Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to correct a couple of things that I just heard Mr. Genuis mention.
The first is when he said that the Liberal Party, or the government, tried to slip a carbon tax into this agreement. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no carbon tax implementation in this agreement. There is a reference made to the fact that both countries acknowledge that both have carbon pricing mechanisms and will continue to utilize them as they see fit in each country.
However, what's most important is a clause that is in the agreement, which I'll read out so that my Conservative colleagues can hear it, if they haven't read the agreement. It says, “Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed to authorize a Party to enforce its environmental laws in the territory of the other Party.” Even if you were worried that there was some form of carbon pricing built into this agreement, it explicitly states that no party with jurisdiction in this agreement has the ability to enforce its own environmental policies in the other territory.
For Mr. Genuis and the Conservatives to, generally speaking, be making this claim ad nauseam.... By the way, they didn't even bring it up until there was about a week before the vote, as though they suddenly discovered their out. It's just absolutely untrue.
What the member is saying is categorically false. He made the comment earlier in his intervention that there is hyperbole coming from government members about Conservatives turning their back on Ukraine. I don't personally—and, yes, I am one of those people who have been calling Conservatives out on this—hold strictly the fact that they voted against this as my justification for telling Conservatives that they turned their back on Ukraine.
I weigh into the calculation the fact that President Zelenskyy asked us to vote in favour of this, and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress asked us all to vote in favour of this. As of this morning, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress is now actively encouraging Canadians to contact their members of Parliament to encourage them to vote in favour of this agreement.
When I say that Mr. Genuis and other Conservatives have turned their backs on Ukraine, I'm saying this due to the way they have treated the advice and the call from the President of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian community throughout this country. It is unfortunate for them that their plan to try very quietly, without giving explanation in advance until a couple of days before.... They tried to see if they could just slip their vote in without there being much attention paid to it. Well, attention is being paid to it now.
The good news is that Conservatives have an opportunity to change that vote, Madam Chair, when this committee reports the bill back and it goes back to the House for a final vote. I would encourage them at that point to listen to President Zelenskyy, to listen to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and to listen to Ukrainian Canadians—the two million-plus of them in this country—who are demanding that they vote in favour of this.
Thank you.