Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House representing my home communities in Durham. The last time I rose in the House, on January 31, my speech was on Ukraine. A lot has changed since that speech, for me and where I sit in this chamber, but more important, and something that has had the world transfixed, is that our fears about a Russian invasion were actualized.
We have seen horrific videos of indiscriminate violence toward the civilian population by Mr. Putin and his Russian aggression. We have seen inspiring stories of parliamentarians, of elderly people and of people who had never held a rifle picking one up to defend their land, to defend their community and to defend their country. Our fears have been actualized. When I last rose in the House, I never thought we would see the extent of aggression we see.
It is good to be back. I want to start by thanking all members of the House for their remarks tonight. It has been nice to see all sides coming together to stand up for our friends in Ukraine. I want to thank the government for moving on weapons for our allies in Ukraine. That was the subject of our debate a month ago. I want to thank the government for the aid that has been provided, the move alongside our allies to take Russia out of the SWIFT financial system, and the restrictions on airspace. There must be a full-court press of both diplomatic and security pressures brought to bear to halt this aggression and save lives. I want to thank the government, and I want to thank the Conservative opposition and all members of the House for this debate tonight.
I would also like to thank Canadians, business leaders, community and charity leaders across the country for stepping up, donating and doing drives to raise awareness and raise funds to help. Particularly, I want to thank the Ukrainian Canadian community, which has always inspired me, from my very first speech as a fledgling politician in the Dnipro Hall in Oshawa with members of the long-standing Ukrainian community there. The League of Ukrainian Canadians, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and charities and credit unions across this country are stepping up, and I know that it is providing hope.
The debate we have here tonight is one of unity because it is about the values we represent as a country: the commitment to liberty, to democracy and to the rule of law that we want to see our millions of friends in Ukraine have as well. It has been shocking to hear some of the stories. This morning, I heard an interview with a Ukrainian member of parliament. She is 37, and her name is Inna Sovsun. Speaking to a Canadian journalist, she said, “I'm so much better with words than with arms, but I will pick up arms if it comes to that”.
We are so fortunate in the House that we never have to worry about going beyond our words. We see the president, and all sides of their parliament stepping up, inspiring and even taking up arms to defend their land. It is something. As Canadians, we have to act and be relevant within NATO, the United Nations, the G7 and the G20 to make sure countries such as Ukraine do not face this brazen aggression, this hostility of the highest order, or else we will become a world where politicians have to stop the words and pick up the arms. That is a scary notion. I want Ms. Sovsun to know that parliamentarians around the world, including here in Canada, are going to fight hard to make sure she can continue to fight with her words and her democracy and not have to resort to picking up arms.
In the spirit of co-operation, with my words of thanks I would like to provide two recommendations to the government in this debate.
It is an honour for me to be here as the member for my home communities. I am a proud veteran. We need our foreign policy to be based on our values as a country and as a society. That policy also needs to be focused on our allies and our friends around the world, including Ukraine.
There are two very specific recommendations that I would like to bring to the government's attention. The first is that we have to return to interest-based foreign policy. What are our interests, from an economic and trade standpoint? What are our diplomatic and humanitarian assistance interests as a nation? What are our security concerns? What are our defence alliances as a country?
We are one of the most multilateral countries in the world because we have always had to be, as a trading nation: a nation that straddles the northern half of the Americas, a nation born not of revolution, but of evolution from an empire. We now stand as one of the world's great democracies. We have to have our foreign policy not based on appealing to small groups or appealing to the issue of the day. We have to make it based on our strategic, long-term interests as a country and on our values as a country.
When the Deputy Prime Minister laid out the government's foreign policy approach in a speech in this place in 2017, she began her remarks with a question. She asked, “Is Canada an essential country at this time in the life of our planet?” The government then did not really lay out interests, but laid out a number of emerging issues. We have seen that repeatedly with progressive trade agendas, with climate change and other issues outflanking our economic, security, trade, diplomatic and humanitarian interests as a country.
That has to change because all issues are a priority, from climate change to some of the progressive trade agenda that was promoted with the United States, but our security as a country, and our relevance within NATO and within NORAD, are critical to what our country must advance. I would ask the government, in the spirit of co-operation we see here, to make sure that we have the equipment we need for our Canadian Armed Forces, and that we arm our diplomats and our aid workers with the tools and the funds they need to assert our interests and will around the world. We have been lulled into a sense of complacency.
The second recommendation I have relates to our Arctic. It is something that I have been talking about for many years. It is something that I was pleased to work on with Michael Levitt when he was chair of the foreign affairs committee. We conducted the most robust examination of our interests in the Arctic in a generation. It was titled, “Nation-Building at Home, Vigilance Beyond: Preparing for the Coming Decades in the Arctic”.
The April 2019 report stated that, “The Arctic is a fundamental and indivisible part of Canada”, and that when we wrote it our sovereignty was at risk. The first section of that report dealt with Russia's military and security buildup in its portion of the Arctic, Russian interest in the continental shelf and Russian interest in polar trade and circumnavigation routes.
We are decades behind where we need to be in asserting our Arctic sovereignty. “We the north” should be more than a hashtag we use when we are proud of our basketball team. This defining element of our country right now is in jeopardy, so we need the ships, the drones, the personnel, the rangers and the infrastructure investments to realize the true potential of Canada and recognize that we are a neighbouring country to Russia.
Based on our national interests and a foreign policy based on that, we also have to help our friends in Ukraine. We need to provide that continued support through the winding down of the SWIFT financial system and with sanctions, including the Magnitsky sanctions brought in with the help of my friend for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman. We need to make sure that we have the military equipment needed for Ukraine to defend itself. We should work within NATO to see how we can use parameters, including looking at restricting the ability for Russia to inflict more damage, and then of course help with refugee support.
The 1.4 million Ukrainian Canadians have helped build this country. Canada was the first nation to recognize Ukraine.
Tonight, let us show, as parliamentarians, that we will continue to be one of the strongest, one of the most consistent and one of the most steadfast allies of Ukraine.
