Mr. Chair, I and the Liberal Party believe that sanctions in a phased manner, progressively being applied more and more strongly, are a way to deter somebody from taking certain actions, as in the case of President Putin in eastern Ukraine, in Crimea.
The thing about sanctions is that they do take time to have their effect felt. We have to be willing to increase the amplitude of those sanctions, which is why my colleague for Wascana asked the question about the SWIFT measures, which are very powerful and difficult sanctions to implement, but certainly are very powerful on the economic front.
If we begin the process of putting sanctions in place, we have to be prepared to continue to strengthen them over time, and all countries that believe the same thing as Canada must be prepared to be consistent and continue to apply those sanctions.
I will repeat something I said in my speech. It is not necessarily how many people we sanction, it is who we sanction. Again, I would like to ask the government why Igor Sechin and Vladimir Yakunin are not on that list when they are key people who are very powerful and very close to Mr. Putin.