Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Issue No. 63 - Evidence - Meeting of May 9, 2019
OTTAWA, Thursday, May 9, 2019
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day at 10:32 a.m. to study foreign relations and international trade generally (topic: update on the presidential elections in Ukraine).
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade is called to order. Before I begin, I will ask the senators to introduce themselves.
Senator Greene: Stephen Greene, Nova Scotia.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Nova Scotia.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan, Ontario.
Senator Dean: Tony Dean, Ontario.
Senator Busson: Bev Busson, British Columbia.
Senator Bovey: Patricia Bovey, Manitoba.
[Translation]
Senator Saint-Germain: Raymonde Saint-Germain from Quebec.
Senator Dawson: Dennis Dawson from Quebec.
[English]
The Chair: I am Raynell Andreychuk from Saskatchewan.
We will reconnect with a witness we had yesterday, but we had some technical glitches. I understand they have all been solved. We will have before the committee three witnesses, two by videoconference. I remind the witnesses we have your biographies and circulated them in order to be more efficient and give you more time and the senators to ask questions.
Today, the committee is authorized to examine such issues as may arise from time to time related to foreign relations and international trade generally. As part of this mandate, the committee is pleased to welcome experts to provide the committee with an analysis of the 2019 presidential election in Ukraine, what to expect next in Ukraine for the region, and for Canada.
The committee has received government officials from Global Affairs this past March to discuss the general situation in Ukraine, the pre-election. We are now interested to understand a bit more of the dynamics in Ukraine at the moment with some assessments of what might happen in the future in any way that we should take into account in our foreign policy in Canada, which is our role, to examine Canada’s foreign policy and give suggestions or comments.
I am very pleased to welcome by videoconference Dr. Sergiy Kudelia, Associate Professor, Political Science, Baylor University, Texas.
I have also by videoconference Dr. Frank Sysyn, Toronto Office Director, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.
In person here is Dr. Marta Dyczok, Associate Professor, Political Science and History, The University of Western Ontario. Welcome to you.
Dr. Kudelia, since we had you yesterday and you were just starting, I am proposing that we start with you with sufficient remarks so we can get a discussion going. But I am reminding you that we have time limits here, and we want to reserve as much time as we can for questions and answers.
Welcome again to the committee.
Sergiy Kudelia, Associate Professor, Political Science, Baylor University:Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable committee members, for giving me a second chance.
I will reflect, in my brief remarks, on the election itself and its meaning. In questions and answers, I will be happy to talk about future prospects of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s 2019 presidential election had three singular political outcomes. First, the conduct of the election was free and largely fair, despite growing authoritarian trends under President Petro Poroshenko and continued security risks associated with the armed conflict in Donbas.
Second, the incumbent president was defeated by the second largest round margin in Ukraine’s election history despite successfully reversing Ukraine’s sharp economic downfall and adopting a series of reforms that were widely praised in the West.
Third, the newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, received the largest share of votes of any winning presidential candidate in Ukraine despite having no prior political experience and running the shortest election campaign of all major candidates.
Further, I will elaborate on the significance of each of these three results for Ukraine’s future path.
Ukraine’s political regime has been classified as proudly free for all five years of Poroshenko’s presidency. The president used instruments of coercion to stem political opposition, intimidate journalists and prosecute civil society activists. He jailed some of his political opponents, pressured and closed independent media outlets and faced continuous corruption allegations emanating from his inner circle.
There was little accountability for pervasive human rights violations by government agencies while attacks against journalists and civic activists have often remained unpunished. In this context, the feasibility of a democratic election in 2019 was always highly uncertain, especially since Poroshenko’s popular support dropped to single digits.
Its timely holding can be largely attributed to the immense pressure from western governments, which clearly communicated to Poroshenko the inadmissibility of violating democratic process and suspending the vote.
Western leverage with Poroshenko was particularly strong because of continued Russian aggression and Ukraine’s reliance on external funding for its economic needs. The principal stance of the west left Poroshenko no other choice but to honour the election commitment. Poroshenko will likely go down in history as a political leader who scored major policy achievements, but ultimately, I would argue, he fell victim to his own personal biases and political insecurities.
During his presidency, Ukraine signed association agreements with the European Union and received a visa-free regime with Schengen Area countries. It became vital for European security by resisting Russian military invasion and forging a broad international alliance to sanction Russian leadership for its aggression against Ukraine.
Domestically, Poroshenko launched a series of institutional reforms that led to the devolution of power from the centre to the regions and created new instruments for fighting elite corruption. However, many of Poroshenko’s internal policies, particularly on language, education, and church-state relations, deepened societal divisions and alienated large segments of the public.
His hard-line policies regarding separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine undermined the prospects of the peace settlement in Donbas. His business deals with major oligarchs, particularly in the energy market, imposed costly financial burdens on ordinary Ukrainians. The elevation of long-time loyalists to key positions in Poroshenko’s inner circle fostered graft and impunity which strengthened public resentment of the rolling elites.
Against this backdrop, an outsider candidate who has long ridiculed the rich and powerful on stage, offered a chance to punish political class and disrupt a rotten and dysfunctional political system. It was this promise of infusing new blood into the system that set Volodymyr Zelenskiy apart from other more-experienced opposition candidates.
The opening for Zelenskiy’s rise, however, emerged in 2015, four years ago, when Poroshenko started a feud with a billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. At that time, Kolomoisky was a governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Poroshenko dismissed him from this position, took control over some of his business assets, jailed some close associates and banished Kolomoisky from the country. Kolomoisky’s television channel, 1+1, one of the most popular media outlets in Ukraine, then became an essential platform for Zelenskiy’s show, where he played a fictional president, and later promoted Zelenskiy as a real presidential candidate.
While outside resources certainly boosted Zelenskiy’s candidacy, it was his novel political style, emphasizing inclusive democracy and citizen participation, that enabled him to form a winning coalition already in the first round of the election.
Zelenskiy’s campaign relied on unifying messages of intercultural tolerance, individual empowerment and respect for personal autonomy, which stood in stark contrast to the present Poroshenko’s ethnonationalist agenda. As a result, Zelenskiy’s diverse support base has remarkably crossed ethnic, cultural and regional divides.
Zelenskiy advocated dialogue with people living in separatist-controlled territories and ruled out the use of military force to take them back.
Zelenskiy also appealed to younger voters with a promise of radical generational change. Actually half of his voters, 52.7 per cent, to be precise, in the first round were under 40 years old. Their exceptionally high turnout propelled Zelenskiy into the run-off with the incumbent president and ultimately to victory in the presidential election in Ukraine.
This highly unusual presidential race underscored several important features of the contemporary Ukrainian society. Despite continued conflict and economic destitution, Ukrainian voters rejected politicians running under paternalistic and ethnonationalist slogans. Instead, they opted to support someone preaching respect for diversity, freedom of choice and honest governance.
Second, Ukrainians again proved they see an election as an essential accountability mechanism for power holders who fail their duties. This demonstrates a fundamental break with the Soviet legacies of political passivity and acquiescence to political authority that is still strong in other post-Soviet states.
Finally, this election represents the rise to political prominence of a new generation of Ukrainians born and educated in independent Ukraine. They demand equality of governance, greater transparency and representation and a less intrusive state. The qualities of political moderation, self-reliance and assertiveness that were displayed by Ukrainian voters in this election offer the strongest guarantee of all of Ukraine’s future commitment to a democratic path.
Thank you very much.
The Chair: Now we will turn to Dr. Frank Sysyn from Toronto.
Frank Sysyn, Toronto Office Director, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, as an individual: Thank you. I will title my talk: Ukraine between Russo-Eurasianism and European Nation State. The Maidan Revolutions which took place under the European flag had many constituencies, and these constituencies thought of very different Europes. They thought of a Europe for individuals, for nations, and for states and did so in different ways. But the Ukraine of the Maidan was still a Ukraine that was regionally divided. What came after the Maidan was the Putin counterrevolution. First, the response of the so-called “Russian World” and then the failed attempt to set up “New Russia.”
The corollary to this was the willingness of Russia to use war in Ukraine and to annex territories, to break down European boundaries and create frozen zones. Poroshenko came to power with promises that he would quickly end the war, that he would bring Ukraine into Europe and that Ukraine would complete its path of becoming a nation, a state or a nation state, and all of those are slightly different.
Within that context, international factors were crucial. First was the relative unpreparedness of the EU for Russia’s reaction and to form its own contacts with Ukraine.
On the other hand, the relatively rapid sanctions from the West, and Canada plays a role in this, probably unexpected by the Kremlin; and then after this, Putin’s counterrevolution. I advise you to look at Timothy Snyder’s book The Road to Unfreedom, if you would like to look at what the ideological roots of this are, but these are a combination of populism and a challenge to the liberal state that ultimately went far beyond Ukraine and affected all of Europe and, to a considerable degree, the United States with this very strange Trump-Putin link.
What about Poroshenko and his record? An army was created in a state that virtually had a nonfunctional army partially by society, and partially by the president and the state. Decentralization was carried out within this state. Elements of nation and state building did occur. As we have seen in most recent times, the macro economy has begun to grow at the very end of the Poroshenko years. In this there were major changes. Above all, there were also the association ties with Europe and the opening up of visas.
On the other hand, there was the stalled war with no real prospect for this war coming to an end, no real or consistent policy of fighting with corruption, an increasing problem faced by Ukraine by migration abroad, one in which much of young and talented Ukraine was departing for the European community — going to Europe on its own without the country going there — and then the recent standoff in the Sea of Azov.
Above all the election we saw that happened was a sign of frozen elites and an ability to show new faces to a Ukrainian public that thirsted for those new faces and Poroshenko’s lack of understanding that, however cleverly he played the game, he was going to be an unacceptable candidate.
With that, he fell back on what he thought would be successful techniques, the army — which after all in the initial phase he had some positive success with, but ultimately was involved with scandals — the language issue, which was important to entire segments of Ukraine, who wanted to see Ukrainian function, not merely as a language on the books, but one in practice. Then, most unique, and I will address this in questions because it is my specialty, the issue of the church. An extremely complex issue of how one brings about an independent Orthodox church in our modern 21st century world.
These ultimately did not succeed against the wild card, Zelenskiy, the totally unexpected in many ways candidacy, one in which TV program and issues such as corruption, a society tired of a war but not knowing how to end it, and economic difficulties made it possible for Zelenskiy to shoot up despite all the planning and surprise of the Ukrainian elite on his movement forward.
It is also, on the other hand, a candidacy in which there was no real discussion of policies, of military or really even a foreign policy, leaving great quandaries for all of us.
We all know the statistics of 75 per cent to 25 per cent. I would say that as of today those statistics are already changing, and they will change by the week. The 75 per cent is a very disparate coalition that is falling apart at the very beginning. They voted for Zelenskiy for very different reasons. It is hard, therefore, to codify one kind of a Zelenskiy elector. The only thing we can say is that, at least in the initial phase, it had overcome the regional divides that typified Ukraine of the Maidan. But how long will it do so? How long before those areas which still believe strongly in an assertive policy towards national language, or who are very pro-NATO, pro-European community, who believe in the IMF, will stay part of this coalition — as opposed to those groups who joined it, many of whom came from the Party of Regions, the Opposition Bloc and the old Soviet past.
Ukraine faces a difficult election and Zelenskiy faces the problem of how one will have parliamentary elections in a country in which there are no really active parties, or relatively few of them, and how those parties will be created. He faces a Europe which is ever more divided and unsure of its policies. He faces the U.S. in which the U.S. Congress cannot figure out what the White House policies are. He always faces the war that will go on and policies of Putin. All of these will also exist in a country in which oligarchs and media play a major role in deciding elections and the future.
What about Canada and Canada’s role? We already know, as of yesterday, Canada will play a very active role. Canada, above all, has been very effective in promoting Ukrainian civil society and NGOs. That must be a continuing policy of Canada. Canada has been Ukraine’s international helpmate, clearly defined by the world community as a country closely related to Ukraine.
Canada also has experience, some of it negative and some of it positive, with federalism and decentralization but, above all, Canada also has language experience. Just think of the change of language in Quebec, the change in the city of Montreal and throughout the province, and how this was conducted over the past 40 years. That means Canada has experience that it can pass on to Ukraine, also some indication of how frequently these issues are not black and white and are often very delicate and must be handled very delicately.
In all these ways, I see a great need for Canada to engage in Ukraine. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you. We will now turn to Professor Marta Dyczok.
Marta Dyczok, Associate Professor, Political Science and History, The University of Western Ontario: Thank you for the opportunity to address this committee. I have to say you have fabulous timing. I don’t know if this was by design or by accident but, as you probably know, our Foreign Affairs Minister, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, was just in Kyiv yesterday meeting with the outgoing president, the president-elect and the foreign minister.
We see very positive signals from that meeting. The messaging both from the Canadian foreign minister and President-elect Zelenskiy is that the relationship is strong and will continue to be strong. That is a very important takeaway.
The two issues that they both focused on in their social media, which again you are probably following, are the need to continue to fight corruption in Ukraine and to try to find a resolution to the ongoing problem in Donbas, and what to do with that renewed commitment.
Having said that, we’re all here because we want to know more about President-elect Zelenskiy and what we can expect. Those are very complicated questions. I’m in contact with my Ukrainian colleagues on a regular basis. One of the things I kept asking them during the campaign and after is exactly this: What can we expect? Their answer is often very hard to know. We have a candidate, a person who is very smart, who announces he’s going to run for president in a video on New Year’s Eve and then he doesn’t actually campaign. He continues to perform in comedy clubs. He doesn’t meet with voters. He doesn’t give interviews. He wins a landslide victory.
His campaign platform is very appealing but very vague — anti-corruption, need for change. There are lots of other candidates who are campaigning on this exact same slogan.
One of the questions is, how did he actually win this landslide? Well, you know that he had a TV show where he plays the honest high school teacher who accidentally gets elected president and then goes and takes on all those horrible corporate leaders and corruption and makes life better for the average Ukrainian. He fixes roads and so on.
That TV show played during the entire election campaign. That was the campaign strategy. The TV show aired on the most popular TV channel in Ukraine.
I would like to draw your attention to three points. First is the importance of the media, not just in Ukraine but globally. We’re living in what people are calling a post-truth era. How is the media used, how is it effective and how is it manipulated?
The second point is forward-looking: How will President-elect Zelenskiy negotiate a relationship with what some people call oligarchs, what I call Ukraine’s corporate leaders? His TV show that got him elected ran on a TV channel owned by one of Ukraine’s richest men. How will that relationship be negotiated as well as other corporate leaders? He speaks of anti-corruption yet he has pre-existing relationships. How will they move into the future?
The third point is political inexperience. Mr. Zelenskiy is very smart. He’s a successful small businessman. He has this entertainment company that’s very popular, but he has no political experience. Who will he appoint to key positions? We don’t know that yet because he has not announced it. He once said that, after the inauguration, he will then tell us who he will appoint.
If you haven’t watched the TV show, I would recommend that you at least check it out. It is available on Netflix because there are a lot of indicators of what we might be seeing from President-elect once he actually takes power.
In the TV show, he appoints his close friends to positions of key power. From all the reports available, the people he is most listening to at the moment are his colleagues from his media company Kvartal 95 which produced this TV show.
The big test will be to see how he deals with those corporate leaders. One of them is in exile, accused of money laundering and fraudulent loans. He had to leave the country. How that will be negotiated is a big question.
How does all of this affect Canada? That’s what we really want to know. I don’t think there will be a change in the relationship. We saw that yesterday in the meetings. We saw this earlier when Prime Minister Trudeau called President-elect Zelenskiy to congratulate him on his victory. The response was, we need to keep Canada as a great partner and we look forward to working together. I don’t think there will be a lot of change in the policies of trade. The free trade agreement signed in 2016 is alive and well. There’s room for expansion there.
My recommendation would be to continue to strengthen Canada’s support in promoting independent and free media because the media will be key here. The trade relationships will continue to function. Political relationships will function, but how much we know about what is going on in Ukraine, what Ukrainians know about what is going on in their own society, the fact that the media system is owned by large corporate owners who also own other parts of the economy that will be struggling with each other. We have seen how the media can be used to win elections.
I asked the head of the sociological polling corporation whether anybody had done any polling on whether the Ukrainian electorate was distinguishing between Volodymyr Zelenskiy, political candidate for president, and the role he was playing on TV.
If you look at some of his campaign stuff on his Facebook page, he’s got the photograph from his TV show, a guy cycling, so a president cycling to work. That’s what he’s selling.
To what degree the Ukrainian electorate was buying the show and actually asking tough questions about who Zelenskiy was, there’s no way of measuring that. That was the response from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. There’s no way we can actually measure that.
For me, the indicator was that Mr. Zelenskiy did not give interviews during the campaign, and the way he communicates with the electorate is through his social media; he posts videos.
For him, he needs to be held accountable, and that needs to happen through independent media. That needs to be supported, because so far it is being controlled by these powerful businessmen.
I will stop there, and I will be happy to answer any questions you have.
The Chair: We have heard three very interesting perspectives, some commonality and some not so. It has been very helpful.
Senator Bovey: I want to thank all of you. This is utterly fascinating. I have to say it reminds me of the British sitcoms “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister.” A former cabinet minister of British Columbia one told me he instructed all his staff to watch that program.
That aside, I am interested in that you mentioned, Dr. Sysyn, that it is a disparate coalition that is falling apart. Which brings me to my question; a question I asked the witnesses yesterday. We are aware that the inauguration of Zelenskiy hasn’t happened yet. I gather we don’t know the date. I’m interested to know when the inauguration will happen. On the flip side, is there a sense that Poroshenko might not actually turn over the reins? He seems to be a character unto himself.
Ms. Dyczok: I don’t think there’s any danger that outgoing President Poroshenko will not hand over. There has been no indication of that. I don’t think we need to worry about that.
The inauguration, that’s an excellent question. There is a lot of discussion about the date. One would think, why is this so important? It is linked to the parliamentary elections that are scheduled in the fall.
There’s been talk that President-elect Zelenskiy wants to dismiss the current Parliament. For him to be able to do that, he has to be inaugurated by a certain date, while Parliament is still sitting, so that he can dismiss the current Parliament.
According to the last reports I saw, it was May 19 that had been decided. That would give him time to dismiss Parliament should he want to.
All of these things are still very much in flux, because for parliamentary elections, he has created a party, but it is a virtual party so far. It doesn’t have a huge membership. For him to be able to do well in that election, the party needs time to grow.
I don’t know, Professor Sysyn or Professor Kudelia, if you wanted to weigh in on that.
Mr. Kudelia: I should start by stressing that Ukraine has a premier presidential system where the Parliament, by the Constitution, actually has more influence over policy-making and over the formation of the government. The president can appoint unilaterally only several positions, in the security sector primarily. For that reason, Mr. Zelenskiy, if he does not dissolve the Parliament in the next couple of weeks, he will be stuck for at least six months with the government that will be formed by the parties that opposed him in the presidential campaign. These are the two parties that formed the coalition, the People’s Front, which has about 1 per cent support of Ukrainian voters, and Mr. Poroshenko’s party, Solidarity, which has about 10 per cent support of voters.
As you can imagine, it will result in a system of cohabitation where, very likely, the government will try to block many of the initiatives of the president, and we’re going to have gridlock for the next six months. This is certainly something that Mr. Poroshenko and Mr. Groysman are very interested in, because politically, their short-term goal is to undermine the newly elected president, accelerate his political demise, show to the Ukrainian public that he is someone who is inexperienced and doesn’t know how to govern, and that in the next parliamentary election, we need to bring the old guys back.
Unfortunately, this is the game that they’re playing with these attempts to postpone the inauguration of Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
It is important to remember that the Parliament in Ukraine right now has about 5 per cent of the trust of the Ukrainian public. It has a dismal popularity level. The Parliament itself, as an institution, has no political authority among the Ukrainian voters.
Imagine you have a president who has just been elected and has 70 per cent support versus the Parliament that has 5 per cent support. The Parliament is trying to undermine and resist the inauguration of this newly elected president with the sole goal of trying to prevent the possible dissolution.
It seems they’re playing an undemocratic game, which is unfair to voters and Ukrainian society, because the Parliament is utterly unrepresentative of where Ukrainian society stands right now.
I’m not sure we’re going to see next week what the position of the majority of parliamentarians will be. Whether they will vote on this date of May 19, that Mr. Zelenskiy is proposing, or whether they will push that date to the end of May, where once he’s inaugurated, he won’t be able to dissolve the Parliament because, according to the Constitution, there is a six-month minimum before you can actually dissolve the Parliament.
Mr. Sysyn: There are arguments to be made as to why it would be difficult to run parliamentary elections rapidly in a society in which parties are not well formed. Perhaps this period of cohabitation, a difficult one of six months may not be the worst of outcomes. If this were a year, we would be talking a different story.
For example, one can picture that much of the population that voted for Zelenskiy in the western areas of Ukraine also strongly supports the language law, and yet they voted for Zelenskiy. Their vote for Zelenskiy is a vote for bringing in new people and anti-corruption, but not necessarily for what might be seen as his cultural policies, and even more when we are very unclear as to what his foreign policy would be. The presidential policy that is most important now is foreign policy plus military.
In some ways I defer to Professor Kudelia, who studies more intimately the workings of the Ukrainian government, but I would wonder whether the six months is not an impossible amount of time, rather than going into a rapid election in which there are, really, no parties, a system in which this mixed majoritarian and popular selection may lead to strange and unexpected results for everyone.
Senator Coyle: I believe that I heard Dr. Kudelia mention the perpetuation and concern about Ukraine’s reliance on external support for meeting its needs. I believe Dr. Sysyn mentioned that under the previous regime, the macro-economy started to show indicators of things turning around, some growth.
Yesterday we heard about the potential of Ukraine, the well-educated population. Then today we heard the concerns about out-migration of exactly that brain-drain factor.
Dr. Dyczok, you didn’t mention the economy. You mentioned trade and that we should continue on that side. Your point was more on the accountable democracy side, which is extremely important. If any of you have anything to mention to us as to where the Ukrainian economy is today, and what you see as priorities on the economic side of the incoming government, I would appreciate hearing from you.
Mr. Kudelia: First of all, let me say that the initial expectations for economic reforms were very high. There were important deregulation reforms that happened in the first year or two, but basically most experts and economists — I’m not an economist — who watch Ukraine agree that since 2016, the reforms basically have stalled. There has been no serious progress on the reforms since then.
There are several key problems with the absence of reforms. One is most of the market sectors in Ukraine are still dominated by large oligarchic firms or state-owned enterprises. In Ukraine, we have over 3,000 state-owned enterprises, and half of these state-owned enterprises are operating at a loss. One of the key priorities of Groysman’s government was to organize swift privatization to bring in foreign direct investment and turn these state-owned enterprises to more efficient owners. Guess what — nothing happened. There was very little that has been done in terms of privatization of large state-owned companies, and part of the reason for that is, of course, foreign investors are not that interested in investing in the country where their private property rights are not well protected, there’s no independent judiciary and there is an ongoing conflict. There are security risks that are associated with investors.
On the other side of the equation, there are also political interests that are interfering in the privatization. In other words, there are major vested interests connected to the state-owned enterprises, major ransacking schemes that have been run by the current company in order to take assets and value out of these companies and basically leave them at a loss.
Many of these ransacking schemes are basically going into the pockets of these key government officials who are currently populating the Ukrainian government.
In a way, the reason for the stalling of economic reforms lies in the corruption problem within the government, in the fact that the current government has failed to fight corruption in a very effective manner.
This is one of the most important problems with the reforms. There is also another problem that has to do with the flight of the labour force, the fact that we have very low productivity in Ukraine and the minimal economic growth that has been happening. It was 3.3 per cent GDP growth last year and was under 3 per cent in the previous years. Of course, it is a good result but it is far from sufficient for Ukraine to catch up with the levels that it had prior to the Euromaidan revolution. The growth is very small.
Foreign direct investments into the Ukrainian economy are minimal. Last year, the net FDI flow in Ukrainian economy was $1.9 billion.
According to the estimates of the current Ukrainian finance minister, for the Ukrainian economy to receive a significant boost from the investment, it needs to receive about $10 billion, so five times more than it currently receives.
These are some of the key problems that the Ukrainian economy faces right now, and without a major shift or change in the way government is run and the people that are occupying these positions, I don’t think we’re going to see any prospect of economic reform in the near future.
Mr. Sysyn: Agrarian policy and uses of land becomes a crucial issue. Ukraine has been successful in the export of certain agricultural products. There are problems in privatization of land that involve tremendous social problems because of the relatively large rural population and elderly rural population in Ukraine. That population is apprehensive that it will lose its economic sustenance; that is, that the privatization could in some way be a ploy, and the people fear swindle in this. On the other hand, if Ukraine does not move towards this system, it will be losing out on one sector of economic growth which would be very important for its future.
Ms. Dyczok: There’s a lot of talk about corruption whenever the economy comes up. What people aren’t really focusing on is that it is the relationship between political and corporate elites, and that it is not just about the political system. It is the political economic elites who work hand-in-hand, and often the corporate elites have representations in Parliament and relations with the president. The point I was making is we need to see what Mr. Zelenskiy will do in this relationship. There’s no way to eliminate corruption without introducing some regulatory mechanisms to the corporate elites. The legislation is there, but the political will to implement a lot of those changes has been lacking. That is really where the problem gets stuck all the time.
In terms of the sectors of the economy, Professor Sysyn has outlined that the question of land is a hot one, privatization. Energy is another important sector, and it was during the Poroshenko government — actually the new prime ministership — that Ukraine finally rid itself of energy dependency on Russia, which was a major change. That has also eliminated a lot of opportunities for corruption because a lot of the corporate leaders were siphoning money through that, so that’s changed.
Another important thing to watch is trade. Ukraine’s trade patterns have been reoriented again during the Poroshenko presidency. The percentage of trade with Russia has declined dramatically. The free trade agreement with Canada and the EU has reoriented trade in those directions.
That is something that will continue, and that’s relevant for Canada to watch as a sector to develop.
The big question is the financial issue. The IMF has been making recommendations to Ukraine for many years. Those recommendations are difficult because they will involve things like raising the pension age, and they are already raising prices on energy. People’s utility bills are going up. Poroshenko’s government was unpopular because the utility prices were going up, or it was one of the hot-button issues. That is addressed in president-elect Zelenskiy’s TV show, the issues of prices and the pension age going up, but Ukraine has to constantly balance those issues. Without the IMF loans, their economy will not continue growing, and it has been growing over the past few years, which is something that completely surprised many observers and me — that a country at war, their economy has been growing.
Energy, trade and land are the things to watch.
Senator Dean: My question is going to be about Canada’s role, but I’m hesitant to change topic now. I would like to hold it until later because we have an important discussion going on here. I don’t want to interrupt the flow of it.
Senator Saint-Germain: I will ask my second question first in order to abide by Senator Dean’s wise advice.
Professor Kudelia, in one of your recent articles, you state with regard to the Donbas conflict:
Any negotiated settlement of the conflict would then require the introduction of power-sharing measures that would guarantee local government’s control over issues of most concern to the communities.
You also state:
Territorial autonomy that affords local governments in Donbas broad powers in certain policy domains would not threaten effective policy-making or institutional capacity on the national level. Rather, it will allow the resolution of key incompatibilities behind the conflict.
You also said that the Minsk agreements were not very popular among the political elite.
What are your main concerns with regard to this conflict and its resolution and on the ability of the elected president to make some progress in that situation? That is very important with all its economic impact, impact on democracy and on the security of the country.
Mr. Kudelia: Yes, thank you very much. Let me start by saying that the Minsk agreement was first signed in September 2014; the second was signed in February 2015. It actually presumes a number of steps that Ukraine needs to take with regard to Donbas. One of the key steps suggested is that Ukraine needs to give these separatist a special status. That special status involves creating autonomy in certain policy domains, such as local policing, local judiciary, cultural policies and educational policies.
Those autonomous policy domains should allow the Donbas locals to feel they are empowered and, in a way, protected from some of the policies of the national government with which they may disagree.
The fact that there is a special status suggests Ukraine should think seriously about giving those territories an autonomous status in general.
Remember, we have an autonomous republic within Ukraine, which is Crimea. The fact that it is an autonomous republic does not mean Ukraine necessarily becomes a federal state. Many in Ukraine fear that autonomy would lead to federalization of Ukraine. That is not necessarily the case.
I am not advocating federalism, something that Russia actually expects Ukraine to adopt, because to a large extent it will undermine and weaken the policy-making capacity of Ukraine on the national level. That will be very detrimental for Ukraine’s future.
I do advocate the ability of Donbas locals to make decisions in key areas of their everyday lives. We know that many of their policy preferences, specifically on cultural policies, for example, on their relationship with Russia, are becoming very different from what the central government in Kyiv has been pursuing and advocating.
The only way to bring these territories back is to offer them the kind of deal that would reassure them about their continued relationship with Russia and their continued ability to choose the language they speak, to educate their kids in the Russian language and to protect themselves through their own law enforcement and judiciary systems.
That is a very controversial point for Ukrainian political elites. Many criticized President Poroshenko for actually agreeing to that point. Current President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy once said that he disagrees with the need to have an autonomous status for Donbas. That is something that needs to be negotiated in the bilateral negotiations which he hopes will happen in the next few months with Russia.
We heard already from the United States that America is willing to act as a mediator in those bilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine on the future status of Donbas.
Apart from that, there are other measures that need to be taken, specifically amnesty conditions for many of the militants and officials who joined separatist administrations in Donbas. That is an important topic and very controversial as well.
There is the question of reconstruction. Who will pay for the economic reconstruction of Donbas? It is a tremendous need and that will require, by different estimates, $20 billion to $30 billion. Is that something that the West will fund? Will Russia take some responsibility for that war and provide some funds? That needs to be negotiated as well.
Of course, the final point is on the referenda. Mr. Zelenskiy is a big advocate of direct democracy. He has been advocating the law that would allow locals in different regions to vote on the regional issues in referenda, along the lines of Switzerland, for example.
He is pushing for that in one of the first draft laws that he prepared called, “On People’s Power.” That is a move in the right direction because it will give the Donbas locals the ability to make decisions for themselves through this referendum tool.
It will be a very important policy innovation that will help in settling the conflict.
As a last point, there is a separate issue that came up over the last couple of weeks and that’s the decision of the Russian Federation to issue passports to the citizens of Ukraine who live in the separatist-controlled areas.
We can discuss that in the meeting if you are interested, but I will make one single point: It actually created a lot of problems for Zelenskiy before he even became president in terms of attempts to resolve that conflict.
If passports are being distributed, it will create serious barriers for conflict resolution in the future.
Ms. Dyczok: In looking at the Minsk agreement, which everyone keeps talking about, they have not succeeded. There’s a need for a new format.
The people of the Donbas need to participate in this. It can’t be a bilateral discussion between Ukraine, and Russia mediated by the United States. Those people need to be part of that discussion and part of the solution.
Mr. Sysyn: We have been saying Donbas, but are we referring to the occupied territories or the territories that are now separated? Eventually the political compromise must face the relationship between the other areas of Donbas and the separatist areas, and also the protection of what may become new minority rights.
For example, we hear of persecution of religious groups and minorities in the separatist regions at the moment. Who will be the guarantors for Protestants and other such groups who now feel they are being persecuted by these governments? It will be a very delicate balance if one gives relative autonomous rights and to what degree will the national government still guarantee religious, cultural and other rights in the region?
Senator Ataullahjan: My question is about the newly elected President Zelenskiy. Have we seen the real Zelenskiy?
Ms. Dyczok: Great question.
Senator Ataullahjan: All we have seen so far is the character on TV. Does he have the capability to confront Putin about offering citizenship to Ukrainians? There’s been back-and-forth on social media and Facebook, but have we really seen him? Is there more to this man than the character he portrayed on TV?
Ms. Dyczok: There’s definitely a lot more to him than the character on TV, but we still have a lot to see about the real Mr. Zelenskiy. I was very encouraged by his meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister Freeland. He’s beginning to make statements of his own accord.
Previously we have seen the Zelenskiy team making statements. Now he’s increasingly making his own statements.
What is also encouraging is the tone of the way he’s presenting his policies. We first saw this on election night, when it was clear that he was winning by a landslide. There’s live coverage from his headquarters, and he says a lot of things. He appeals to the people of the former Soviet Union and says, “Watch this. Anything is possible.”
That was a direct jab at Putin because that was saying that change is possible. He used post-Soviet space deliberately. He didn’t say, “Russia.” That was a clear indicator that he’s going to take him on — not in a sort of confrontational way but in this sort of way.
The other thing I thought was interesting was the response of President-elect Zelenskiy to Putin’s statement about issuing passports to Ukrainians. His response, if you’ll remember, was that: Any people from Russia who are feeling persecuted, you can come here and we’ll give you passports.
Again, he’s kind of spinning it and tossing it back in his face. The key message was that the only thing we have in common is the border. He was pretty clear in what he was saying, but he was doing it in a way that Putin will find hard to deal with, because he’s not used to people standing up to him and making statements, and this guy is doing it differently.
Those are the indications that we have, which I see as positive. However, as I said, we still have a lot to learn about who this person is and who he will choose to be his advisers.
Senator Ataullahjan: Putin’s popularity is not what it was. Will that maybe embolden him to then go and annex more territory from Ukraine to gain popularity? Is there any danger in that?
Ms. Dyczok: Putin is very unpredictable, and I would hesitate to make any predictions about him. What we have seen so far is that he expected Ukraine to just roll over; and when they didn’t, he stopped the aggression.
I don’t know that he would push further, given the international community and his drop in popularity ratings. I would hate to guess on that one. I don’t know what the other experts would say.
Mr. Kudelia: May I add something? First I want to take issue with the argument that the Zelenskiy victory is purely a function of his TV show. In fact, we’ve seen throughout last year, before he announced his candidacy, that his support vacillated between 5 and 7 per cent. When he did not announce his candidacy, he was already supported by about 7 per cent.
One can argue this 5 to 7 per cent is probably the number of people, the share of the populace, who were willing to support him because of his television personality and background. But remember that, in the first round of the election, he received 30 per cent of the vote. When he announced his candidacy, he was number three or four. When he announced his candidacy and started running and explaining himself, his support actually quadrupled very quickly, from about 7 per cent to about 27 or 28 per cent. By the end of February/early March, he was already number one on the list in terms of the candidates.
U.S. politicians understand very well that it’s important for a political candidate to be able to connect with voters and resonate within certain groups of voters. I would argue that his success can only be partially attributed to his personality in television. To a much greater degree, his success can be attributed to the strategy he chose in his election campaign, where he was openly bilingual in his appeals. His campaign messaging was in both Russian and Ukrainian. He actually spoke more Russian than Ukrainian. That sent a message to voters in southern and eastern parts of Ukraine that you can have a young candidate who is actually pro-Western in his political positions but who has displaced certain cultural sensitivities and who respects many of the cultural rights that have been ignored or violated by the previous government. That is one important characteristic of Mr. Zelenskiy, that he is sensitive to the diversity of Ukrainian society.
That was not recognized by the previous government. The policies that were pursued under Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk were attempts to basically create a homogenous Ukrainian nation, where Russian speakers had to be turned into Ukrainian speakers, and ethnic Russians should be gradually transformed into ethnic Ukrainians, because their idea of security for Ukraine was basically a purely ethnically Ukrainian state. They were not very sensitive to this issue.
The same goes, by the way, with the church. I was in Ukraine in January of this year, December of last year. Mr. Poroshenko was openly advocating and campaigning in support of this newly unified Ukrainian church under Constantinople — which is okay; you can argue that he was violating the autonomy of the church from the state. I was okay with that.
Unfortunately, he was also presenting the other church, the Orthodox Church, which was under the Moscow Patriarchate as somehow treacherous, as an agent of Moscow. The majority of Orthodox believers in Ukraine go to the Ukrainian church under the Moscow Patriarchate.
He was basically arguing that these are Russian agents and traders, and they need to be coerced into the other church. Of course, these kinds of ideas, policies and messages have been alienating to a large segment of the public. When Mr. Zelenskiy was asked about his position on the church issue, he basically said that he respects everybody’s right to go to the church they want and he’s not going to talk about his own religious beliefs at all. This was completely refreshing, because other political candidates were running ahead of each other to show how religious they are. Again, he was showing as a secular political leader who is culturally sensitive but, at the same time, very pro-Western in his messaging. He called Putin, for example, an enemy. He hasn’t visited Russia since 2014.
In that sense, he really resonated with different groups of the public, but especially with the young. He was talking to young people through social media, canvassing their opinion, asking them to provide their views on the different policies they want to be implemented. In a way, for the first time, they saw a politician who was not speaking to them from a high podium but who was dressed like them, who spoke in a colloquial language and was capable of connecting to them in a way that no other politician was capable of doing. Again, he displayed an amazing political skill that no other politician in Ukraine has. This is one thing I want to mention.
The second thing regarding Putin — do I still have time for that?
The Chair: I want to give Professor Sysyn some time. Can you make it very quick?
Mr. Kudelia: A very quick point. Poroshenko was much more convenient for Putin as a president than Zelenskiy. Poroshenko was thoroughly demonized by the Russian media and authorities. Of course, remember that one of the key arguments against Poroshenko was that he came to power as a result of a coup, and his legitimacy was consistently questioned by the Russian authorities for the last five years, which worked perfectly well for the Russian propaganda.
Mr. Zelenskiy, in contrast, received about 90 per cent of support in Donbas. Ninety per cent of the vote was received in Donbas for Zelenskiy in the second round. His legitimacy cannot be questioned.
Of course, the fact that the incumbent president lost in a crushing defeat to a political novice is terrible news for Mr. Putin. This is exactly what he doesn’t want to see. This is like a horror movie for him. Of course, he is afraid of the new young Russians, like Alexei Navalny, for example, who will be challenging him in the next couple of years. Russians will be looking at Ukraine as an example that these things are possible. That message has already been there. Mr. Zelenskiy is a very inconvenient president for Mr. Putin.
Mr. Sysyn: First on the issue of the economy that he faces. What he will soon face is the Sea of Azov and Kerch problems, how Putin can use levers that will affect key parts of Ukraine, and then how Zelenskiy will deal with oligarchs who are dependent on this business.
Very quickly, Mr. Zelenskiy is going to face various challenges coming from Putin, and we will see what they are. I don’t think the few phrases about letting “others watch us” are going to work with Russia having so many levers of power.
Second, on the use of language. There are the 25 per cent. We don’t know why they voted that way. But there are considerable, as I pointed out earlier, people in the 75 per cent who were already worried by Zelenskiy’s use of Russian in situations they viewed as not proper for the national level. He’s going to have a very difficult line to hew. There’s much suspicion of him and a likely entourage around him, particularly if it turns out to be a Russian-speaking one. The language issue is not going to easily go away, and it will come back.
On the church issue, first of all, we do not know if the majority of Orthodox believers go to the Moscow Patriarchate. They have the majority of the church buildings but don’t come out as the majority on the surveys that show religious belief. In religious belief, usually the Kyiv Patriarchate, as it existed, came out dominantly.
Even more important, and they going to face Zelenskiy now, are two issues. One issue I brought up earlier. This is the 21st century, but there is no way in the Orthodox world to get autocephaly or independence for an Orthodox Church unless the government in a predominantly Orthodox country asks for it. It was the Patriarchate of Constantinople that insisted the Ukrainian government had to request autocephaly. It would be interesting if Mr. Zelenskiy had been the president at that point and what he would be able to do with this demand. These are old canons of an ancient institution that still hold in the modern world.
Much more concretely, we also have the leader of the opposition bloc Mr. Vadim Novinsky who has already said he will get back every one of those churches that have gone over to the independent church. As we know, he is a very powerful man economically and well-connected. And Russia has promised that they will restore churches to the Moscow Patriarchate.
Already the Zelenskiy government is going to face a number of very important issues. Poroshenko chose his side on that church issue, but I’m afraid it is not just going to disappear and Ukraine will become a religiously pluralistic society with general rights for all when people as powerful as Novinsky are able to conduct lawsuits throughout Ukraine. We are seeing this problem already with the judiciary.
With that, I would end on those issues.
The Chair: We have a number of questioners. I’m going to plead for shorter answers. I know they’re very complex problems, but we want to get everyone in with their questions.
Senator Cordy: Should I ask both questions at the same time?
The Chair: Yes, very quickly.
Senator Cordy: When I came in, Ms. Dyczok, you were talking about energy. Some of the greatest successes in Ukraine have been related to energy, but there is still massive energy inefficiency in Ukraine, far greater than their neighbours in Poland and the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There is a cycle of dependency on Russian gas and we know that they’re trying to cut it off. It still is doing that, although the sale of Russian gas has reduced significantly. And we know that Naftogaz registered profits for the first time in five years. That’s a positive thing.
I’ve read that reform has stalled in relation to efficiency of using gas and other essential reforms have been stalled. I’ve read it’s by elites who get a lot of money from the industry.
My second question is related to the relationship with NATO and the EU. Our chair, I think, is still co-chairperson of the Ukraine-NATO Interparliamentary Council. President Zelenskiy has expressed his support for the ties with NATO and the EU. So what’s the path forward? They’ve made a lot of progress, but what do they still have to do?
Part of that problem, of course, is Russian interference, which is a significant deterrent to their membership in both NATO and the EU.
The Chair: We’ll start in reverse order.
Ms. Dyczok: Excellent questions. I’ll tackle the NATO question first. That’s a tricky one because support for NATO in Ukraine historically has been divided. There have been those who have been supporters and those who were not. We have seen a change in the past five years. It took a Russian invasion to get popular opinion, and Ukraine shifted more in support of NATO. It is not 100 per cent support. The Ukrainian political elites have taken that policy orientation. Public opinion is catching up with that.
There has been a lot of progress in moving in that direction in terms of military preparedness, operations. Senator Andreychuk would be more of an expert on what exactly Ukraine needs to do. They’ve made progress, but there’s still a long way to go.
The same thing with the European Union. That’s been a policy direction choice. The term is “civilization choice.” Ukraine has decided they’re moving away from the Russian zone of influence to the European. A lot has been done, but again a lot remains to be done in order to meet all of the criteria.
Energy efficiency, this is one of the issues that everyday Ukrainians are very concerned about. Large changes need to happen on multiple levels. The residential buildings have heating systems that are centrally controlled, and the city controls when the heat gets turned on and off and people can’t regulate their own energy usage. What they’ve started doing individually is installing their own heaters, which they can turn on and off, as a sort of self-mechanism of introducing efficiency. But at the macro level, those reforms have gone some distance, but there’s still a long way to go. President-elect Zelenskiy — that means “green” in Ukrainian — and I thought he would play more on that because environmental issues are important for Ukrainians. But I haven’t heard that messaging from him at all, so maybe this is something we’ll see.
Mr. Kudelia: Let me add on the issue of energy. You are absolutely right that in terms of energy the dependence on Russia has declined, maybe to the lowest point since Ukrainian’s independence. That’s a great thing but several key problems remain.
One of them is energy remains a source of rent for key political elites in Ukraine. One of the reasons why Naftogaz, this behemoth oil and gas state-owned company, has not been reformed is primarily because it has been under political influence of Poroshenko and used for the purpose of generating rents.
The regulatory agency that sets tariffs in Ukraine has also been controlled by Poroshenko loyalists. That particular regulatory agency has implemented the types of tariffs that fit with the model, the business scheme of Mr. Poroshenko and Rinat Akhmetov which is called Rotterdam Plus, a very famous corrupt scheme which generated a lot of rents for Mr. Poroshenko and Mr. Akhmetov.
The electricity market in Ukraine remains monopolized. There were attempts to introduce competition in the electricity market and attempts to privatize electricity distribution companies. They all failed primarily because all politically connected individuals control electricity companies and share with politicians.
One of the key challenges now for the new president is to create an independent regulatory agency, minimize political influence over them and rein in some of the corrupt schemes, destroy some of the corrupt schemes that will be inherited from Mr. Poroshenko.
One of the problems is that many of the energy sectors are controlled by the oligarchs. For example, Ihor Kolomoisky controls the largest oil refinery in Ukraine. It also has a lot of influence over the oil sector. It will be very important to see how the newly elected president will establish this relationship with Mr. Kolomoisky in that particular oil sector.
Another influential oligarch, Viktor Medvedchuk, has been given the opportunity to import oil products from Russia.
Again, that is part of the deal that was made between Mr. Medvedchuk and Mr. Poroshenko, because Mr. Medvedchuk then offered very positive coverage for Mr. Poroshenko on his media channels. These corrupt business schemes need to be ended. That’s a challenge for Mr. Zelenskiy.
The Chair: Can we end it now so I can get all of the senators in? I encourage anyone to send in any more submissions. We need the information. We just don’t have the time for everything.
Professor Sysyn, are you okay with this and we can go to the next round?
Mr. Sysyn: Yes, let’s go to the next question.
The Chair: Thank you. You’re always accommodating to me. I appreciate that. I’m eagerly awaiting Senator Dean.
Senator Dean: My intuition was right not to interrupt this discussion because it has been a terrific one. Simple question. Both you, Professor Kudelia and Professor Dyczok, have mentioned the importance of Western pressure and influence in the lead-up to the calling of a timely election. Professor Dyczok in particular has spoken about Canada’s role and, more recently, the role of Minister Freeland.
The simple question is this: Any thoughts on how the Government of Canada can help best as we now move forward? Quick question and I hope quick answers.
Ms. Dyczok: The best way is to maintain the relationship as it is, which is partnership with constructive advice and monitoring. The key sector, in my opinion, is the media because that’s how we know what’s going on and, more importantly, how Ukrainians will know. Because the media system in Ukraine is corporately owned and people like Kolomoisky and all the other corporate leaders, they control what’s on the media. To have independent voices — Ukraine has now set up public broadcasting under the Poroshenko regime, which is unusual for a state to give up control. That needs to be strengthened and other independent voices. That is the best thing that Canada could do, both for Ukrainians and for itself because that will help us know more about what’s actually going on and not sort of the spin that the oligarchs want to give us.
Senator Dean: Thank you.
Mr. Sysyn: Reform is crucial in Ukraine. Ukrainian higher education is desperately in need of reform. I realize education is largely a provincial and not a federal responsibility in Canada. We have nothing in Canada to compare to the American Fulbright Program that brings so many contacts educationally between those two countries. Support from any level of government in Canada — federal or provincial — that can engender the new contacts that we need for our fields is needed. Above all, unless the Ukrainian government — or if there is decentralization, decentralized governments — embarks on real educational reform, it’s hard to see how Ukraine will move forward.
Mr. Kudelia: My prediction is that this government, the Zelenskiy administration, will be more open to foreign advice than any other administration before him. For that reason, it’s a great window of opportunity for the Canadian government to offer its technical expertise, particularly in two areas. One, anti-corruption because Mr. Zelenskiy will be judged for the first six months based on how he performs on anti-corruption and the two key agencies that have been created were not very efficient in terms of anti-corruption investigations.
There needs to be support from the Canadian side for revamping or relaunching of these agencies and improving the rigour with which these investigations are being conducted. Technical expertise from Canada would be very useful.
The second area is Donbas. Specifically, I would say the reconciliation measures and policies that can be introduced by the Ukrainian government to reassure people who live in Donbas that they are welcome in Ukraine, the kinds of policies that would persuade them that Ukraine actually will be a good place for them to live and come back to. Canada, with its experience in multiculturalism, can offer a lot in terms of very practical advice for the conflict settlement in Donbas.
The Chair: No further questions? You were very patient.
Senator Saint-Germain: I will reorient my question because it has been partly asked. It is about freedom of the press and democracy.
I understand that the elected president will be more open to foreign advice. This is very good. But recently and for many years, media freedom watchdogs have sounded the alarm on the situation of the journalist security and freedom of the press in Ukraine.
You’re aware of the recent brutal attack on a Ukrainian journalist, Vadym Komarov. My question very precisely then is: Has President-elect Zelenskiy commented on that violent assault? Do you believe that he will act, because he has the power to do so, in order to have an impact on the security of journalists and increasing freedom of the press in Ukraine?
Ms. Dyczok: Thank you. That’s an excellent question. Freedom of speech in Ukraine has actually improved during the Poroshenko regime. There was censorship during the previous president. Freedom of speech was not under threat under the Poroshenko regime. The threats to journalists’ safety were primarily in the war zone. That’s where you saw the spike in the threat.
A very worrying development in the last six to nine months was that a few individuals have been targeted. There was the activist, Kateryna Handzyuk, and the journalist whom you referred to who was attacked. From my observation — and I study the media — these are isolated incidents as opposed to a pattern. They are very worrisome. The journalistic community immediately reacted and publicized this, but the point I’ve made over and over again, the large media is owned by corporate media owners and it’s the independent media that’s really making an impact here and that’s why they need to be supported, to help them develop more.
To the best of my knowledge, President-elect Zelenskiy has not spoken to this issue of freedom of speech or these incidents. But the journalistic organizations within Ukraine, the Commission of Journalistic Ethics and various others, they are the ones that are the watchdogs that are bringing this to people’s attention and expressing concern, which is why a lot of know about that.
Senator Saint-Germain: So they still have work to do?
Ms. Dyczok: Well, they’re working but they need support to get their message out into the mainstream media.
Mr. Kudelia: Candidate Zelenskiy actually spoke on the matter of media freedoms. When he was running for president he was asked this question, and he specifically said that there should be no state interference in any work of any journalist in private or state-owned media, period. He was very adamant about that. Of course, we should remember the reason why he was so adamant was because he was running a comedy show which was a political satire, which was exceptionally critical of the authorities. He was pressured many times by different oligarchs and political actors as far as his jokes were concerned. As a political satirist and comedian, he is averse to any type of harassment or pressure from the state. In that sense I will be very positive about the future developments in the media sector. Because in contrast to him, Mr. Poroshenko, who was an oligarch, owned several television channels and transformed them into propaganda outlets, basically. If you were to watch some of his television shows on channel — it’s a pure negative campaign propaganda in favour of Mr. Poroshenko against everyone else.
There were instances where media outlets were harassed under Poroshenko’s presidency. Some of the media outlets were closed. For example, Radio Vesti, it was shut down. They took away the licence from this opposition radio station. Of course we remember that a number of key journalists have been killed. Pavel Sheremet’s murder in Kyiv is still not investigated. We don’t know what happened to him.
The Chair: Time again. I’m sorry.
Professor Sysyn, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Sysyn: No.
The Chair: We have proven today, these are very deep, complex issues. We know what the past has been. I find that we are taking stock now, but that is so that we can monitor what the future will bring. We do have a very strong relationship, and the indications are that we will continue to. That is, a Canadian response rather than just a governmental response.
We need to know what the incoming president has said. We’re taking stock of what the previous did. It is always interesting to see that the office does change the candidate. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
We will be monitoring to see what the incoming president is going to do and what they are capable of doing, because we will be monitoring all of the political actors.
I want to thank you. We have created a lively debate. You have taken us into areas and left all the options on the table as to what might happen, except for one, that we should continue with a strong relationship because we can have a role in assisting the Ukrainian people in their further development.
On that point, I’m going to challenge all three of you. Right from the independence of Ukraine, but also all the former Soviet Union countries, are in the process of struggling with how to create their new nations. One of them is culture, one is multiculture, another is language.
If you look at Kazakhstan — if you look at Belarus, which has brought back its language after so many years — it is how do you define a country that has been suppressed for so many years under the Soviet Union and created barriers to a proper development for the people?
It is a struggle. It is a struggle to bring back in Ukraine a Ukrainian heritage, culture and history that was shut down — I’m using a very neutral term — and now wants to create a new nation that embodies the fact of the citizens of that state who are multilingual and multicultural. It is a struggle. I’ve watched it in the Baltic states, in Kazakhstan and Georgia and beyond.
It is something that we need to reflect on and perhaps put it in the context of where Canada could be of help. Because we have struggled, and continue to struggle, in a very diverse country with many regions. It’s not just a struggle just out of the Soviet Union. It will be continuous, but they have that impact.
When you travel through those countries, it is: How do we restore the historical facts of our background that have been suppressed, yet give space and voice to the people who are actually the citizens of the country and manage that? It is one that previous presidents have attacked in different ways, and I presume this president is going to be challenged in ways he hadn’t thought on those very issues, not only Donbas.
I thank you for your input. I didn’t ask the question because it would have taken about four sessions to start answering it. I would prefer that we get input and ideas beyond what we’ve already heard in assisting Ukraine to develop, reasserting its historic record and content and yet build a new state.
We didn’t touch on other areas. The Russian influence internationally. The fact within Venezuela we noted, the fact in Syria we’ve noted — and that will play out in Ukraine also. Where and how will we respond to Russia’s initiatives internationally as well as regionally and bilaterally? We have a lot yet to discover.
You’ve got us on the road, and we thank all of you for coming back. Professor Kudelia, thank you for coming twice. Thank you, Professor Sysyn and Professor Dyczok for coming. We hope we can have you back at some other time to continue this very important topic for democratic development in Ukraine but also Canada’s relationship.
The meeting is not quite adjourned for senators. I’m expecting imminently, holding my breath that the translated copy of our long study should be reaching our desks later today, no later than tomorrow morning. I urge you to spend a weekend reading. It is about 100 pages, so you’ll have no time to do anything else because we want to efficiently have some sessions next week, if possible, and wrap up so we can meet our time limits on the, very expected, report. Thank you.
(The committee adjourned.)