Foreign Affairs committee  Again, what's important to avoid is that Russian Orthodox church leaders campaign only in Russian neighbourhoods, among Russian populations, because if that happens, the signal is exactly the reverse of what you're talking about: it's divisive and it aligns church with language and ethnicity.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, and out of the campaigns, actually.

Foreign Affairs committee  I invite you all to come and visit Munk School in Toronto and spend some time with our students. They always benefit from meeting with members of Parliament.

Foreign Affairs committee  Certainly if we could deploy election observers 10 days or two weeks before the election, they'd get a better sense of what's happening on the ground. They establish contact with the people that they need to. What I would not recommend right now, given the uncertainty in southern and eastern Ukraine, is that we deploy any civilian personnel into an environment that is frankly explosive, where they would not be able to secure their own safety.

Foreign Affairs committee  The more we can coordinate with our allies, the more our impact would be. There's no question about it.

Foreign Affairs committee  The role of any multi-religious or multi-faith or multilinguistic group is absolutely critical in these kinds of situations. What normally happens under these conditions, and we see it everywhere, is polarizing, where communities, able to live together in peaceful terms, as security is threatened and as passions are heightened will break apart.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's an excellent question. Just to take us back for one moment, the Ukrainian government has the right to feel an enormous sense of betrayal, because when it gave up nuclear weapons, to put this in the broader context of security challenges in the world, Russia, the United States, and Britain guaranteed the integrity of Ukraine in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994.

Foreign Affairs committee  I hope so. I understand that there are dilemmas that Angela Merkel faces. I know our Prime Minister has been in touch with her on this subject. She will be pivotal; she will be absolutely pivotal in this next stage. I think she is shocked by what has happened. Anybody watching the news over the last 24 hours has to be alarmed, frankly, at what might unfold in the next 48 to 72 hours.

Foreign Affairs committee  There are two questions. Is there a point beyond which we say, “No more”? I think that point would be any authorized referendums in parts of eastern Ukraine or southern Ukraine that would allow a vote on whether to break away from Ukraine and join Russia. In other words, were there to be a referendum of the kind that was held in Crimea in any other part of Ukraine, that would be a point at which we would say, “No more”.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Garneau. This is a really difficult question to answer, as I said. Let me say again we have no evidence. Evidence matters, and we have no evidence. Let me just say there is a dark and then there is a darker interpretation. The interpretation you just put forward is dark in the sense that it's that President Putin has never accepted the loss of Ukraine and Belarus from the greater Russian sphere of influence, and that this is an opportunistic moment to reassert Russian influence, to construct a greater economic zone, particularly to keep Ukraine from joining or affiliating with the European Union, and that he seized the opportunity when it became apparent.

Foreign Affairs committee  One of the things that we know, for instance, from studying even the recent history of Yugoslavia in the 1990s is that your friends are sometimes the most difficult people to control. So it's not inconceivable that those in eastern Ukraine see the opportunity, understand that they can destabilize, and create an opportunity where the pressure inside Russia on President Putin from some of the groups that I've talked about will grow and they will [Inaudible—Editor].

Foreign Affairs committee  Let me reiterate that Ukraine is the victim in this situation, that is, Ukrainians who have borne the price of this, and that what is happening in Ukraine is illegitimate, wrong, alarming, and a terrible precedent for Europe, where we thought this period of European history had come to an end.

Foreign Affairs committee  I certainly think that there is growing concern in Europe and in Washington, and I'm sure that our diplomats are now working together very actively with those governments so that if any of what we've talked about occurs, they are ready to go on a dime with broader and deeper sanctions than we've currently seen.

Foreign Affairs committee  Let me make clear that there is absolutely no justification for the actions Russia has taken with respect to Ukraine. I think that has to be the starting point for any strategy we develop in concert with our allies. The behaviour of the Government of Russia toward Crimea and toward Ukraine more generally is simply unacceptable and illegitimate.

Foreign Affairs committee  You're quite right that it is in fact a careful balance that we're looking for. With respect to your first question, whether this is the moment to send our ambassador back to Moscow, we want to do that, clearly, in a context where we're rewarding some kind of behaviour from the Government of Russia, where we see some progress, some willingness to recognize that we need a political solution to Crimea, and that we want a referendum process, an election process, that is genuinely open and fair and doesn't take place under the shadow of guns.