I apologize, Mr. Speaker. I should know by now it is the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I cannot call that a rookie mistake.
On January 21, I sent a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs asking him to consider action. Then I followed it up, as I mentioned earlier, with a proposal for a motion for unanimous consent.
I am laying all of this out because many say it is not our role to do anything and ask how it is the business of Canada to be telling the government of Ukraine how to conduct its affairs. We have to abide by the sovereignty of other governments, but, make no mistake, this is about what to do when there are problems and using everything we can to support, in this case, the call of the people of Ukraine to ensure they are going to have fair rules and respect for human rights.
With the government of Ukraine turning away from what were the accepted norms of the people, which is to ensure that there is freedom of speech, that there will not be oppression, and that the state will not use its police to crack down on peaceful demonstrators, we do have a role to play. That is why we speak not just with a critique of the government but about what we can do, because if we learn from history, there is one lesson we can learn when it comes to authoritarian governments. If people turn their backs on the actions of any authoritarian government, it will continue to abuse its power. It has been noted already that the president of Ukraine has already done this. He has received messages from the rest of the world and he has tried to pull back on the draconian laws. He has tried to cut a deal on power-sharing.
If we look at this from a strategic point of view, we see that when we are vigilant, when we assure the Ukrainian people that we are going to be with them and put pressure on the government, it is a sign from the international community to the government of Ukraine that it cannot abuse its power without others noting it. That is why it is important for the Conservative government to work with its allies on this.
I have mentioned before that we are hearing that many of the assets of Yanukovych and others have been spirited out into Europe. That is why diplomacy is absolutely critical. It is not just about individual sanctions that we want to put forward and that hopefully the government will accept; it is also about working with our friends in the EU and the United States. If we work together, we know that more pressure can be applied and that the Ukrainian government will not be able to continue down the path of repression. It will not be able to continue down the path of selling off the resources of the Ukrainian people. It will not be able to go down the path of abusing its power.
There is a documented case of the government claiming that it had the right to go forward with some of the initiatives that I mentioned on the deal with Russia. It claimed that it had a majority vote. On January 16, 2014, when it brought in its sweeping, draconian laws, it was claimed by the government that it had passed these laws through its parliament with a majority.
However, this is what has been documented. The speaker asked for a show of hands and then, within mere seconds, announced that these draconian laws had been passed by a vote of 235 in favour, but, as we can do here, they were actually able to freeze a frame of who was in parliament at the time, and there were only 119 Party of Regions MPs in the house who voted in favour. It is that kind of thing, the abuse of power, that we are dealing with.
Let me finish where I started. This is about the dream of the Ukrainian people. When my mother went to Ukraine in 2004 as an observer for our country in the elections there, she came back with stories of people who were finally realizing their dream. She brought me a memento that I will cherish forever--the orange scarf.
It was a time of promise, and the promise must not be forgotten that the Ukrainian people were going to be able to live their dream and have the human rights that we enjoy, the assurance that there would be the basic standards of democracy, freedom of speech, and the ability for people to protest in peace.
Today let us look at what we can do to help the people of Ukraine so that their dream is not lost and that Canada stands proud in the support of the people of Ukraine.