National Defence Committee on Oct. 16th, 2017

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

As a former student of yours, Dr. Luciuk, it's a pleasure to have you here. I'll leverage some of what my colleague was saying and ask some questions similar to what I asked 25 years ago.

It looks like this is a stalemate. It looks like we need something to break through where we are. As parliamentarians, it's our job to make a recommendation on the next steps and to try to prioritize where we go from here.

You've given some recommendations, including defensive weapons, sharing intel around RADARSAT, and, of course, deploying peacekeepers. We also understand that there is a war from within in terms of hearts and minds, in terms of information warfare, and in terms of the military and how it's potentially undermining some of the assistance we're providing.

Also, on the judicial structure, is there an advantage to providing some support there? I'm looking to Ambassador Mason on that as well, because she listed a number of things that she doesn't think Canada's role should be. Perhaps it might be supporting and enhancing the rule of law.

What should the priority be? Should it be external defensive weapons, internal support to the structure and the rule of law, or information warfare? Does it need to be a combination of all of the above? How would you prioritize that, and where would you put the emphasis on the next steps?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

Ukraine is at war, so if I have to answer that and prioritize, I would say the first thing is to provide them with the defensive weaponry they need. That's what they would say.

That said, Canada has a distinguished, very positive, and very welcome record of supporting democratic reforms and civil society development in Ukraine, and that is undeniable and very welcome as well. There is a large number of Ukrainians and American Ukrainians who have gone to Ukraine and are working there now. The minister of health, for example, Ulana Suprun, is doing an excellent job of reforming the health care system, not without push-back, but she is doing her best.

We can support people like that, and we can support judicial reforms as well.

The comment was made that the trouble is that you can find the corrupt ones fairly easily. Any taxi driver will tell you, as Professor Kuzio said, who is stealing what from whom, but the trouble is getting them into jail. That certainly is a problem, but before we support Eliot Ness and that kind of effort, I think we need to help Ukrainians in the front lines, in the political arena, to save their country from this unprecedented attack on national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

It's all about the war. If I can put it into a nutshell, it's about the war. It's not a war Ukraine started. Ukraine didn't do anything to deserve this. Ukraine anticipated being a normal country in Europe. Yes, there was corruption. Yes, they were lagging behind in all sorts of areas, but they were moving in the right direction.

Quite frankly, and I want to be very clear on this, so were many Russians. We forget because the bogeyman here, the bad guy, is the Russian Federation. But it's not the Russian Federation; it's Mr. Putin and the KGB cronies around him and that corrupt criminal element in Russian society that controls the media and has taken the Russian nation down the path of war, to what end? Let's say that they win the war, so they have a devastated Luhansk and a devastated Donetsk, and the Ukrainians hate them, for what?

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Ambassador Mason, what would you prioritize?

[Peggy Mason]

Thank you very much.

Well, I certainly would agree with the comments about judicial reform, governance in general. Canada has a great deal of experience in helping with judicial reform and building capacity there. I think that's something we're doing all the time, and we could certainly do it there, so I would certainly support that.

But going back to the Minsk agreement, I have to point out that, in fact, Ukraine is not at war. It has signed a ceasefire agreement. There are problems on the ground with the local—

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

But, Ambassador, with 852 breaches of a ceasefire on a regular basis, perhaps it redefines “ceasefire”.

[Peggy Mason]

Yes, well, neither side has walked away from the agreement, and that's the point. I would certainly hope that the first ones to walk away from the agreement are not Canadians, if in fact we want to go forward.

I come back to the fact that it was the Ukrainian minister of defence, as well as the other key parties to this agreement, who said that is the only way forward. Do we want to help them or not?

If we do, then it seems to me.... The only area on which I disagree with former NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen, is I disagree with him on the defensive weapons, and it's only defensive, not anything on the automatic firearms control list; it's only defensive—night goggles, and so on—that he's recommending. I disagree with that because of this problem of escalation, but I completely agree with bringing greater support to the Minsk agreement.

Let us not forget that Russian aggression in Ukraine was met with wide-ranging western sanctions. The removal of those sanctions is now, by agreement, tied to the implementation of the Minsk agreement, so this agreement is central to how we go forward.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Unfortunately this afternoon we've seen something which I hadn't seen in this Parliament before, which we saw frequently in the previous Parliament, and that was when government members don't particularly agree with testimony of individuals before the committee, there's an attack on their expertise or their integrity, and it's timed so that they're not allow to reply.

I have some other questions I'd like to ask, but I would like to give our distinguished former ambassador for disarmament from 1989 to 1995, I believe, and someone who's worked on disarmament demobilization and reintegration of troops at the UN, a chance to reply to the attack on her credentials today.

[Peggy Mason]

Thank you very much. I do appreciate that. I share your disappointment at what transpired.

What I would say, and I'll provide my notes after, is it is not about not sanctioning gross human rights abusers; it's about how we do it.

What I'm arguing for is the consistent approach that Canada always followed in the past. Where there was not a legal jurisdictional connection to Canada, then we would follow international law and multilateral approaches. That stood in stark contrast to the United States, which has generally preferred unilateral approaches and seeking to impose its views on the rest of the world.

The Cuba arms embargo is a very good example of the difference between Canada and the United States during the Cold War. It wasn't that we didn't think there were human rights abuses that were of grave concern, but we thought there was another way to handle it. I referenced the Human Rights Council but also the UN Security Council, because that's really where the sanctions have the most bite if the UN Security Council agrees to those sanctions.

The problem we have is that we have countries at the UN Security Council who have vetos, and they only allow those sanctions against certain countries and not others. That's why I regret so much that Canada has taken this approach. It's hard as parliamentarians, and I know that, to stand against what to the average person just seems like a no-brainer. Of course, we're against human rights abusers. Let's go after them.

I come back to the point of Saudi Arabia. It is consistently listed as among the top 10 worst human rights abusers every single year. Is this committee really going to recommend that Canada's version of the Magnitsky Act be used to go after Saudi Arabian money in Canada? I think not.

The methodology is not a good methodology to be effective, because if you're discriminating some countries and not others, it undermines the entire integrity of the international human rights machinery.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That ends the formal rounds of questions.

We haven't heard a bell, which I'm surprised, but we may hear one in the next 20 minutes or so. We have about 20 minutes of questions left before we go in camera, so I'd like to begin with three more questions of five minutes each. I'm going to divide it up fairly, so everyone gets five minutes. I'm going to go Liberals, Conservatives, NDP. I'm going to give the floor to Ms. Young. You have the floor, or you can split your time of up to five minutes.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair. I will be splitting my time with Mr. Gerretsen.

I appreciate all of you coming today to appear before this committee. I'm just subbing in today, so this is the first chance that I get to talk about this very important topic.

Dr. Kuzio, I want to go back to something you said about the length of time you expect this conflict to last. Dr. Luciuk, you also mentioned that. It's very discouraging to hear you talk about generational....

Do you say that no matter what the west does?

[Dr. Taras Kuzio]

No, I think the west can do a lot more than it's doing. For example, we've just been talking about the export of dirty money, shall we say, from various countries. Here, the Europeans have been terrible, and I say that as a European. The EU consistently complains about corruption in Ukraine and at the same time, where does this dirty money from Russia and Ukraine go? It goes to western Europe. Cyprus is a money-laundering machine. It goes to “Londongrad”, the nickname for London, and Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, etc. If we really want to hurt them and try to bring Putin to his senses, we could hurt them very strongly by hitting his pocketbook.

As Dr. Luciuk said, it is a mafia regime; this is what the U.S. has been calling Russia in diplomatic papers since 2010. It relied on the massive outflow of dirty money. That dirty money ends up either in western Europe or the Caribbean and Panama. We want to hurt them. We want to bring them to their senses, shall we say, on the eastern Ukraine. The big difference in Russian eyes, between the Crimea and Donbass is that the annexation of the Crimea was very popular in Russia, including among the opposition; whereas Putin's actions in eastern Ukraine are not that popular. That's why Putin hides a lot of what's going on there and why Russian soldiers killed in eastern Ukraine are buried secretly at night as the Soviet soldiers killed in Afghanistan were.

We do have more leverage than we think we have and one of them is certainly hurting Putin where it hurts the most and that's in the money he's stolen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you.

I want to pick up on the discussion that Ms. Alleslev was having with Professor Luciuk.

In particular, when we talk about the—quote, unquote—“ceasefire” that exists, and I think she said 800 points of contact, the truth of the matter is that the contact line, at least as it was described to us, at some points is literally one side of the road versus the other. It makes it extremely challenging to uphold this ceasefire when the troops are literally so close to each other. They are at a stalemate and nothing seems to be helping.

What is the next step? Do they need a buffer zone? How are they going to work that out to make real and productive change toward some kind of resolution? Or do you not even feel that this is really what they're after?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

I think the place I was at in Donetsk and then travelling up to Luhansk, the separation area, the no man's land, was much more than a wide street. Nevertheless, there were violations while I was on the line. Literally, Russian artillery pieces were firing at our position or very close to it when we were there and we had to beat a hasty retreat. There are multiple violations as was mentioned. Separating the warring parties will take some effort obviously, and probably the notion of saying to Mr. Putin and Mr. Poroshenko that they both called for peace, for peacemakers. I think where the issue is—and this is where I disagree with the ambassador—is where do you put those peacemakers? Do you put them on the line of separation or on the international border? Clearly, in my view, you don't reward aggression. You put them on the international border.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I just want to point out that in the committee room today, we have a number of Ukrainian interns who are here working with members of Parliament. They are the faces of the Revolution of Dignity. This wasn't a military coup that happened on the Maidan. It was these youth standing up for their rights, their freedoms, and their aspirations. I'm glad they're here listening to the testimony today.

I'm going to share the rest of my time with Mrs. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

About a year ago at this time, a number of parliamentarians and members of NATO countries were meeting and we were quite seized with our companions who were from the Baltics as well as Ukraine. They told us that they were moving nuclear weapons into Crimea. Has this been verified and if so, what would be the rationale to having these weapons, where they purport them to be in their own country, Russia?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

The rationale for deploying tactical nuclear weapons, because that's what it would be, into Crimea and into Königsberg, where I believe they already exist, in Kaliningrad, the exclave of the Russian Federation, is to of course have an advantage over the NATO alliance and to dominate the Black Sea. The Black Sea...with the potential for a southern flank that the Russian Federation might have to face against NATO deploying these things forward gives them leverage against the independence of Ukraine. It gives them, in the north, leverage against the NATO states and the Baltic states. It is simply a geostrategic move.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Is there any verification that they still indeed are there?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

In Kaliningrad, yes. In Crimea, I don't know.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

In terms of cyberwarfare, we know that Ukraine has experienced two attacks, but the notch-up that they seem to be taking and using as an experimental cauldron for the rest of the world is that they are now going after the infrastructure, not just the Internet but the Internet of things. What can you tell us about the progress they've made in using Ukraine as their experimental lab for cyber-attacks?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

I can't answer that question. That's not an area I would feel comfortable responding in, but perhaps Dr. Kuzio can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Yes, go ahead.

[Dr. Taras Kuzio]

The interesting thing about the cyberwarfare aspect is that this is nothing new. The first cyber-attack that Russia undertook was against NATO and the EU member Estonia in 2007. I think there was a lot of wishful thinking about Russia. There was an attempt to do a third reset under President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A lot of what was happening in Russia was ignored. Russia has been doing these kinds of activities for a long time.

In the case of Ukraine, the cyber-attacks had been, as you said, primarily directed against utilities in particular and to gather information by hacking into various government web accounts. It was similar to what was taking place in the U.S. during the presidential elections of last year. I don't think there is that much difference. This is all part and parcel of Russia's hybrid information and other types of warfare. It's part and parcel of Russia's or Putin's view that he is under attack. We should understand this. Putin believes that he is under attack from the aggressive west and he is just defending Russia against this. This is the mindset, this kind of siege mentality mindset, that you have in Moscow today. But this is nothing that new. It's been going on for at least 10 years. During the Orange Revolution—never mind the Euromaidan—in 2004, Russian so-called political consultants were active in Ukraine at the time doing many of the fake news types of things, fake nationalists supporting Yushchenko, as well. A lot of this has been going on. It's now come to a head in particular because of what happened in the U.S. elections last year. I think with the U.S. elections, the way I see it , the west woke up to Russia's antics and to Putin's antics last year, but it's taken a long time.

Thank you.