Peggy Nash

[Ukraine, January 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I remember vividly being in Maidan in 2004 during the Orange Revolution. I was there as an election observer. After returning from Zaporizhia, I joined folks in the square, and I could not help but be caught up by the spirit of optimism and hope people were expressing at that point. That hope has been challenged in recent years. It has been challenged by subsequent elections.

I have gone back as an election observer twice since then. That hope has been challenged by subsequent events. We do not want Ukrainians to give up hope that they can achieve democracy. We need to support that desire for democracy. I firmly believe that those who are protesting are doing so because they want democracy, and that is surely what all of us here in the House desire.

I thank my colleague for also being at the demonstration yesterday and at other demonstrations in support of Ukraine. We are united in our goal. What we need to be is united in our action, and I hope we can come together tonight on that.

[Ukraine, January 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as the member for Parkdale—High Park, I am very lucky and privileged to represent a community in which many members of the Ukrainian diaspora reside. It is a community that has demonstrated repeatedly its commitment to democracy and human rights and to building a better Canadian society. It also a community that has shown its commitment to its homeland in Ukraine. It is a community that never forgot its roots. We are so proud to have seen so many young people who, even though born here in Canada, have learned the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian culture, and Ukrainian customs and are very active in the community.

I saw most poignantly, during the so-called Orange Revolution a decade go when a record number of members of this diaspora returned to the Ukraine. Members of the Ukrainian-Canadian diaspora from across the country returned to Ukraine to ensure fair and free elections during that time. It resulted, actually, in a change in outcome in the election in 2004 so that fraudulent elections were overturned and a more genuine result was the outcome.

I was inspired, at that time, to work with so many members of the diaspora and to learn about their commitment to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law here and in Ukraine.

I should have started off, Mr. Speaker, by saying that I am splitting my time with the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, who will be speaking after me.

This commitment to democracy was demonstrated, in fact, just today, when a member of our community, a young man who is studying here at Carleton University, Oleh Reive, came to Parliament Hill because he felt so passionately about what was happening in Ukraine. He was standing on Parliament Hill. He had a Ukrainian flag, the yellow and blue, and a Canadian flag. He was standing in the bitter, freezing cold waving this flag, calling for the Parliament of Canada to recognize sanctions against those who would submit to tyranny, those who would, in fact, try to impose tyranny on the people of Ukraine. It was very moving to see this young man out there in the bitter cold who felt so passionately about this cause.

I have to say, yesterday, I was at City Hall, in Toronto. We were joined by hundreds of members of the Ukrainian-Canadian diaspora who were demonstrating, again, in very bitter, cold conditions. It was snowing. It was very blustery, but they were there. They were determined to express their view that Canada has to take action, that the time for words, the time for just expressing our outrage and our sentiment that something has to change, is over. Canada has to act. Canada has to be a leader. We have to actually take action.

At that rally, I was proud to stand on the stage at City Hall and refer to the words of my colleague, the official opposition critic for foreign affairs, and express what he had called for, which is that Canada act, that we actually target not the Ukrainian people in general but those responsible, those who are trying to take Ukraine back into the tyranny of the past, and that we impose sanctions on them and their families. We should impose sanctions for travel and sanctions on their funds.

We should not allow Canada to be a travel or tax and money laundering haven for that community. Those responsible should be held to account. This is something that met with incredible popular support among those who were gathered.

People do not want to slip back into the past. Ukrainians are proud of what they have achieved. They want to move forward to what I think they would call a “normal” democracy, where there is respect for the rule of law and human rights, where opposition leaders are not thrown in jail, and where protestors are not shot or imprisoned. They want a future where Ukrainians can live a normal life. Many Ukrainians, I dare say most, were expecting that a trade agreement with the European Union would be symbolic of that democratic future for Ukraine. Those hopes were dashed. That is what sparked the Maidan protests we are seeing today.

I want to salute the heroes of the Maidan, those who have been out there day after day in the bitter cold; those who have lost their freedom, who have disappeared, who are in jail; those who have been injured; and those who have been killed during this situation. Those martyrs deserve our respect and our unquestioning admiration.

Their struggle should not be in vain. What we need to see as an outcome is for Ukraine to move forward. This needs to be an expression of the will of the Ukrainian people for a normal democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law, and the ability of all people to achieve their full potential. That is what Ukrainians want. That is what we hear our communities here in Canada expressing.

I cannot say enough how strongly the people I represent in Parkdale—High Park feel about this. I have joined them in many demonstrations calling for action from the Conservative government to impress upon Ukraine, in the strongest possible terms, the need for immediate action. We cannot wait any longer. Clearly the government is turning its back on the will of the people.

We have to react. Those who are taking Ukraine down the path of tyranny have to be held accountable. Their family members have suddenly overnight become billionaires. How does that happen? They have to be held accountable. They have to be held accountable in terms of the monies they have accumulated and in terms of their ability to travel freely throughout the world. That must not continue.

We owe a debt of gratitude to those who are standing up for human rights and democracy in the Maidan. They are the Euromaidan martyrs and heroes. We have to show that we are with them. That comes not only from words but from action.

My community is counting on the House and Parliament to take action. I am calling on my colleagues. I am so glad to see them here this evening. Let us stand together. Let us stay strong. Let us call on the government to act strongly in defence of those who are standing in the bitter cold in defence of democracy. The time to act is now.

[Finance, January 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it just shows what an effective opposition can do to force the government to take action. When it is time to act, the only action the Conservatives take is to attack the unemployed as if they were the problem.

Canadians are unhappy about the mess Conservatives have created with EI. Even the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans recognized that people are angry and are leaving her province because of it.

Will the Conservatives stop sitting on their hands and do something about the harmful impact of their own actions on the unemployed?

[Finance, January 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I hope not to have to read the details of the budget in The Globe and Mail this year.

While the Minister of Finance keeps trying to fix the mistakes in his last budget, Canadians are paying the price. The number of job losses increased in December and the unemployment rate went up.

Instead of making cuts to employment insurance and announcing measures on the fly, measures they will have to reverse in their upcoming budget, will the Conservatives make helping the unemployed a priority in the upcoming budget?

[Situation in Ukraine, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, my colleague is absolutely right. Ukraine does have a constitution. It does provide protection against human rights abuses, and I think that is an excellent idea. Canada engages with Ukraine on so many levels, whether it is with business, with education, with civil society. Given our history around human rights protection, and, again, the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, perhaps there is a way for us to reach out and provide some legislative support to help ensure its constitution is enforced, given what seems to be a situation of massive human rights abuses. I thank her for that suggestion.

[Situation in Ukraine, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, I think one of the things we need to do is exactly what we are doing tonight, which is to show that the Parliament of Canada is seized with the situation in Ukraine.

I want to thank my colleague the official opposition Foreign Affairs critic, the member for Ottawa Centre, for his efforts on this, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and those who are speaking here tonight.

President Yanukovych has said he is considering going to Brussels, and I think we should bring to bear international pressure on him should he choose to make that visit. We need to keep that international pressure on to show that the world is watching. That is not to alienate him, but to pressure him to engage so we can find a resolve here. It is not to shut the door on his presidency, and not to have him shut the door on the west. I think that would be a big mistake.

[Situation in Ukraine, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague opposite, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I think the Christmas spirit is breaking out in the House of Commons.

In all seriousness, it is indicative of the seriousness of this place and the seriousness of the issue that all parties have come together to have what is not really a debate but a discussion about this serious issue.

I thank the minister for his kind words. Again, I thank him for being in Ukraine, for being in the Maidan square. I have been there myself. I know how electric that can be when people come out in the streets and how passionately people want this change. People want to know that their country is truly evolving, that they are no longer living under a dictatorship.

The Berlin Wall has fallen. We are in a post-dictatorship era, yet some of the vestiges of dictatorship remain. I believe that is what is happening here. I join with all my colleagues in supporting the minister's comments, that what we really want to do is to encourage the government. We do not want to isolate them. We want to encourage them to reach out to engage with the opposition, and to find a way forward so that the democratic will of the people is represented and the democratic aspirations of this country can be fully recognized.

I think there is good will around the world for this to happen. We can reach out to the government of Ukraine and urge it to pull back from its suppression of demonstrators, and reach out to them instead to engage in dialogue.

[Situation in Ukraine, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, I am honoured to rise this evening to participate in this debate on the situation in Ukraine, which is incredibly troubling and urgent as Ukrainians live through this crisis. The world is clearly engaged and watching what is happening in Ukraine and I am very thankful that we are having this debate tonight.

I want to first say, as firmly as I can, working closely with my colleague from Ottawa Centre who is the NDP official opposition critic on international issues, that New Democrats stand firmly with the people of Ukraine in their hour of need. We are with them, we are here in solidarity and we support them in their struggle.

I want to pick up on what others have said here tonight. I believe all parties in the House are of one mind and one voice when it comes to support for the people of Ukraine in the situation they are in this evening. We are very concerned about the current crisis, the use of force against protesters, the denial of free speech and the increasingly eastward drift of Ukraine, turning away from the west and increasingly, we believe, turning away from democratic engagement.

I am very fortunate, as the member of Parliament for Parkdale—High Park, that I represent a very large Ukrainian Canadian diaspora and I am very proud that this community has stayed together so tightly and has such a strong culture. People have preserved their language, their art, their community and their engagement with what is happening in Ukraine, as well as contributing for generations to the building of our country, Canada.

I am very honoured that I have had the opportunity to work with the Ukrainian Canadian community and have come to understand the difficult, troubled history that Ukrainians have faced in their country, everything from dictatorship and the suppression of rights to the ultimate horror of the Holodomor in 1932-33, the famine genocide. It is absolutely unbelievable what the Ukrainian community has had to suffer and I am very proud that it is our country, Canada, that was the first to recognize the Holodomor as a genocide and has worked so closely with the Ukrainian community.

Because of the experience I have had in Parkdale—High Park, I have used that opportunity to engage with Ukrainian people. I first went to Ukraine as an election observer in 2004 during the Orange Revolution. Yes, I was in the Maidan square and it was this time of year. It was very cold, but the energy, emotion and passion of Ukrainians as they jammed into that square was absolutely palpable.

Of course, we were neutral election observers. We were there to observe, but I was sent to Zaporizhia, which was an all-night train ride into the central eastern part of Ukraine. We arrived exactly at 6 a.m. on December 25. It was an incredible experience. The reason we were there was that the presidential elections were deemed fraudulent and were being rerun. There had been a huge initiative undertaken to train all of those who were participating as staff in the election and the people who volunteered. I saw first-hand how passionately Ukrainians wanted the democratic process to work. I believe in that case it did work, because the results were overturned. They elected a different president and there was so much hope in the aftermath of those elections.

I had the opportunity to return to Ukraine twice after that to be part of subsequent elections, most recently in 2012 for the parliamentary election. There are some re-runoffs of those elections taking place in the near future.

I have seen first-hand the passion of the Ukrainian people, who want what they have described to me as a normal country, a normal society and a normal democracy. Normal means that opposition leaders do not get jailed right before an election. They do not get hauled off to trial on trumped up charges and then thrown in jail so they cannot participate in elections. Normal means the media does not get completely controlled in the months running up to an election. It means that people have the opportunity to freely and peacefully demonstrate and engage in their society.

I want to thank the many colleagues in the House who have been part of these observer missions and who have worked on the Canada-Ukraine parliamentary friendship committee. This is so important. I also want to thank those involved in the internship program. Through this program, I have seen first-hand, in my office here in Ottawa, smart, educated, talented young people from Ukraine, full of hope, who want to learn, who want to build their country.

I have so much hope for the future of Ukraine, yet here we are in these dark times right now debating the situation, all because the Ukraine government turned its back on its negotiations and its long-standing opportunity to form a trade partnership with the EU after years of negotiations. President Yanukovych turned his back on this and instead, when protestors start filling the streets in Kiev, he cracked down on them. He sent in the armed police who threw people in jail and beat people. That is not the way a democracy ought to function. Young people know better and that is why they are standing up against this brutality.

We are all here tonight with Ukraine. We have to ensure that whatever actions we or the international community take, there is engagement. We need not do anything that further isolates Ukraine.

I want to commend the Minister of Foreign Affairs for his recent trip to Ukraine and meeting with the protestors and engaging with the government. I believe we cannot just criticize Ukraine. We have to engage with it, but exert pressure as we engage also with civil society. With all of the work we have done, sending more election observers than any other country, we have the opportunity and we have the obligation to engage with Ukraine and advocate for it on the international stage.

We do have to call on the president of Ukraine to respect the rights of the citizens of Ukraine, to respect democratic assembly, to respect free speech, to respect the right of people to have fair and free elections and to respect their desire when the majority of Ukrainians want to have engagement with the west. We want to urge the government to allow that to happen.

We support the engagement of Ukraine with the European Union. We think that is a positive development. We also need to put pressure on Russia because we believe its undue meddling in Ukraine's affairs is really behind what is happening. We believe this is in violation of treaties that Russia has committed to in terms of submitting Ukraine to economic pressure. It needs to cease and desist from doing that.

There are many other measures that we support. We support the Ukrainian Canadian Congress's demands for a crackdown on money laundering and corrupt business practices. We support the desire of Ukrainians who come to Canada to have greater access to visas and an accelerated process.

I see my time is just about up, but just let me say:

[Member spoke in Ukrainian]

[Situation in Ukraine, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the member for his comments and for his leadership in the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Group.

I know that another member mentioned this in the House, but I have been looking at the BBC website, and as we are having this debate in the House, it is reporting that hundreds of police have moved on a large protest camp in the centre of the Ukrainian capital. That would be the Maidan square.

Ukrainians in Canada have been very concerned about the use of force and the government there not allowing the right to democratic protest, the right to free speech, and the ability to gather in this public square. There is great concern about the use of force in breaking up these demonstrations and about undue pressure being put on those demonstrators gathered in Maidan square. A number of students were arrested earlier, and there is concern about their treatment.

I ask the member if the government is sending an urgent message, especially this evening, as we are having this debate, that the government refrain from trying to remove the peaceful protesters and that it stop any undue force so that people's rights to free assembly and free speech are respected. That ought to be a basic right as we celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[Situation in Ukraine, December 10th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, one of the measures I know the Ukrainian Canadian Congress is looking for is Canada's help internationally in cracking down on money laundering in Ukraine, which is a tax haven. I am wondering if the government has plans to work with the international community to help crack down on money laundering in Ukraine?