Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today and getting all this on the record, because as we discussed yesterday, too many people around the world, especially here in Canada, have forgotten that there's an active, hot war going on in Ukraine and Donbass and that there are all sorts of human rights violations occurring in the occupied territories, especially in Crimea. Most of them are in violation of the Geneva Convention. You can look at how Crimean Tatars and journalists and any democratic assembly within Crimea have been shut down by the Russian Federation.
I guess everyone wants to know if there is a way out of this situation. We put together what I think was an excellent report from our national defence committee after travelling to Ukraine, meeting with officials, and visiting with our troops who are over there in Operation Unifier, and you mentioned that Ukraine needs lethal weapons. The question is, can you go out there and buy them, or is the situation in military budgets so dire from an economic standpoint after the downfall of the economy in Ukraine, because of the occupation, that it's put the government in a situation of looking for donations?
As part of the official opposition, we have advocated that weapons in store right now in Canada and elsewhere that were intended to go to Iraq for the Kurdish peshmerga should be repurposed and sent to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, sniper rifles, machine guns, mortar systems, and grenade launchers, among others.
What does Ukraine need? Why aren't you just buying it? I know that there's been a big buildup in tanks and how important it is that Ukraine be in a position of strength to negotiate peace.