Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to say that I will share my time with the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing.
Naturally, we are all concerned about the situation in Ukraine and by developments in recent days. Clearly, this is an emotional issue for many in the House tonight. This all started with the European Union association agreement, but it is not really about the European Union association agreement. What this is really about is democracy, human rights and, most of all, dignity. That is what the people of Ukraine took to the streets to demand. Democracy has never been simple in Ukraine. There have been many difficulties and challenges, challenges that the people have met bravely. On January 16, there was an attempt to further paralyze the Ukrainian people's pursuit of progress. Under the circumstances, we have to send a strong message to the Ukrainian authorities, and that is why we are all here tonight.
Sending a strong message is not enough, though. We must act. We must prevent this spiral of chaos and violence from escalating. We can take action. Of course, we would be in a much better position to intervene if we had tools such as those that were promised, including the institute for democratic development, which this government never set up, or the famous Rights and Democracy organization, which did an excellent job in this kind of situation. This does not prevent us from taking action. We have talked a lot tonight about working with our international partners to determine sanctions. I am not talking about just any sanctions. We do not want to attack or hurt Ukrainians. I am talking about truly targeted sanctions against the leaders and those who are taking this reprehensible action in Ukraine.
I also said we should work with our partners, with our allies. This evening, I have found it very interesting to see that, on the one hand, some are proposing to wait to see what Europe, the United States and other countries will do and, on the other hand, others want to act unilaterally. There is another possibility between those two options that would show true leadership, namely to take the initiative and push our partners to act to implement some sanctions or measures I will elaborate on in a moment.
I would be curious to know which proactive measures the government has taken to push our partners to act, instead of just waiting for them to act and then following suit. That would be true leadership, and Canada should display true leadership regarding Ukraine. We are all aware of the close historic ties between our two countries. In fact, that is why Canada was the first country to recognize Ukraine's independence in 1991.
We should be playing a leadership role. Isolationism is not the answer and neither is a wait-and-see approach. We must take action.
There are countless options. Obviously, we must prevent the leaders and those I would call the troublemakers, the people involved in the repression, from being able to travel to Canada. Again, with our partners, we must prevent them from being able to travel anywhere. We must freeze their assets. It is important to work with our partners on this and then we can accelerate the movement.
It is a question of sanctions, but beyond sanctions we can also take more positive measures. That is more or less what the Ukrainian Canadian Congress recommends. For example, we could provide asylum to Ukrainians or to family members of the protesters who were killed, speed up the visa process, take in the injured here in Canada and treat them. We are hearing reports that the police are rounding up the injured in hospitals and leaving them in the forest. In any case, many of the stories are going to require further investigation. In the meantime, these are the measures that Canada could be taking to save lives.
Again, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress would like to see help on the ground such as the construction or operation of an emergency hospital with the Red Cross because the situation has become quite dire. These are things we could consider.
Obviously, as I was saying, we must monitor the situation closely. Knowing my former colleagues, I am sure that our ambassador is doing extraordinary work monitoring and looking at what is happening on the ground, but we must also look to the future.
These are some of the measures we could be taking. I say “could”, but it is our duty. We must support the people of Ukraine at this difficult time in their history.
Before closing, I would like to take this opportunity to commend the courage of all those who stand up to defend their rights and dignity in the cold, in fear, because there is a tremendous amount of oppression and intimidation. People are being beaten and humiliated. I would like to commend the courage of these people who stand up and say no and defend their rights.
Unfortunately, I do not speak Ukrainian, but all those people there who are fighting are speaking the language of dignity. They are speaking the language of hope and that is a language that we all share.