Mr. Chair, the hon. member for Edmonton East makes an excellent point about Ukraine, and as someone who went to high school in Edmonton, I think it is delightful that the Edmonton caucus, if there is such a thing, speaks about Ukraine with such good information and such insight and warmth.
I very strongly agree with the hon. member for Edmonton East. The Maidan really was a multilingual place. It was a place where Russian was spoken proudly as part of the conversation.
Something that I learned living in Ukraine was the extent to which Ukraine is truly a bilingual culture and society. There is almost no one in Ukraine who does not understand both Russian and Ukrainian perfectly, and most Ukrainians speak both languages. It is helpful that those languages are not too far away from one another. If one begins, as I did, as a reporter arriving in Ukraine speaking only Ukrainian, learning Russian is not as hard, and if one begins as a speaker only of Russian, learning Ukrainian is not as hard. The Ukrainians start from a strong base.
I strongly agree with the hon. member for Edmonton East that something we need to do as an outside friend of Ukraine is to urge Ukrainians today, the Maidan having won, to double down on the democracy part of the message and be as inclusive as possible. That is absolutely essential.
I absolutely agree with the suggestion of the hon. member for Edmonton East, which I think was also a suggestion by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, that one thing Canada may be able to share with Ukraine is its experience living as a bilingual country and multicultural society, particularly given that Ukrainians trust us, given our strong Ukrainian-Canadian community and given our record as a country of supporting Ukraine. They trust us to have Ukraine's best interests at heart, and sharing our experience of bilingualism and multiculturalism is something Canada could uniquely do to help. Let us show them Canadian unity and help them with that.