Mr. Chair, it is indeed an honour to be in the House to discuss the situation in Ukraine. As someone of Ukrainian heritage and as someone who has a riding that has a large percentage of people who are part of the Ukrainian diaspora, this is an issue that is not only near and dear to us as Ukrainian Canadians, but it is of great concern to all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
I have to thank the Prime Minister. His leadership on this file is head and shoulders above that of most other world leaders. He had a strong role in making sure that we were there to support Ukraine and its people as they got rid of a very corrupt president in Viktor Yanukovych. The Prime Minister spoke with clarity. He was there at the inauguration of the new government and has been there every step of the way, whenever we met with President Poroshenko, and making sure that we provide the aid that Ukraine has requested of Canada.
When we started this discussion tonight, it was about the training mission that the Canadian Armed Forces are going to be undertaking. I can tell members that I am so proud of our brave men and women who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces for the outstanding work they do day in and day out here in Canada and around the world. It is their capabilities and expertise that they are bringing to the table in Ukraine, which are desperately needed.
When we think about Ukraine under Viktor Yanukovych, he allowed the Ukrainian military to atrophy. A country of 54 million people only had a standup army of 5,000 troops. After the Maidan, after the elections, the invasion, occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea by the Putin regime in Russia, and then ultimately the fighting that we are seeing now in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine, Ukraine does not have the capabilities or the individuals to be able to go out there and fight. It may have a fighting force today of 40,000 to 45,000 troops, but we have to remember that these are all fresh recruits. These are new volunteers and they have not had the basic training that most people in the military get here in Canada. Even though they are battle hardened, they still lack those tactical skills at an individual and unit level. Therefore, it is great that our armed forces are going over to provide this much-needed training and that they will be able to do it a battalion group at a time.
We are doing this in collaboration with the United Kingdom and United States at the Yavoriv base in western Ukraine, which Canada helped build several years ago. It is only a few kilometres from the Polish border and 1,300 kilometres away from the fighting that we see in the Donbass. Our men and women in uniform who are going to be over there doing the training are relatively removed from harm's way.
I know that the opposition has brought up the issue of corruption and the concern that it is taking place. I would remind all members in the House that we have a situation where Canada has signed on with the United States and the United Kingdom to the Ukraine Joint Commission on Defence Reform and Bilateral Cooperation. We are leading the subcommittee in that commission on military placing to deal with the exact problem of corruption within Ukraine's military.
As the Minister of National Defence has already pointed out, President Poroshenko has been doing lustration and has been trying to remove what they call the fifth column from the Ukrainian government and from the Ukrainian military. We have to be there to support him. That is what the military police are doing and it is what some of the $578 million has gone toward. It is helping with lustration, best practices, respect for human rights and the rule of law, and removing corruption.
I also want to say regarding the military equipment we delivered that I was fortunate enough to go there to ensure that it was handed over in a formal fashion from Canada to the Ukraine armed forces. We also have people over there who have done great work, such as Lenna Koszarny, who is a Canadian living in Ukraine. She is an accountant. She is working with our ambassador, Roman Waschuk. She was there to make sure that all the aid got delivered. There are other volunteers to track its movement as well.
I want to give a big shout-out to them for making sure that our great military equipment is getting into the right hands and is being well-used.