Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to be able to rise to speak on the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement, Bill C-31, at third reading. Again, I would like to thank the government for getting this over the finish line. I want to, of course, take credit for it with our own Conservative government, the previous government, that started these negotiations and the member for Abbotsford and the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster who worked so hard in getting this done when they were in cabinet. It really does speak to how, on an all-party basis, we feel that this is an important trade agreement that benefits Canada and Ukraine. It is also about Canada demonstrating to the people of Ukraine that we stand with them during these very destabilizing times, with the fighting that we are seeing in Donbass, with the ongoing Russian proxies and the Russian military coming across the line into Donbass and continuing to escalate the violence. Of course we always have to remember the illegal invasion and occupation and annexation of Crimea and demand that the Russian Federation return that property, return that land back to Ukraine. No one in Canada and no one in the international community should ever recognize Crimea as anything but sovereign Ukrainian territory.
On the issue of Canada-Ukraine free trade, I think many Canadians often ask, “Where are the economic benefits? Where is the spinoff?” It has only averaged around $290 million a year in bilateral trade between Canada and Ukraine, but we know that Ukraine itself has great opportunities to grow and prosper. We know that the people are very industrious, that they are now a hub of high-tech expertise. As they start to recover from the sanctions that they face from Russia, from the ongoing revenues that are required to protect Ukrainian territory and fund its national defence efforts, there will be a growth in GDP. As they start to adjust and come out from underneath the damage that was done to the economy and the corruption that was created by President Yanukovych and his regime, we know that there is greater opportunity for Canadian business, as well as greater opportunity for Ukrainians to do business with us in Canada.
All the numbers suggest that we will see an increase in GDP in Ukraine as well as in Canada but, ultimately, we are trying to ensure that all those who are over there right now in Ukraine who are fighting for their freedom, fighting for their sovereignty, will someday enjoy that peace and the prosperity that comes with it. The only way we can give them the hope of seeing their livelihoods and their fortunes improve is that we have to also be with them from an economic standpoint.
There is no question that both the Liberal government and the previous Conservative government have helped with humanitarian efforts. We have helped with providing non-lethal kinetic equipment to its military. We have helped with reformation and getting corruption out of the Ukrainian government. We do know that type of assistance is welcomed but, ultimately, people of Ukraine are demanding that their government continue on with those reformations. They are demanding the corruption end and that they can actually enjoy the fruits of their labour without being shaken down on the street when they are taking their kids to school, by someone from the police or someone from the Russian mafia or anything along that line.
I just want to quickly highlight that there are some great opportunities. There are already Canadian companies that have done some amazing business in Ukraine. A lot of people do not realize but if they go shopping on Canadian Tire online, its entire online system is provided by a company out of Lviv called EPAM. It is a high-tech organization. It is there to help with any outsourcing that any company wants in managing their online and web services, from shopping to website management. It is there to assist and it does great work.
Bombardier is already in Ukraine, doing work and providing more in the areas of engineering and research and development in Kharkiv.
And then, right out of Winnipeg, Ag Growth International is providing grain-handling equipment. It is joint-venture farming in the Ukraine and would really like to see that expand. It really sees a future.
Many of us have agricultural backgrounds. The member for Battlefords—Lloydminster and I have been farmers. Whenever we go to Ukraine, the agricultural expanse is just amazing. It is the breadbasket of Europe and it is becoming a greater and greater exporter. That is one of the main resources Ukraine has and can capitalize on. Anything we can do from a Canadian standpoint to do more business in the agriculture sector there and to help with grain handling, with testing, with getting it to market is something we can really capitalize on and it would be very beneficial to both Ukraine and Canada.
Pratt & Whitney has just started a joint venture project with Antonov to refurbish aircraft and supply engines to Saudi Arabia and other countries.
Often Ukraine is referred to as a modern Silicon Valley because of the high-tech sector, how it is developing, the education system and the way it has been set up. It has a number of hubs that have been situated around the country. They are attracting the right talent and the right environment is being created. There are things we can do in the high-tech industry there, and it is already worth over $5 billion U.S. There is this great opportunity for Canada to partner with Ukraine, capitalize on that as well and make our country more prosperous along with it.
One thing about having more trade is that it creates a new need, and that is the free flow of people. I tabled a petition in the House a while ago, with over 2,400 signatures on it from across Canada, demanding that a new visa regime was brought in so people could visit Canada from Ukraine a lot easier. We get to go over there visa-free for six months. They are asking for a reciprocal agreement with Canada so their youth, their students, their business people and those who are trying to reconnect with family can more easily come to Canada. As trade and their economic prosperity improve, there will be an increasing demand for us to change the visa regime. I encourage the government to look at the visa situation.
What we are looking at today is the escalation in fighting in Donbass, where there are Russian proxies, Russian military equipment and Russian soldiers who are so-called on leave and who are fighting in Donbass. That has definitely increased.
We know that President Putin loves to test the strength of world leaders. There is a new president of the United States. Even though there has been a lot of platitudes and diplomatic niceties exchanged between both President Trump and President Putin, we see Putin, behind his back, escalate the aggression in Donbass to see what type of response he will get from President Trump. He wants to see whether Trump is a man of his word, that he will stand by his rhetoric. He wants to see if he can determine whether he has the strength or weakness to deal with the international obligations that surround the violence in Donbass, and if he will stand with President Poroshenko and the people of Ukraine in pushing Russia out of Donbass.
There is a situation where Ukraine still needs defensive military equipment. I believe the government needs to look at everything, from defensive weapons to more non-kinetic military equipment, as well as supplying Ukraine again with RADARSAT images that Canada had been providing until June last year, something that Prime Minister Harper had committed to, and allow the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian military, to see what type of excursions were taking place by Russian forces across into Ukraine, and also where the military units in Donbass, operated by the rebels, the Russian proxies, were stationed so they could adjust their military defensive lines in the appropriate fashion.
It is time to reinstate those RADARSAT images, to share those images with the military of Ukraine.
It is also time for the government to finally sign the defence and security co-operation agreement that the Conservative government under Stephen Harper had negotiated. All it needs is to be inked out, to ensure that we can have the ongoing military co-operation that we already see with Operation Unifier, which runs out at the end of March. I am hoping that the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Foreign Affairs will renew that mission for more training and more co-operation.
Training is beyond just training soldiers. We are also training its military police, its logistical officers, and its medics so they can deal with traumatic injuries in the field, something that we have a great deal of experience with, coming back from Afghanistan and including what is happening today in Iraq.
Sharing that wealth of knowledge through Operation Unifier is one thing that I hope, and I demand, the government renews and extends for at least another two years; but the security co-operation agreement would help with the exchange of soldiers and military officers coming to Canada. It would help with the ongoing movement of military equipment between our two countries because it would be on a most favoured nation list then and be able to acquire Canadian military equipment. It is important that the agreement be signed and finalized, and now is the time to do it.
We are going to get the trade deal done. We are at third reading now, and the bill is going to go to the Senate where I expect it to be finalized in short order.
Ukraine needs our help today with the military fight that is taking place in Donbass, with the invasion, and with the escalation of violence coming from Russia and its proxies in Donbass.
President Poroshenko, when he was here, both talked about the extension of Operation Unifier, asking the Government of Canada to do that, and addressed the need to make sure that we get the security and defence co-operation agreement signed, get the radar satellite images reimplemented, and continue on with our co-operative training and assistance, which we have been doing with more than 200 soldiers. We pay tribute to all of those soldiers who are over there.
I hope that our Prime Minister is listening. I hope that the government will come to the aid of Ukraine again and stand with President Poroshenko and the Government of Ukraine. More importantly, this is about standing with the people of Ukraine who have to deal with this situation. They see Canada as their closest friend and ally. They appreciate all the help we have provided, the way we have been able to work through Operation Unifier, and the way we have worked with our NATO allies through NATO's Operation Reassurance. The people of Ukraine really appreciated our bringing our frigates into the Black Sea. They appreciate our going in there with the NATO maritime task force and doing co-operative training and exercises with the Ukrainian navy.
The former minister of foreign affairs liked to talk about having a normalized relationship with Russia. He also talked about how he wanted to appease President Putin by talking to him about what was happening in Ukraine. I have great hope that the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was the minister of trade and helped to get this final agreement to the House as a legislative bill, will continue on with her love of Ukraine and not appease Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. She has a lot of experience in Moscow, having worked there as a journalist, and she has written extensively about the corruption in Russia and how it continues to try to exercise its sphere of influence over Ukraine. I would hope that, despite her predecessor taking a rather soft stance with Ukraine and trying to appease Russia, she will have the intestinal fortitude to stick to her beliefs, as someone like me who is proud of our Ukrainian heritage, and will continue to fight for the people of Ukraine.
It will be interesting. Like me and a few others in this House, she has been banned from Russia. When she needs to meet with Foreign Minister Lavrov in Moscow, they will probably have to find a different rendezvous place. Perhaps Kiev would be a good place for them to have their discussions.
One of the things that I congratulate the government on is that it has continued with our line of sanctions against those in Russia and Ukraine who are responsible for the violence in Donbass, as well as the illegal activities taking place in Crimea. We have to make sure that we not only continue to hold those sanctions in place until Russia returns Crimea to Ukraine but we also have to continue to expand them. One of the ways we can do that is through the Magnitsky Act, which is one of the things that we have looked at, and I know the foreign affairs committee is studying it.
As members know, I tabled a bill in this House to have the Magnitsky Act become law. A similar bill was tabled in the other place by Senator Raynell Andreychuk. The bill in the Senate has passed committee stage. It is going back for report stage and then third reading. It is my hope that we will see it over here in the next few weeks so that we can have that debate in the House and give the Government of Canada the tools, through the Special Economic Measures Act, as well as the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, to impose travel bans and take action on economic sanctions against not only those corrupt foreign officials who are responsible for what we see happening in Ukraine and in Russia today but also against other individuals globally who are abusing their authority and power within their own governments against their own people. This could apply to corrupt dictators in North Korea or China. We could also be looking at individuals who may be committing human rights abuses in Venezuela, Indonesia, and even Cuba. There is an opportunity to use this on a larger scale.
The way the Special Economic Measures Act works right now is that Canada will not move against individuals unilaterally. We always work through multilateral organizations. If the UN or the OSCE pass a resolution, or NATO provides an article stating that we need to go after certain countries and individuals within those countries for human rights abuses, for corruption, or for military incursions that happen from time to time, then we can take action. However, the way our legislation is set out today, we are prevented to unilaterally act on our own, under our own authority, when we think it is right. That is why the Magnitsky law is so important, not only to go after Russians, which originally was the case in the law that was passed in the United States a few years ago, but, at the urging of Bill Browder, to remember Sergei Magnitsky for the fight he had with the Russian government in standing up against corruption and human rights abuses. Unfortunately, Sergei Magnitsky was murdered after being arrested, tortured, and detained in prison. Just this past December, the U.S. passed a new global Magnitsky Act, similar to what I am trying to do with my bill and what Senator Raynell Andreychuk is doing with hers, which is to provide that global scope in the memory of Sergei Magnitsky for fighting for that freedom.
In conclusion, I am looking forward to seeing this bill become law. I hope that it goes through the Senate in an expedited fashion, and that ultimately we will see a strong relationship on the trade front grow and expand because of the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement. I know that the people of Ukraine are the ones who would benefit the most and would see their economy improve. I subscribe to the saying that a rising tide lifts all ships, and this is about raising the waters right now.
