Mr. Chair, I do believe that there are organizations within Canada; for example, Democracy Watch, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and different provincial organizations, including a wonderful local chapter of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, headed by Oksana Bondarchuk in Winnipeg, someone who keeps me quite well informed, along with a number of other individuals like Bill Balan and many others in Winnipeg.
There are organizations that do have something to offer in terms of assisting us in developing policy. That includes foreign policy related to what is happening today in Ukraine.
I do believe that these organizations should play some sort of a role in how Canada best deals with the relationship with Ukraine, not only for today but also going into the future.
It goes beyond the situation we are in today, which hopefully by the end of June will be a whole lot better. I think we have to look at how we build bridges that are going to sustain a long-term relationship.
For example, what about the relationship between parliamentarians here in Canada and in Ukraine? What about institutional organizations such as Elections Canada and the independent election authority, whatever that might be, the commission in Ukraine? We need to build on those types of relationships and use the different stakeholders that have a very good understanding.
I am amazed at the type of understanding that a number of these stakeholders have of the reality of Ukraine today. I think we need to take advantage of that. I did not know this, but the mother of my colleague from Toronto Centre actually had something to do with the current constitution of Ukraine. Given her own personal background, I think she would have been a valuable asset to the trip to Ukraine with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. There should have also been a New Democratic member of Parliament going.
We need to start looking at ways in which we can bring experts working together to Ukraine, and make it reciprocal. I was at a foreign affairs committee meeting a few years back. We actually had a Ukrainian parliamentarian come and make a presentation. There are issues we can further develop.
To conclude my remarks, we do want to see more tangible action taken. We should not underestimate the potential of other stakeholders beyond the House of Commons.