Debates of Nov. 22nd, 2023

Health of Animals Act

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank all colleagues who took the opportunity not only tonight but throughout this process to speak in support of this very important legislation, which is an amendment to the Health of Animals Act, Bill C-275.

There has been overwhelming support for this bill from Canadians across this country, and certainly from farmers, producers and the entire agriculture sector. I cannot thank them enough for helping me craft this legislation, for improving it at committee and for championing it through the legislative process. To farmers, ranchers and producers across the country for their encouraging phone calls and letters, I give a heartfelt thanks.

Perhaps it is fitting if I take a few minutes to read an excerpt from an open letter by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, which represents more than 200,000 families across Canada. It states:

The amendments proposed under Bill C-275, would provide targeted intervention against the on-farm food safety and biosecurity risk by limiting the access of unauthorized entrants to animals and farms. The proposed amendments to the Health of Animals Act offer an avenue to further strengthen our overall food system by enhancing the measures in place to protect the health of farm animals across our country.

At the same time, Bill C-275 strikes a balance between producers’ safety and protection and the right to lawful and peaceful protest. Our members’ operations often host visitors to demonstrate how the land is managed or their animals are cared for, but there is a key distinction between those who willingly follow prescribed, strict biosecurity and sanitation practices and those who willfully endanger animal health, welfare, and food safety.

The letter goes on to quote Megz Reynolds, an executive director of the Do More Agriculture Foundation, a group that is the national voice and champion for mental health in agriculture. She said:

Agriculture is an industry with a foundation in deep rural roots, hard work, resilience, strength, and community. On a daily [basis] farmers deal with numerous factors outside of their control, that directly influence their mental wellbeing. Farmers should not have to add living with the fear of protestors trespassing into enclosed areas and endangering their animals, livelihoods, and food security on top of everything else that weighs on them day in and day out. Farmers are among the most vulnerable when it comes to mental health challenges like stress, anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion, and burnout. In 2021 the University of Guelph found that 1 in 4 Canadian farmers felt like their life was not worth living, wished that they were dead, or had thought about taking their own life in the last 12 months.

The letter concludes by saying, “We urge you to support Bill C-275 and its proposed amendments, which will provide increased safety to producers, the animals they raise, and the food they produce.”

I, of course, echo these sentiments. I want to encourage my colleagues to support Bill C-275 and send a message to our farmers, our livestock producers and their families. The message from the House of Commons would be that their animals matter, Canadian agriculture matters, our food security matters and, most importantly for farm families across the country, their livelihoods matter. We care about their mental health. We recognize the unwavering dedication our farmers and farm families have for the well-being of the animals in their care.

I again thank all colleagues who spoke so well and shared many of their personal sentiments on farmers and operations in their ridings across Canada and who echoed the concerns and viewpoints of their constituents in the House today. For colleagues who do not necessarily come from an agricultural or rural riding, it is important that we share this message not only with our rural communities but certainly with urban Canadians, who may not have a wealth of knowledge or experience regarding what Canadian agriculture is, how we do it, why we do it and the very strict regulations and protocols in biosecurity we must follow to ensure the security of our food supply.

I thank my colleagues for their support and hope they will continue to support Bill C-275. I also thank farmers and farm families across Canada so much for their support.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The question is on the motion.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 98, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, November 29, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

The House resumed from November 1 consideration of the motion.

Foreign Affairs and International Development

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for South Shore—St. Margarets.

The report that came forward from the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development was well done, and I congratulate the committee for that work. I particularly want to draw attention to recommendations 12 and 13. Recommendation 12 is that Canada not grant a sanctions waiver to Siemens Energy Canada, which was trying to send over the natural gas pipeline turbines to power Nord Stream 1, pump more Russian natural gas into Europe and fund Putin's war machine. Recommendation 13 was to make sure that there was a real policy goal enhancement of the energy security of Canada's democratic allies, while fully complying with Canada’s domestic and international obligations related to climate change. This speaks to the issues around energy security in Europe and in Ukraine, and how Europe is reliant on Russian LNG and Russian oil.

I can say without any argument that I am proud of my Ukrainian heritage and that I have been a long-standing supporter of Ukraine. I have been banned from Russia since 2014 because of my ongoing advocacy for Ukraine, and that support is unwavering. The Conservative Party stands with Ukraine, and its support is unequivocal. However, there has been a lot of talk over the last couple of days about the Conservatives' concerns around the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement that has been negotiated by the Liberal government.

Let us put this in perspective. First and foremost, the current Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement was actually negotiated by the former Conservative government under Stephen Harper. Our trade minister at that time, the member for Abbotsford, negotiated a very good free trade agreement that has been in effect for only seven years. The Liberals signed that free trade agreement when they formed government in 2015, and it went into effect the next year, so we have free trade with Ukraine already in effect.

We are supportive of most of the free trade agreement that is at committee, but the Liberals have stuck in a very slim amendment to the free trade agreement, which is the first one in Canadian history. No other free trade agreement has it, and no free trade agreement that the government is currently negotiating with other countries includes carbon pricing, carbon taxes and carbon leakage. That has very little to do with trade, and it disadvantages the people of Ukraine, who are today fighting a hot war against Russia, Putin and his barbarians. To put our values onto the people of Ukraine is, I think, distasteful at a time when they are dealing with their own future.

The international trade committee has been studying this issue, and one of the academics who showed up at the committee, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, when asked about the free trade agreement, the carbon tax and other parts of it, said, “I would see it more as an imposition to be honest. On the one side, I would see there is a very western value being imposed on a country that has been devastated by war. Secondly, we also need to question the mechanism itself, the carbon tax. There is literature out there suggesting that sometimes the carbon tax may not actually achieve the goals that we are trying to reach from an environmental perspective, so we need to make really sure that whatever we're imposing on Ukraine actually works, and that it actually can make a difference. I'm not sure there's consensus there.”

He went on to say, “I've said it before and I'll say it again: I actually do think we need to be careful, extremely careful, with how we see our values and how we impose our values on a great partner like Ukraine. Ukraine will absolutely need more help from Canada than we need help from them, especially over the short term. Again, I see this as an imposition from Canada, in my perspective.”

Thus, he has said that this is an unfair section of the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement.

As we know, it is fundamental to our Conservative Party to oppose the carbon tax in Canada. Why would we support any agreement that ratifies a carbon tax for both Canada and Ukraine? Again, it is something that is not welcome.

If we really wanted to help Ukraine, we would do it through the free trade agreement by ensuring that we have its need for energy security taken care of. There is nothing in the agreement that addresses the issues around helping it rebuild its nuclear energy plants, helping it adapt Canadian technology from our SMRs and helping it adapt technology in developing its LNG. It has natural gas fields. Yesterday, it found a new field in the Carpathians and needs Canadian technology to access it. It has also found the ability to claim more natural gas from fields in the Carpathians that it considered exhausted. Now, it knows there is more natural gas down there it can pump out, and it is asking Canada for more technology. The free trade agreement has nothing in it to help with that.

I was in Ukraine in August. I can say that its infrastructure has been devastated by the indiscriminate bombing done by Russia and by the war crimes and atrocities Russia has committed against the civilians of Ukraine. Ukraine needs help in rebuilding its ports and its grain-handling infrastructure in its railways, things that Canada is very good at but which are absent from the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement.

We have been arguing for years, as Conservatives, to send more weapons to Ukraine, and more munitions, especially as we listen to experts from Ukraine telling us it is using 3,000 to 5,000 artillery shells each and every day, 155-millimetre shells that go into the M777 Howitzers that we sent from Canada, and that other countries sent as well, and into the M109 self-propelled Howitzer and other artillery guns. We build the shells here in Canada, but the Liberal government has not been able to get an increase in production for the past 22 months. Ukraine has been at war now for 638 days, on the front line, pushing back against Russian barbarians who are invading it in this illegal war. We need to continue to provide everything we can, and one thing we can do here is build more munitions. However, we still build only 3,000 rounds of shells per month. That does not even give Ukraine shells for half a day.

One of the things I have heard many times from Canadian companies that want to invest in Ukraine is that there is no war risk insurance. There are Canadian companies that would go over there and build things like sniper rifles, armoured vehicles and munition plants, and set up infrastructure companies to help build Ukraine so it can build back stronger, yet there is no war risk insurance offered in the free trade agreement. The agreement is mute.

I am proud of the Conservative history on what we have done in Ukraine. It was a Conservative government that first recognized Ukraine's independence in 1991. It was a Conservative government's prime minister, Stephen Harper, who was the first western leader to go to Ukraine after Russia illegally occupied and annexed Crimea and started the war in Donbass in 2014. It was a Conservative government that made sure that Putin got kicked out of the G8, turning it into the G7. It was a Conservative government that sent the first military equipment over there. I actually accompanied some of those shipments as the parliamentary secretary for national defence in 2014 and 2015. It was a Conservative government that started Operation Unifier, training tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers. I want to thank the Liberal government for always renewing that and for now starting it in England, where I had a chance to see it in operation.

Once again, Conservatives support Ukraine. I love Ukraine. I support it 110% and will until the day I die.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is no doubt in my mind that the member supports Ukraine to the bitter end. I travelled with him, when I was on the defence committee just after becoming a parliamentarian, to Ukraine to study what was going on there, and I saw his passion and his dedication. I do not question that at all. I do not question Stephen Harper's commitment, Erin O'Toole's commitment or the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle's commitment when they were leaders.

What I question is the member for Carleton. He said the Conservative Party stands with Ukraine. Why did the Conservative Leader of the Opposition not have one tweet, one Facebook post or any mention when Zelenskyy came to the House just a couple of months ago? He never said a word about it. Then, we see what happens when talking about things as being woke. President Zelenskyy asked for the free trade agreement. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress asked us to vote in favour of it. Why can he not see that there are members in his party who are dictating MAGA Republican politics? He should stand up to that.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I forgive the member for always using bully-boy attacks and for his rhetoric. The idea of trying to tie us to something happening south of the border is ridiculous. Anyone who knows the current Conservative Party and knows the leader of the Conservative Party knows that the leader stands with Ukraine. I personally confess that I have seen him passionately defend Ukraine. He is opposed to Russia's aggression. He is opposed to Putin's dictatorship and the atrocities that Russia is committing in Ukraine. He is a leader who stands for freedom, for democracy and for human rights, and he stands with Ukraine. I have no doubt of that, and neither should any other member of the House. In spreading misinformation and disinformation, the member is only helping Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passion in standing with Ukraine in general.

I want to point out something, building on his comments about the importance of munitions. At the trade committee, Conservatives actually proposed a motion that would allow the committee to adopt amendments that would expand the scope of the bill and include specific measures that would increase the export of weapons from Canada to Ukraine and allow Canadian businesses to do more to support the development of weapons manufacturing in Ukraine. There are very important amendments that we are developing that would actually put into the deal the thing that should have been in it, which is more weapons.

It is shameful that Liberals at the trade committee voted against our proposed instruction motion that would have expanded the scope of the bill. We have Liberals saying, on the one hand, that we must be for the carbon tax or we are against Ukraine. On the other hand, they are voting against our motion that would actually put weapons exports into the trade agreement. The members opposite should know that the priority of the Ukrainian government is weapons. We fight a war with weapons, not with a carbon tax. That is why Conservatives are—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I have to give the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman the chance to answer.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I do want to thank the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his passion and his advocacy, and for the leadership he has shown on this.

I was disappointed that the Liberals voted against the amendment to the act that would have provided more opportunity to produce weapons and ammunition to send to Ukraine. We started advocating the provision of weapons in 2018. We had sniper rifles and the Carl-Gustaf anti-tank weapons. We had rocket propeller grenades and side arms that we wanted to send to Ukraine that were sitting in storage, collecting dust and going nowhere. We asked the Liberals to send them, but they did not send them until after the war started in 2022, four and a half years after we started asking them to send them. The Liberal-NDP coalition called me a warmonger.

The truth is that we all knew Putin was going to try to fully invade Ukraine. We are coming up to the Holodomor commemoration on Saturday. We are having a commemoration here on the Hill tomorrow. It was the genocide of several million Ukrainians by Stalin and his Communist thugs to wipe the Ukrainian nation off the earth. It is happening again. It is being done again by Moscow, by Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin kleptocrats. We have to stand with Ukraine. It needs weapons and not a carbon tax.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on the discussion about the report from the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade entitled, “The Russian State's Illegal War of Aggression Against Ukraine”.

As Canadians know, Conservatives have always stood with Ukraine. Those who have had the pleasure of hearing at committee some stories from my personal history will have heard that, back in 1991, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, I was the senior adviser to Canada's foreign minister.

I can remember the weekend that I spent on the phone with the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council Office and former deputy prime minister Don Mazankowski, the first Ukrainian deputy prime minister of Canada, discussing what we should do. The Soviet Union had not quite collapsed, and Mikhail Gorbachev was trying to institute his glasnost reforms. It looked like, within a few weeks, there would be a collapse.

We had a long discussion about recognizing Ukraine first. We were the party that recognized Ukraine on that weekend, December 2, and we were the first country in the world to recognize Ukraine as an independent country, separate from the old Soviet Union. That was a momentous thing because, of course, we have a large diaspora of Ukrainians in Canada. I am proud to have played a very small and minor role as a senior adviser to the then minister of foreign affairs, Hon. Barbara McDougall, when we did that.

We do support all of the recommendations in this report, but I would like to draw attention to a couple of particular interest to us. The previous speaker spoke about recommendations 12 and 13, and I will come to that, but I would like to focus a little on recommendation 8, which says:

That the Government of Canada work with its international and domestic partners to improve the coordinated implementation and enforcement of sanctions against Russia, by working to identify all assets connected to designated persons and closing any loopholes that may exist.

There are a lot of loopholes that still exist today. Not to toot my own horn, but I worked on creating the legislation the Government of Canada still uses today back in 1991, when there was the coup in Haiti. We wanted to impose economic sanctions, globally through the OAS and then through the UN, on Haiti and the illegal coup of Haiti's first democratically elected president.

There was no power to quickly impose economic sanctions. We quickly created within about four days a piece of legislation that was introduced and passed unanimously through the House and Senate within about 48 hours to create a bill that gave the Governor in Council the power to quickly move and impose economic sanctions.

We know these sanctions are leaking, and I have raised this before in committee. I said it as a member of the fisheries committee. While the government has targeted specific individuals, and all of those are justified, what it has not done is looked at the leakiness of the sanctions overall. I have an example that has had a very large impact on Atlantic Canada. The snow crab fishery is a very big fishery off Newfoundland, and 52% of the crab fishery caught in Newfoundland was, until this war happened last year, bought by Japan, through contracts.

When the war broke out and Russia was desperate for cash, it started to sell their snow crab at a much cheaper price on the global markets. Most countries respected the fact that that money would be used for fuelling Putin's illegal war and did not bite. Japan did bite, broke every contract in Newfoundland and stopped buying all their snow crab from Newfoundland. Now Japan buys most of their snow crab from Russia, helping to fund their war.

The minister and the Liberal government have never raised those kinds of issues with counterparts. We have raised them with the minister, and the minister was totally unaware that this had happened.

It is not unusual for a Liberal minister to be unaware, but one would think that, when we are dealing with sanctions in a war, it is not just about the individuals but is about the flow of cash that is going in by buying goods of our G7 allies.

I would also like to comment on recommendation 12, which reads, “That the Government of Canada not grant a sanctions waiver to Siemens Energy Canada Limited for Nord Stream 1 pipeline turbines....”

Remember, with the turbine, Russia did this fake thing about needing the turbine for the pipeline that brought natural gas and oil into Europe. It brought in a need for repair, and the government said it was no problem, to bring it in here and we would repair it. Then the war broke out and Russia said it wanted it back in order to facilitate the continued supply of that oil and natural gas, supposedly. The government acquiesced, granted a waiver, sent it back to Russia and allowed it to continue to ship oil and natural gas to fund its war.

In fact, if we look at some of the testimony in this report, it quite clearly shows that a number of witnesses were flabbergasted the Government of Canada would allow such fakery to happen.

In addition, in a rare moment of clarity on the liquefied natural gas issue, the Minister of Natural Resources said at the time, and this is from page 31 of the unanimous report, that he could not “overemphasize the depth of concern on the part of the Germans, but also on the part of the European Union, with respect to the potential implications associated with their effectively not being able to access natural gas.”

The report goes on:

In addition to the concerns expressed by Germany and the EU, the Minister [of Natural Resources] noted that, in conversations had with the United States, “they reflected and shared the concerns about the divisions that could end up undermining support for Ukraine....”

That was the Liberal minister, but yet when the Chancellor of Germany came to Canada and Germany was begging for our natural gas to deal with the issue of the impact on energy supply in Europe because of this illegal war, the Prime Minister said that there was no business case to ship it oil.

Maybe there is a case to get it done because there is a war on, but of course we were not ready to do that. When the Prime Minister and these Liberals came to power in 2015, there were 15 LNG plants on the books. As they progressed with their agenda, their no-pipelines bill, Bill C-69, or the “no capital bill”, as I call it, to drive capital out of Canada, we have how many? I am sure there are members here who could tell me how many have been built since those 15 were proposed and going through the environmental system.

I hear a colleague say zero. Maybe the true answer the Prime Minister should have given the Chancellor of Germany is that he messed up and that he was not ready to deal with the issue of making sure good, clean, ethical Canadian natural gas could be accessed by Europe, which has become totally dependent on Russia, in case of emergencies. Unfortunately, that was not his answer. He glibly said that there was no business case for it. I am not sure the Prime Minister has actually ever read a business plan, but he told the Chancellor that, and so Germany went and obtained the natural gas it needed from dirty dictatorships. That is the great foreign policy we have had.

My colleague mentioned the fact that if the Liberals were truly interested in supporting Ukraine, they would have put provisions in the free trade bill to enable and foster the ability of our country to supply more munitions to Ukraine and to manufacture them. In fact, if there is a gap in political risk insurance by the EDC, it is easy for the Government of Canada to show its commitment to Ukraine by using the Canada account to help Canadian munitions manufacturers located in Germany and deal with the risk insurance issue.

Have the Liberals used the Canada account to do that? No, so their commitment to Ukraine is, like all other things, fairly superficial and not done with the seriousness one would expect from an ally of an important democratic country in this world and of our diaspora of 1.5 million Ukrainians in Canada who expect more from the government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the member referred to foreign policy and he talked about being superficial. President Zelenskyy came to Canada last September and signed a trade agreement with Canada. Ukraine wants this trade agreement. If I had enough time, I would explain to the member why. The 1.3 million people of Ukrainian heritage in Canada support the Canada-Ukraine deal that the president signed off on. Amazingly, the Conservative Party of Canada is the only party in the chamber that said “no” to that Canada-Ukraine trade agreement for all sorts of red herring types of reasons.

The bottom line is that the Conservative Party is abandoning sending a solid message to Russia, providing more hope for Ukraine. Why did the Conservative Party vote “no” on the Canada-Ukraine agreement?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, I know the member for Winnipeg North has a selective memory, but I will remind him that we had a free trade agreement with Ukraine already. It was negotiated by the Harper government.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, yes, they signed it, but they did not negotiate a comma of it. It was all negotiated and put to bed and then the election happened in 2015, so they came in and signed it, just like Jean Chrétien in 1993 when he said that he would tear up NAFTA. Then it came in and became part of the “three amigos”. He talked like he invented free trade with NAFTA, even though he ran on an election campaign against it, as did another former Liberal leader, John Turner, who fought the 1988 election against free trade. Thankfully, we won that election 35 years ago yesterday or we would not have free trade with the United States.

The member should do a little bit of history about which party has truly been committed to free trade and which party has tried to impose woke conditions on a carbon tax on a country that is at war, taking advantage of that country to put forward its domestic political agenda and impose it on another country.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, just in response to that last intervention, I think it is fairly obvious that trade deals need to be evaluated based on the substance of what is in those deals. There is a long history of various parties in this House opposing certain trade deals, doing so because they had particular views on provisions in those deals. It was not because they did not care about the other countries with which the deals were negotiated. It is because they had issues with the content of the deals.

In particular, the Liberals have tried to sneak a carbon tax provision into this trade deal. Meanwhile, Conservatives have tried to amend the deal to support expanded weapons transfer. We can ask anyone connected with the Ukrainian government or the Ukrainian community; they may have a variety of opinions on the particulars of the deal in general but if someone were to ask them what their priority is, weapons or a carbon tax, I think they would all say the priority is weapons, not a carbon tax.

We need to keep the eye on the ball here, which is that Ukraine needs to win this war. That means having the weapons and munitions that will allow it to win this war. The Liberals voted against including weapons in this deal. They are the ones abandoning Ukraine. We are the ones standing with Ukraine.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, I would agree with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who made an eloquent speech on this very issue previously. It is outstanding to me that the Liberal government would think that the priority of what to do with the Ukrainian government right now is to try and impose a Canadian carbon tax on Ukraine and then, at the same time, vote against providing the ability of Canadian companies to establish free trade and manufacturing facilities back and forth in munitions, during an illegal war. There is a coalition between a former and still, really, KGB agent, Putin, who is in an unholy alliance with China and Iran, trying to attack these dictatorships and trying to attack democracy around the world.

The government has not banned and declared the Wagner Group, which is in this report, as a terrorist group. It has not abided by the resolution of this House for many years now, and still refuses to declare the IRGC as a terrorist group. I do not know why the government is so opposed to declaring these organizations as terrorist groups and letting them operate in Canada, while not providing our ally, Ukraine, what it needs.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to bring the voices of Chatham—Kent—Leamington to the chamber this evening and to rise to continue debating concurrence on the 10th report of the foreign affairs committee, “The Russian State's Illegal War of Aggression Against Ukraine”.

Before I go on, I will tell members that I will be splitting my time with the member for Dufferin—Caledon.

As this report deals with our support for Ukraine, I would like to focus on three key recommendations related to energy and food security, not only for Ukraine but also for our European allies as well. The first recommendation I will touch upon is recommendation 12:

That the Government of Canada not grant a sanctions waiver to Siemens Energy Canada Limited for Nord Stream 1 pipeline turbines as long as sanctions remain in effect.

Last December, the natural resources minister said that Canada was revoking the exemptions to sanctions that allowed a Montreal company to repair turbines for the natural gas pipeline operated by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The world was aghast. As background, in July, Siemens Energy was granted an exemption to Canada's sanctions against Russia to repair up to six turbines for this pipeline, which carried natural gas from Russia to Germany. The federal government defended its decision by saying that it was “calling the bluff” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Canada had accused of withholding gas exports to Europe.

I question if this is the position of our ally Ukraine. Is that what it asked for when it came to the turbines?

Once again, the government miscalculated at a great cost to our allies. As the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan stated, “the government's decision to suspend their own sanctions is a slap in the face to the Ukrainian people in their darkest hour.” He continued by stating how important it is that we hold firm in our resolve with Russia: “If we aren't, then Russia will simply continue to escalate their pressure”.

That is exactly what it has done. It has weaponized energy against the Ukrainian people and, indeed, against our European allies.

Instead of standing firmly with our allies, Canada has turned its back on them in their time of need. As usual, the government has not considered the long-term consequences of its decisions by allowing Russia to manipulate the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, and this may have far-reaching consequences for global energy security, not to mention our own international relations. With its ill-thought-out policy, the government has once again sent the message to our international partners that Canada is not reliable.

The world came calling for Canada's abundant supply of LNG but, in true form, the Prime Minister and his Liberal cronies shut the door on its allies. Why?

We learn that, for the first time in the history of free trade negotiations, Canada is again betraying Ukraine by adding a carbon tax to our free trade agreement with Ukraine. I will ask the question again: Is this what Ukraine came to Canada asking for?

The Prime Minister has the audacity to virtue signal and, in essence, double-cross Ukraine by making the carbon tax part of the agreement. Ukraine does not want our carbon tax any more than Canadians want it. That is why the Conservatives oppose the ineffective carbon tax here in Canada and in Ukraine.

Ukraine is looking for a reliable trade partner, not to be force fed a carbon tax. Ukraine has not requested it and has not requested that we export the Liberal government's empty ideology. Instead, Canada should focus our trade agreements on areas in which we excel, such as agriculture, technology, LNG expertise, grain storage and the so many other areas I could list.

Members remember that the Conservatives negotiated the first trade agreement with Ukraine back in 2017 and fully support free trade. The member for Dufferin—Caledon mentioned in his speech yesterday that the Liberals voted against an amendment that would allow Canadians to build munitions requirements that would allow Ukraine to win the war. The Liberals believe that by imposing their useless carbon tax, Mr. Putin will turn tail and run. It would be laughable if it were not so serious.

Conservatives also proposed that we would both provide civilian nuclear technology and sell our civilian-grade uranium from Saskatchewan to power nuclear plants that would give emissions-free electricity to Ukrainians to replace bombed-out electricity plants. I guess it made too much common sense because, in true Liberal custom, they did not include that in the agreement either. Again, I reiterate that Ukraine needs Canada to be a reliable trading partner and ally.

Putin has stated numerous times that Ukraine is not a nation but rather a state of Russia. Timothy David Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University, told the foreign affairs committee that the major issues in this conflict, territory, neutrality and security, have “never really been the problem.”

He explained, “Putin was never actually fighting a war about NATO”; Putin was “fighting a war to destroy the Ukrainian state.” Let us go back 100 years, to the death of my great-grandparents in the Holodomor.

It seems the Canadian government is hell-bent on fighting a war to destroy Canadian energy that would bring stability to Ukraine and our European allies. The current Liberal regime is determined to rob the world of reliable energy security that would, in turn, provide sustainable and clean energy sources, preventing our allies from being forced into vulnerable reliance on an authoritarian regime.

We can and should contribute with sustainable clean energy solutions, reducing our allies' dependence on single suppliers and creating a more geopolitically stable international environment. We can contribute clean energy solutions that align with climate change goals and demonstrate our leadership in both energy security and environmental responsibility. That is not to mention the economic benefits this would bring to Canada in a time of skyrocketing inflation brought on by eight years of the Liberal government.

The Prime Minister also stated that there was no business case for Canada to build LNG export facilities. However, in the last two years, the U.S. has built eight such facilities, partly using Canadian gas, adding value to it by liquefying it and then exporting it.

At the foreign affairs committee, we continue to look at the food and fuel effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this week, Trevor Kennedy from the Business Council of Canada testified that there was, and continues to be, a business case for infrastructure to export Canadian LNG. Canada should have played a role in Ukraine's and Europe's energy security, and it should still do so.

There are eight billion people in the world, and four billion of them owe their lives to the use of synthetic fertilizers, in particular, supplemental nitrogen. Nitrogen is produced from natural gas through the Haber-Bosch process. Canada should also be there for Europe and Ukraine as a fertilizer supplier, supplanting supplies from Belarus and Russia. I will come back to this point in a minute.

Another recommendation I want to touch upon is recommendation 6:

That the Government of Canada continue to strengthen global food security, and the role of Ukraine as one of its guarantors, and join the efforts with Ukraine on the Black Sea Grain Initiative in the Global South....

In July 2022, Ukraine's title of the breadbasket of the world was once more becoming a reality when Russia signed on to the Black Sea grain initiative. The first ships left Ukrainian ports on August 1, 2022, making over 1,000 voyages from Ukraine's Black Sea ports. Unfortunately, a year later, Russia pulled its support for the deal, and the world was once again thrust into further food insecurity. The international community watched in despair as Russia now used essential commodities to gain world domination and control, now using food as a weapon.

If we were able to ship our fertilizer, our potash, to eastern Canada from Saskatchewan by rail, we would not have to rely upon Belarusian and Russian fertilizer, We would be able to step in and fill the gap to ensure food security for not only Canada but also other parts of the world.

I have shared this earlier in other speeches: On my own farm, we have used more Russian and Belarusian potash over time than we have our own from Saskatchewan. We have used more imported urea from Russian sources than our Canadian-made fertilizer from western Canadian gas, because we do not have a pipeline that brings natural gas to eastern Canada. It would be possible to bring Saskatchewan potash more affordably into eastern Canada by rail if our train cars were not hauling so much crude to eastern refineries.

There is much we could do. Canadians have paid the price for the Prime Minister's “all socks and no substance” policies. Now, unfortunately, the world has to pay a dear price for the same Liberal rhetoric in the form of energy and food insecurity.

The foreign affairs committee made several recommendations with respect to Russia's illegal war against Ukraine. The Conservatives are calling on the Liberals to stop supporting pro-Putin policies, as it did by signing off on the six turbines for Nord Stream. It is time for the Conservative common-sense plan that would turn dollars for dictators into paycheques for our own people in this country.

I look forward to questions from my colleagues.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services]

Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the hon. member could justify his comments around forcing an ideology on Ukraine, considering that it has its own homegrown carbon pricing system. It was a co-operative partner in the development of this agreement and urged us to pass it.

Could the member make this make sense?

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I can answer very simply. Is this what Ukraine needs? Is this what it came to Canada asking for? I have not heard any speech or anything from the Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada, any Ukrainian representative or any member of Parliament asking us to negotiate a carbon tax into our trade agreements. If there is evidence, I would be open to looking at it. That is not what it needs right now. It needs a reliable partner in all of the areas that Canada has expertise in and exporting a carbon tax is not one of our Canadian pieces of expertise.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I find it very disturbing that Conservatives are trying to rewrite history.

President Zelenskyy was in this very House calling for all parties to support the trade agreement with Ukraine. We had the Ambassador of Ukraine endorsing the trade agreement with Ukraine.

Ukraine is going through an incredibly difficult time. I know Conservatives try to minimize the horrific bombings and attacks that are taking place daily as Ukrainian citizens die, but what happened yesterday was a betrayal of every single Ukrainian and Ukrainian Canadian by the entire Conservative caucus. Conservatives rose as one not to vote about the details of the trade agreement, but to say they opposed in principle a trade agreement with Ukraine.

My simple question, through you to the hon. member, is this: How could Conservatives betray Ukraine and Ukrainian Canadians in such a nefarious fashion?

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member's party ran in every single election against free trade.

Our record is perfectly clear. We negotiated with my colleague, the hon. member for Abbotsford, and signed the agreement in 2017. As we have heard from other Conservative members in this House, we are solidly in favour of free trade. Where in this free trade agreement is energy security? Where is the partnership and research? Where is supply chain infrastructure and the establishment of a Canadian-Ukrainian agri-food business council?

Why would the member say we are minimizing the horrific attacks? I would like to know the basis of that. We stand with the Ukrainian people. We call out the violence there. I have no idea where that comes from.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, it was a great pleasure working with my colleague on the foreign affairs committee in the course of the development of this report.

We are in a new global cold war. The member correctly describes the way in which access to commodities is a crucial part of that struggle. Canada developing its capacity in areas around food and fuel and supplying our democratic allies around the world in order to make them less dependent on Russia and other hostile powers is a very important part of this struggle for freedom and democracy. That is why Conservatives have championed the role Canada can play in supporting global energy security.

Sadly, the Liberals do not understand this. Their anti-energy ideology is getting in the way of Canada playing its global role in defending global security. It is very telling that in an agreement that should have been about supporting Ukraine in meeting its food and fuel needs, supporting Europe with its energy security and a deal that could have included provisions around energy security, the government instead wanted to impose a carbon tax on Canadians as well as Ukrainians, which underlines how wrong it is. This is the big question right now.

In their hearts everybody would say they want to help Ukraine, but the concrete way to help Ukraine, yes, crucially, is to supply it with weapons, but to also undermine European dependence on fuel exports as part of the Russian war machine. This is what has been missing. This is what needs to change.

I would like my colleague's comments on how important it is to take into consideration the energy security dimension of this new cold war.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I absolutely agree with the premise of the question put before me.

Canada has so much more it could give toward energy security for Ukraine and our European allies, not only energy security, but also food security. I have raised this several times, both at committee and in this House. Eight billion people are in this world and four billion of them owe their lives to the conversion of fossil fuel, natural gas, to synthetic fertilizers. This has neither been challenged by anyone, nor has it been acknowledged other than by my Conservative colleagues.

I would ask those who are opposing the conversion of natural gas to supply to our allies in the form of either energy or fertilizer for food this: Which 50% of the world's people do they not want to see live?