Mr. Speaker, I must say that I was somewhat surprised by the minister's answer to my question a few moments ago. To use a mixed metaphor, I would say that my ears could not believe my eyes.
Is the minister suggesting that if we were to push for a diplomatic solution, if we were in favour of that, if we insisted on it, we would be playing into Russia's hands? Is the minister suggesting that President Macron is playing into Russia's hands and creating division among the allies by picking up the phone to speak to Vladimir Putin? I believe that the answer is obvious.
Had the minister paid the least bit of attention to some of my speeches, in particular the one I gave to the Parliamentary Assembly to the Council of Europe, she would know that I have been highly critical of Russia on several occasions.
If we want dialogue, we cannot have a unilateral monologue. If we want to be a credible mediator between Russia and Ukraine, we have to speak to Russia as President Macron did. As far as I can see, aside from crying wolf, the Canadian government has done nothing to lead us to a diplomatic solution.
That is all I wanted to say. Do I recognize that the aggression against Crimea and Russia's destabilizing actions in Donbass are unacceptable? Of course I do. I do not even see how the minister can call that into question. Not only am I surprised, but I am a little offended. What I said is that we must engage in dialogue.
As I mentioned a few minutes ago, the fact is that the buildup of 100,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian border is pretty much the same as it was a year ago. What has changed? We do not really know, as the minister's officials at Global Affairs have admitted.
Why then this talk of escalation, this fearmongering that is leading us to think that Russia is going to attack tomorrow morning, whereas both the Ukrainians and the Russians agree that that is not going to happen? Why take this alarmist tone rather than trying to calm things down? Again, why pull out non-essential staff from our embassy when basically only the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have done so? The other NATO allies have stayed behind to show their support for Ukraine in a concrete way. Why pull out and contribute to escalating ongoing tensions?
Earlier the minister told us that Russia is the aggressor. I do not disagree. I challenge anyone to disprove the unwavering support of the Bloc Québécois and its members for our ally, Ukraine. However, I would like to point out to the minister that Jocelyn Coulon, an expert in geopolitical issues and former adviser to her predecessor, former Liberal candidate Stéphane Dion, put himself in Russia's shoes for a minute. He explained that when Germany reunified, NATO promised Mikhail Gorbachev that the Atlantic alliance would never cross the border of East Germany.
What happened after that? Several Soviet bloc countries and even some former Soviet republics were admitted to NATO, a move that Russia perceived as an attack, aimed at bringing western troops closer to the Russian border. For whatever reason, Russia decided that the red line would be Ukraine and that it would not allow Ukraine to join NATO.
The minister was talking about unity among NATO alliance countries. That is great, but can the minister deny that at the Bucharest summit in 2008, France and Germany expressed reservations about the possibility of admitting Ukraine to NATO?
All I am saying is that we can maintain the illusion that all member countries of the NATO alliance are on the same page, but that is not the reality. This explains why the French president phoned Vladimir Putin while Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom continue with this rather belligerent rhetoric towards Russia.
There are very divergent views within NATO. It is not playing into Russia's hands to admit this; it is simply acknowledging the facts. Where do we go from here? Do we really want to be a useful mediator? If the answer is yes, we must act accordingly. We need to take consistent action to lower tensions.
We have made commitments to Ukraine. We have to honour those commitments to Ukraine, but it would be disingenuous to pretend that Ukraine's admission to the NATO alliance does not require the unanimous approval of all the alliance members—but where is the unanimity of the NATO alliance on this issue?
I think we have to be honest with ourselves and with Ukrainians. However, we still have a responsibility towards Ukraine, because we have given our word.
There are therefore some things we need to do from the perspective of the partnership that should exist between Ukraine and the NATO alliance. There are things that must also be done to meet Ukraine's needs. Although we obviously favour the diplomatic option, we cannot deny that Ukraine is asking for Canada's support, which, admittedly, is relatively limited.
Although the Standing Committee on National Defence noted in 2017 that a number of experts would support Canada selling weapons to Ukraine, the reality is that Canada itself has few weapons that could help Ukraine, particularly in terms of anti-tank and anti-aircraft defence.
There are certainly things that can be done in terms of intelligence and cybersecurity, considering that Ukraine was recently the victim of a Russian cyber-attack seeking to destabilize its institutions. There is work to be done on that front, alongside diplomatic efforts, to get these parties talking and to try to find a peaceful resolution to the current conflict.