challenges that this invasion has brought, be it on food, fuel or fertilizer. I hope we will get to that study fairly soon.

Can you talk about the situation at present? We're going into spring here in Ukraine and in Canada as well, so what does it look like?

[Yuliya Kovaliv]

The situation now is becoming harder. We renegotiated, with the support of the UN and Turkey, the extension for the grain corridors from the Black Sea. Unfortunately, for the last few weeks, Russia has been manipulating and has been taking too much time in checking the ships. That significantly delays exports. By these artificial delays for any of the checks, they have decreased the volumes that we are exporting. They can pick and choose the ships they want to check, but not those that are in line and committed. Of course, that creates another risk in terms of the export facilities, because the seaports remain the biggest routes of exports from Ukraine.

The second thing is the demining. It's a big issue for us to be able to go into the season and to predict a harvest that's as normal as it can be in the circumstances, but also, there's the situation with the small farmers, because for small farmers it's becoming harder and harder to get financing when they start the planting season, to get proper fertilizers and sometimes even to get diesel.

All of this, especially when it comes to the small and medium-sized farms, will be even harder than last year.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I look forward to the opportunity of exploring where Canada can help with those situations and also help perhaps some of the areas where Ukraine has been such a breadbasket in terms of exporting food to areas of the global south.

Switching a bit tangentially here, the Wagner Group obviously has been so active in Ukraine and in parts of the global south. Unanimously, our group has passed a motion calling for the Wagner Group to be declared a terrorist organization. We have made that recommendation in a report, and the House of Commons has passed it unanimously. Our government has not yet followed through.

What would be the impact of a national statement by this government on declaring the Wagner Group a terrorist group?

[Yuliya Kovaliv]

We believe the Wagner Group is a terrorist group, not only because it is committing these horrific crimes in Ukraine—including this shared video in which its members were seen cutting off the heads of Ukrainian soldiers and doing all the tortures—but also because there are impacts in the global south. This is far-reaching. We've all witnessed that food insecurity is the big risk, not only for all of us, but especially for low- and medium-income countries in the global south.

In order to address this, we launched a joint initiative called “Grain from Ukraine”. With the support of Canada and other countries, we were able to deliver 170,000 tonnes of Ukrainian grain to the countries that were most in need, but there is a need for much more.

In terms of the Wagner Group, we believe that they are a terrorist organization, and they need to be treated in a proper legal way that can be implemented, because this is spreading violence, and not only in Ukraine: It's spreading violence in the global south, the region that is a partner for us and is important to us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We now go to Ms. Bendayan.

You have four minutes.