Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton—Strathcona.
Ukrainians are today living through a historic moment. The election was a great opportunity for Ukraine to show that it has developed into a fully democratic country. Unfortunately, the events we witnessed have made a mockery of that election. The problems that occurred were not minor, nor were they technical, and thus the international community has been led to conclude that they were a daring attempt by Ukrainian authorities to steal the election for their candidate, the current prime minister.
The list of electoral violations is long. Here are only some of the things that international monitors saw: fraudulent proxy voting; multiple voting; ballot box stuffing; violence, threats and intimidation against voters; voter list manipulation; and ballot box destruction and vandalism. These are only the most blatant examples of fraud that were reported by international observers, including Canadian observers.
In view of these many instances of serious and significant electoral fraud, Canada has announced that we cannot accept that the results announced today represent the democratic will of the Ukrainian people.
Before the election it became increasingly obvious that the opposition leader was the people's choice. No matter how much the government tried to undermine his campaign, he seemed to lead all credible polls leading up to the first round of voting on October 31.
During that round of voting only three weeks ago, we saw the same sort of fraud going on but not as much of it or as bad as what we witnessed this weekend. What was the result of the first round? The result was that Yushchenko was still the leading candidate, despite the fraud, even though local observers estimated that the government's actions had denied him about 5% of the vote.
The second round of voting saw even more blatant fraudulent practices, but this time the people's choice was thwarted. We cannot easily dismiss what we saw as technical problems. The irregularities I cited are neither minor nor technical; they are serious and significant.
The fraud we witnessed resulted in votes stolen in at least the hundreds of thousands but perhaps in the millions out of a total of approximately 25 million votes cast. The official result declaring Prime Minister Yanukovych the winner was a close one. This suggests, in fact, that if the authorities had not done what they did, opposition leader Yushchenko would have won by a wide margin. In fact, all the exit polls on election day showed Yushchenko winning the election by anywhere between 5% and 19%.
Canada has been a long-time friend of Ukraine and was the first western country to recognize its independence in 1991. We provide more than $18 billion in technical assistance through CIDA. The more than one million Canadians of Ukrainian origin provide financial, technical and emotional support to their relatives in their former homeland. Now more than ever, the people of Ukraine need to know that Canada and Canadians support them in this difficult time.
Canada has now said clearly that we cannot accept the final results announced today because they do not represent the democratic will of the people. I call on the Ukrainian authorities to investigate the many instances of fraud and I call on them to ensure that the results of the election reflect the true will of Ukrainian people. If they cannot accomplish this, perhaps they need another election. In this way, we hope that Ukraine continues on its path to democracy.
It is reassuring to note that more and more nations in the international community are drawing the same conclusion that Canada has drawn. Even this level of comment is unusual. There have been other elections which have seemed lacking, some in emerging countries just beginning democratic processes. At that time, little comment was made, but this level of international condemnation is unprecedented, probably because the world recognizes the aspirations of Ukrainians and their desire for true democracy.
As Canadians we still have to be careful on two fronts. We must try not to become too judgmental of others, because Canada would like to retain its reputation as a peace seeker and a broker of peaceful solutions between opposing views. We always act in a multilateral manner, as we are doing today, and we try to bring people together to find the middle ground.
As a nation of immigrants we also have to be careful that we focus on building our new country and that we not get too caught up or spend too much energy on the troubles of the very homelands that so many of us have fled.
Only if we focus on our future as Canadians and the building of this country will we provide the peaceful and prosperous future we all want for our children and their children.