Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned the Canada-Ukraine Friendship Group. I am the chair. He may have noticed that this is an emergency debate that my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake co-sponsored with me this evening. In fact, being the vice-chair of the Canada-Ukraine Friendship Group, he has spoken this evening. The other vice-chair, the member for Parkdale—High Park, has spoken this evening. Other members of the Canada-Ukraine Friendship Group have also spoken this evening.
I would remind the member that the Ukrainian community will be having a very large gathering outside the House of Commons on Wednesday at noon, and I would expect the hon. member to be there to address that crowd and to take his position as the vice-chair of the Canada-Ukraine Friendship Group.
I would also like to remind the member that in the past, the third party has had a very poor record on defending human rights when it came to the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, and other places. Our government has stood up for them.
The Prime Minister has made very strong statements about what is going on in Ukraine. The foreign affairs minister has been there himself. He has walked the Maidan. I twice walked the Maidan in December when I was there. My former CUPP interns took me on a very intimate tour of the Maidan.
We are working intimately with our allies, because that is what a responsible government does. That is what a responsible country does. It coordinates. It is precise. By being imprecise, by going it alone, as the member would like to say, we could miss something, and the people who are harmed at the end of the day are going to be the little people in Ukraine. It is the ordinary people that would pay the price for an imprecise response from this government.
The member is, quite frankly, mistaken about the course of action he is recommending. This government is working very diligently. We stand with the people of Ukraine. We stand with the opposition, and we are going to fight very hard to help Ukrainians aspire to the freedom, democracy, human rights, justice, and economic options that country desires for itself.