Madam Chair, it is indeed an honour for me to be rising today as the shadow minister of national defence for the official opposition, the Conservative Party, and also as someone who is incredibly proud of his Ukrainian heritage.
I have to say this at the outset. I want to make sure everybody understands that Conservatives support Ukraine. We denounce Russia's invasion in Ukraine, which Putin has committed and has allowed his military to commit war atrocities and war crimes against the innocent people of Ukraine. Because of that, we support the Canada-Ukraine strategic security partnership, which will enhance the co-operation between Canada and Ukraine and between the Canadian Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We need to do more, not less, and we believe that this security agreement will set the tone.
We have spent the last couple of days here in Ottawa paying tribute to the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, former prime minister of Canada, who lay in state the last couple of days here in Ottawa, and I want to extend my condolences to Mila, to Caroline, to Ben, to Mark and to Nicolas. Brian Mulroney is so key to tonight's debate because of his incredible support for Ukraine. He was the first western leader, on December 2, 1991, who recognized Ukraine's independence, and I think it is very important that we honour his legacy and also the incredible work he did to make that happen.
The fall of the wall in Berlin and the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics all happened because of the work done by Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Brian Mulroney to apply increasing sanctions on the U.S.S.R. to make sure the Soviets were not able to fund their war machine and to put the Soviets into bankruptcy. Because of their incredible work of reaching across the Atlantic and of making sure they worked in partnership as western liberal democracies that shared a common heritage and loved freedom, democracy and human rights, they stood up against that Soviet bear.
Today, we find ourselves in a similar situation, where the Russian bear is now trying to flex its muscles, using its own war machine to invade Ukraine and to commit war crimes. To undermine the NATO alliance and to undermine all our democracies, Russia has been feeding out propaganda and misinformation that has only been paled by going back to Hitler's Nazis and what Goebbels did to make sure that misinformation and propaganda was disseminated, to not only their own citizens, but also around the world. As such, it is a responsibility of our western democracies to make sure people understand that what they see and what they get are actually two different things when we are dealing with the Kremlin, the kleptocrats there and their propaganda.
I think it is important, at this time, to also recognize that our friends in Ukraine and our friends in Israel are facing some horrific situations from terrorism, from war crimes and from barbarism, and we need to make sure we continue to stand with Ukraine and continue to stand with Israel in their times of need. We must call for the release of all hostages taken in Ukraine, who are being held in Russia, and all hostages taken in Israel, who are being held by Hamas. They have kidnapped over 20,000 children. They are brainwashing them and often using them in their military as cannon fodder against their own country, and I think that is deplorable.
As a Conservative, I am proud of our track record of supporting Ukraine. It started with Brian Mulroney, and many of us sat in caucus and in government with Stephen Harper. We were there for Ukraine in bringing forward Operation Unifier.
We were there for Ukraine by supplying it with military equipment as soon as the war in Donbas broke out in 2014, and with the illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea by the “little green men”, which we all know were the Wagner Group from the Kremlin. We were there providing things like winter kit, night vision goggles and body armour, and allowing the Ukrainians to be able to modernize. With Operation Unifier, they were able to train up to NATO standards and be in the position where they are today, able to fight back against what was supposed to be one of the superpowers in the world.
We had been saying this since 2018 when we saw that the war was not ending in Donbas. It was not just an insurgency happening in Luhansk and Donetsk. We knew that there were Russian troops on the ground supplying the weapons and the personnel that were carrying on the war and occupying territory in eastern Ukraine.
In 2018, Conservatives started to say that Canada should send over our surplus weapons. There was a cache of weapons sitting collecting dust in Montreal that was supposed to go to the Kurdish Peshmerga. That never happened, so we said, “Let us take those AK-47s, those grenades and grenade launchers and the Carl Gustaf anti-tank weapons, and give them to the Ukrainian military.” That did not happen until the war broke out in February 2022.
At that point in time, we immediately started saying, “Thank you for doing that, but we have more to do.” We have surplus weapons that are being disposed of, like our light armoured vehicles, our Coyotes, our Bisons and our armoured ambulances. Let us supply those to Ukraine. We have surplus Role 3 mobile hospitals that were bought for the COVID pandemic that were not getting used. They never came out of the containers. There are a dozen of them. Let us ship them over to help save lives on the front.
Let us send over more munitions. We need to ramp up our production of 155 rounds for the howitzers. Those artillery shells still have not increased in production to this very day, over two years since the war started.
Just recently, our leader of the Conservative Party called on the government to supply CRV7 rockets. There are 83,000 sitting in Dundurn, Saskatchewan, that are going to be disposed of, sent to the scrap heap. Instead of scrapping them, let us give them to the Ukrainians, who can use them to defend themselves and push back the Russian invaders.
In my last couple minutes, I have to say that I support the Canada-Ukraine strategic security partnership. In particular, I will talk about part 4.I and part 4.N. Part 4.I is “Resilience of Energy and other Critical Infrastructure”. It is important to note that this is talking about supporting Ukraine's overall energy sector. That means liquefied natural gas, which is the main source of fuel for its electricity. It is the main source of fuel for its heating. It is the main source of fuel to drive its economy.
We as Conservatives, including my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills as our shadow minister for foreign affairs, have clearly stated that the way we must stop putting fuel in Russia's war machine, the way we take cash out of the pockets of Putin and his kleptocrats in the Kremlin, is by taking away the market, the ability to sell their energy products in Europe. We need more Canadian energy.
There is also a focus on nuclear safety, and that is one thing Canada actually can do. We can do small nuclear reactors. We can actually help modernize the nuclear infrastructure Ukraine has, the power plants. I think we need to capitalize on that, and that will help Ukraine, especially as its nuclear power plants continue to be attacked by Russia.
Finally, part 4.N is “Compensation for Losses, Injuries and Damages Caused by Russian Aggression”, taking Russian assets here in Canada and around the world and using them to directly support Ukraine, Ukrainian families and Ukrainian businesses, and to rebuild Ukrainian infrastructure. It is also about the seizure and the repurposing of Russian sovereign options through compensation mechanisms. It is going to be a huge step towards actually allowing us to cover the losses, injuries and damages suffered by people who lost loved ones, and people against whom rape was used as a weapon, and to compensate people for the loss of their homes and their businesses.
This is a great opportunity for us to co-operate on all sides of the House to ensure that Ukraine is able to rebuild after the war ends, and that the Russian Federation pays for it.