OTTAWA-Canada’s Official Opposition Conservative Party wants the federal Liberal government to provide Ukraine with faster and more fulsome support in defending itself against a possible Russian invasion.
James Bezan, deputy Conservative whip in the House of Commons, said that his party wants Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to immediately extend Canada’s military-training mission in Ukraine, which is set to conclude at the end of March.
Bezan, who is of Ukrainian descent, said: “We need to not only announce it sooner than later – especially in light of the buildup of Russian military along Ukraine’s border – but to also send a strong message to Moscow that Canada will continue to stand with Ukraine and train its military to NATO standards.”
At a news conference in Ottawa on Wednesday, Trudeau was asked whether his government would keep running Operation UNIFIER. Through this mechanism, around 200 members of the Canadian Armed Forces are deployed to Ukraine every six months to train candidates for the Security Forces of Ukraine.
“We will continue to be there to stand as part of our NATO allies with our friends in the region,” the prime minister said. He acknowledged that Canada is leading a NATO battlegroup with over 500 troops in Latvia and is involved with UNIFIER, which is part of a Multinational Joint Commission that includes Canada, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, Denmark and Sweden.
Canada became a member of that commission in 2015, when the Conservatives, under former prime minister Stephen Harper, were in power and when Bezan served as parliamentary secretary to the defense minister in that government.
Trudeau said he had “an outstanding conversation” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when the two leaders spoke by phone on Tuesday.
According to a readout of that call from Trudeau’s office, “Zelensky thanked Prime Minister Trudeau for the Canadian military training mission in Ukraine, Operation UNIFIER, and the two leaders discussed Canada’s strong, ongoing support and the future of its assistance.”
According to a release from Zelensky’s office, “the importance of continuing the Canadian UNIFIER mission to train the Ukrainian military was noted.”
Among the tasks outlined in Trudeau’s Mandate Letter to Defense Minister Anita Anand last month, is the “commitment” to extend UNIFIER.
In the Ukrainian recap of the call between the prime minister and the president, Zelensky also “expressed confidence that Canada will continue to provide full support to Ukraine on its path to membership in [NATO],” a point absent in the notes from the Canadian prime minister’s office.
However, the alliance was mentioned in another readout released on Wednesday following a conversation between Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba.
“Joly expressed Canada’s deep concern with Russia’s military buildup and ongoing destabilizing activities in and around Ukraine,” said the statement.
“The ministers discussed the importance of dialogue in forums such as NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe so that a peaceful resolution to this situation may be found.”
At his news conference, Trudeau said that he told Zelensky that Canada “condemned in no uncertain terms the Russian aggression and build-up of troops” and is “calling on Russia to de-escalate and indicated that there will be significant consequences in the form of sanctions if further aggressive actions are taken by Russia.”
Any sanctions taken need to be tough, starting with those under Canada’s Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act – also known as the Sergei Magnitsky Law. This law is named after the Moscow lawyer who uncovered the largest tax fraud in Russian history and died in 2019 in a Moscow prison after being detained without trial and subsequently tortured.
Since the law was passed in 2017, Canada has imposed sanctions related to incidents of corruption and gross human rights violations associated with officials in Venezuela, South Sudan, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia.
“Why isn’t Vladimir Putin on that list?” asked Bezan, since the Russian president –“estimated to be the richest person in the world,” – is not subject to sanctions that would freeze his assets, including what could be held in Canada.
He added:
“We should be taking a strong position to ensure that Canada is not used as a safe haven for those who want to create war in Eastern Europe.“
Bezan is one of 13 Canadians banned from traveling to Russia after the Harper government imposed economic sanctions and travel bans on 45 Ukrainian and Russian officials following Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Former Conservative senator Raynell Andreychuk, a Ukrainian Canadian who first proposed the Magnitsky Law in Parliament, is also on that list, along with Paul Grod, the now-president of the Ukrainian World Congress who was added when he served as head of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC).
Last month, the UCC sent Joly a briefing note on “deterring a further Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
It provided Canada’s Foreign Minister with a list of recommendations, including a call for an extension and enhancement of Operation UNIFIER and a substantial increase in “the provision of defensive weapons to Ukraine – most importantly anti-tank, anti-artillery, naval and air defense systems.”
On the latter, the UCC highlighted Ukraine’s inclusion in 2017 on Canada’s Automatic Firearms Country Control List, which enables Canadian companies and individuals to “apply for a permit to export prohibited firearms, weapons and devices to Ukraine.”
The congress also called on the Trudeau government to restore the provision of “real-time satellite imagery and intelligence to Ukraine on Russian military movements” that the Harper Conservatives introduced in 2015 but which the Liberals – following their electoral victory that year – ended in 2016.
“The Russian regime has shown time and again that it reads restraint as weakness and that it responds only to strength,“
said the UCC briefing note. “The most effective way to deter a further Russian invasion of Ukraine is to take proactive, rather than reactive, steps.”
