National Defence Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2017

[Chris Westdal]

That's kind of you. Thank you.

I won't complete my remarks. I will, though, go straight to the recommendations.

Here's what I would have you recommend.

First, Canada should devote intellectual and diplomatic talent to the conception and promotion, bilaterally and multilaterally, of a coherent, realistic vision of Eurasian security.

Second, we should recognize, comprehend, and restore rational relations with Russia such as by a committee like yours, or your sister committee on foreign policy, visiting Russia and hearing from Russians.

Third, we should reconsider our advocacy of further NATO expansion.

Fourth, we should promote essential Ukrainian-Russian reconciliation.

Fifth, we should meantime sustain our necessarily modest contribution to NATO in Europe and enhance our armed forces at home. That's a tall order, but along with three oceans to sail, we have promises to keep.

Those are my recommendations.

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

Thank you.

I got a brief perspective on the UN peacekeeper role versus our current role and whether those would be counterproductive, but could you give us a little more? If we were to slightly change course, would that give us the opportunity to perhaps be a leader in a UN peacekeeping mission, or in your mind is that not on the table?

[Chris Westdal]

I don't think it's on the table. We are not regarded in Moscow or by the rebels in the Donbass as non-partisan. Canadian ministers have demonstrated in the Maidan; even at a time when we were telling others to butt out of our politics, we were demonstrating in the Maidan.

Some of the Canadian election observers—and we sent 500 to one election, even over the objections of the OSCE, which opposes bilateral electoral missions upon principle—were wearing orange sashes. One only needs to read regular Canadian press releases to know that we are on the side of the Kiev government, however unpopular it might be in Ukraine, and it's currently very unpopular. We cannot credibly present ourselves as non-partisan. We will not be regarded by key players as non-partisan.

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

Right. You gave us a clear perspective on how our approach in this region may not be congruent with our approach in general, in how we've behaved in other circumstances. You made reference, of course, to us being in our own sphere of influence.

Could you give us a perspective on how much flexibility you believe Canada has within our own sphere of influence to really define our own foreign policy in this perspective, and whether that is in any way having an influence on the course of action we're pursuing?

[Chris Westdal]

As I said, theory aside, like them or not, zones of influence and spheres of influence are real. The Ukrainians live in one, and we live in one. As I said, the Ukrainians have about as much freedom—of course, they are free to do it, but there are consequences—to undermine Russia's security as we do to undermine Washington's, and we would not dream of undermining Washington's.

Remember how quickly we sprang to the need to make sure that the border of the entire continent was secure in order not to ever give anyone in Washington the notion that Canada was in some way going to undermine its security? Well, seen from Moscow, the notion that Ukraine is going to undermine their security by joining NATO, which, as I said, is not a knitting club, is simply unacceptable.

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

Would you say that our Ukraine approach is influenced by our sphere of influence?

[Chris Westdal]

That was what I said I found so striking: that whereas we understand that we need to get along with our big neighbour, with whom we sometimes disagree, we poke our finger in Russia's eye and counsel that the Ukrainians should do so at every opportunity. That seems to me to be a contradiction.

Further, though we practise federal accommodation and pluralism, the Ukrainians don't. I pointed to this new education policy. I don't understand how it's imagined that there is going to be reconciliation and reintegration at a time when the insult of banning instruction in your language after grade 4 is visited upon Russian ethnic Ukrainians.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Bezan.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for appearing.

Mr. Westdal, I don't have a lot of time, so I want to go through some stuff fast.

Have you ever read Bill S-226, yes or no?

[Chris Westdal]

The Magnitsky bill?

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

Yes.

[Chris Westdal]

I've read the preamble to it, and that preamble—

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

That's not reading the bill. If you read the bill, the bill itself clearly states that an order in council decides who goes on the list to be sanctioned, and Parliament has oversight, both in the Senate and in the House and the foreign affairs committee. Also, there's fairness in that people put on the list can actually appeal to get off the list. There is fairness; there is a way to deal with this, and I think it's been done in a reasonable way.

Also, it's not just targeted at the kleptocrats in the Kremlim. It's also targeted at gross human rights violators and those who are abusing their positions of authority around the world. You have Maduro down in Venezuela right now, who has starved out a pile of his citizens and who should be on this list, now that we have it—a way to use food as a weapon that I'm sure he learned from Lenin and Stalin. This is reality, in trying to make sure that Canada will not be used as a safe haven for money garnered through illicit means from corrupt foreign officials, which includes Russian and Ukrainian ones. If those who are committing gross human rights violations can be held to account, Canada can then project its values.

You wrote, back in March 2014 in The Globe and Mail that “Ukrainians should ignore all the legal advice and be prepared to let Crimea go”. Do you still see Crimea as Ukrainian, or do you see it as Russian territory?

[Chris Westdal]

I don't recall writing that—

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

It's in The Globe and Mail, March 10, 2014.

[Chris Westdal]

—Ukrainians should ignore all legal advice, but I think that, short of war, Crimea is not going to revert to Ukraine. I think it's as simple as that.

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

But that was a complete violation of international rules and norms by the Russian Federation, wasn't it? Yes or no?

[Chris Westdal]

Yes, I think it was illegal. I think that—

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

I'm surprised—

[Chris Westdal]

—quite a few foreign policy acts are illegal. I think that occasionally security trumps the law. I don't think that what you described is a just judicial process. I don't know what it presumes about innocence. I don't know what opportunity it gives to those who are put on these lists.

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

Well, I'm going to move on, because I've been put on a list myself, as Mr. Grod has been—

[Chris Westdal]

Understood.

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

—and there is no judicial process involved at all.

[Chris Westdal]

Let me just add, though, that I think we cannot—