THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 16, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met with videoconference this day at 11:35 a.m. [ET] to continue its study on foreign relations and international trade generally.
Senator Peter Harder (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: My name is Peter Harder. I’m a senator from Ontario and the deputy chair of this committee.
Before we begin, I invite the committee members to introduce themselves.
Senator Housakos: Leo Housakos from Quebec.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: I am Amina Gerba from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Nova Scotia.
Senator Greene: Stephen Greene, Nova Scotia.
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald, Nova Scotia.
Senator M. Deacon: Marty Deacon, Ontario.
Senator Simons: Senator Paula Simons, Alberta, the most Ukrainian province.
Senator Marwah: Sabi Marwah, Ontario.
Senator Boniface: Gwen Boniface, Ontario.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much. Today, colleagues, as part of our ongoing plan to receive regular updates on the issues of Ukraine, we are meeting to discuss the situation and have before us a terrific guest in the name of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Andriy Melnyk. Welcome, Deputy Minister Melnyk. Thank you for being with us.
Before we hear your remarks and proceed to questions from our colleagues, I would ask all speakers not to lean into your microphones too closely and to remove your earpieces if you do as too much proximity can cause interference.
We will hear from the deputy foreign minister and begin the questioning thereafter.
Deputy foreign minister, you have five minutes for your opening comments, please.
Andriy Melnyk, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine: Good morning, distinguished Deputy Chair Senator Harder, and dear members of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, ladies and gentlemen. I wish to thank you for your friendly invitation. I feel honoured and privileged to speak before you today.
Let me use this opportunity to express, in the name of my president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, my government and the Ukrainian people, our profound appreciation for Canada’s steadfast support of Ukraine during this year of Russian full-scale aggression.
I would also like to extend my gratitude, dear senators, for your personal engagement to help my country to survive during the worst war that the European continent and humanity have witnessed since the Second World War. I especially thank you, dear members of the committee, for your strong personal leadership, which matters in these dark times.
I wish to emphasize that Canada has provided over $1 billion for military aid, $2.5 billion in loans, $320 million for humanitarian assistance and $115 million to support the World Bank’s infrastructure rebuilding fund. Thanks for allocating these financial resources.
Ukrainians do appreciate Canada’s decision to join the so-called “tank coalition” with Leopard 2 tanks. I am proud that I coined this term back in October last year when I served as Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany. We praise your contribution to military training, to supplies of NASAMS air defence system as well as Senator armoured vehicles.
We are thankful for the introduction of personal sanctions against 1,500 individuals and legal entities of Russia. Over $100 million of Russian assets could be frozen. Canada was the first country worldwide that adopted legislation providing for the confiscation of those assets, and we applaud the first process of seizure of Russian assets owned by the oligarch Abramovich.
I know that many members of this house were involved in this delicate process of pushing for these decisions. Let me mention the personal efforts of Senators Yuen Pau Woo and Leo Housakos.
We are grateful to the Senate and the House of Commons for the unanimous adoption of motions recognizing the crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine as genocide against the Ukrainian people, as well as condemning the referendum in the temporary occupied territories.
The same goes for the recognition of the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization. We praise Canada’s strong position on banning Russian and Belarusian athletes from the next Olympic Games in Paris. I know that Senator Marty Deacon, serving as director of the Canadian Olympic Committee, has played an important role in this regard.
Distinguished members of the standing committee, I could easily continue this long list of thanks because they deserve to be mentioned. The question is: Has this tremendous support from Canada and from other key allies been sufficient to stop the Russian invasion and allow the Ukrainian army to liberate all the occupied regions? Unfortunately, not yet. Russia is planning a long war. Irrespective of all the setbacks and defeats, Putin still hopes to win this war and conquer Ukraine. That means that it is far too early for our partners to rest on their laurels.
That’s the reason why I would like to formulate a number of concrete requests to the Senate where Ukraine could count on Canada’s support.
First, we need a long-term, strategic approach and a master plan for Ukraine that would envision a substantial increase of financial allocations. Last year, our economy dropped by over 30%. We have a huge budget deficit because of the war. I would like to appeal to the Senate of Canada and to the House of Commons to initiate a respective motion. The U.S. has pledged over $110 billion to help. Norway passed a US$7.5 billion Ukrainian aid package today for the next five years.
Second, I would like to call upon the standing committee and the whole Senate to enlarge military assistance to Ukraine. No doubt we are thankful for your government’s decision to supply tanks, but let’s be frank: We are speaking about four Leopard tanks — I repeat, only four tanks. At the same time, Russians still have thousands of tanks that they keep sending to the front line day and night.
Thus, we expect new, courageous decisions of your Parliament to speed up and upscale the military help to provide our air force with fighter jets and long-range missiles in particular.
Third, we request that the Senate and the House of Commons adopt a motion with a view to expanding the sanctions regime against Russia. Foremost, we need to recognize it as a state supporting terrorism, to support the establishment of a special international tribunal for punishment of the crime of aggression and ensure accountability for the Russian leadership and all those who committed war crimes.
We would like the Senate and the House of Commons to accelerate the process of confiscating Russian assets for rebuilding Ukraine, to stop issuing national visas for Russian citizens, to isolate Russia within international organizations of the UN system, deprive it of privileges in International Atomic Energy Agency and withdraw the Russian voice from the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Last but not least, I would like to appeal to you, distinguished members of the standing committee, to initiate Parliament’s motion for Canada’s support of Ukraine’s application to join NATO. It is the only way to prevent a new Russian aggression when this war is over.
Honourable senators, before I finish my introductory remarks, I wish to make a short journey into the past and refer to a bright political figure from Canada, former Liberal member of Parliament the Honourable Lester Bowles Pearson, your fourteenth Prime Minister. As Canada’s Undersecretary of State for External Affairs, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his crucial contribution to the deployment of a United Nations Emergency Force in the wake of the Suez Crisis.
I’m not inclined to draw any historical parallels between those events and today’s unprovoked Russian military intervention, so please don’t get me wrong. What we face today is a clear-cut war of annihilation being waged against the Ukrainian statehood and the Ukrainian nation. What seems important to me, however, is the creativity, perseverance and fearlessness with which Lester Pearson was trying to help in solving an international conflict. As he expressed it:
In our day the penalty for failure – or for serious blundering – is far greater than ever before. Mankind can no longer afford error.
We do not have to be afraid of Putin’s threats of a nuclear strike or a third world war. As a KGB man, he knows perfectly well how to play with the fears of our allies and how to manipulate democratic societies. But as a good Canadian proverb says, his bark is worse than his bite.
We have to discard this mistaken philosophy that Russia should not be further provoked and that we have to omit any escalation. There should be no new red lines for helping Ukraine in our self-defence. Our friends and allies in Canada should abandon this salami-slicing approach in delivering weapons and further assistance. We need your strategic decision to deliver Canadian fighter jets — CF-188 Hornets — to Ukraine’s air force.
The Deputy Chair: Sir, I’m going to have to interrupt. I’ve let you go on twice as long as five minutes, but I’d like to get to questions. I’m sure we’ll have many opportunities for you to raise the points that you have yet to raise.
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you so much. I’m finishing. I just need one more minute.
We would need your strategic decision to deliver warships, like Halifax Class frigates, that would be replaced soon anyway, as well as offshore petrol vessels, and even submarines. Ukraine has lost its fleet during the annexation of Crimea.
Of course, we do understand all the obstacles to the implementation of these decisions, and it will take time to train the pilots and seamen. Most probably it will only happen when the war is over, but the key challenge will be to preclude a new war of aggression. Let me repeat that the only way to achieve this goal is to allow Ukraine to become a NATO member state. We hope the Parliament of Canada will support this approach and would push the government stronger in this respect.
We hope to ensure an effective deterrence for Russia. That means that Ukraine will have to increase its armaments. In this sense, Canada could and should play a leading role.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much. We’re going to go to questions now. As a former deputy foreign minister, I know how hard it is to be concise. We’ll take four minutes for each question and answer.
Senator Simons: Thank you so much, Mr. Melnyk, for being with us. I mentioned when I introduced myself that I’m from Alberta. Like many Albertans, I have family roots in Ukraine. My mother was born in Felsenbach, a Mennonite colony in the province of Dnipropetrovsk. My father’s mother was from Poltava. People in my province have been deeply affected by the situation in Ukraine.
I’m visiting this committee today. I’m Deputy Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. One knows, of course, that Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe and that you’re renowned around the world for your food production.
I wanted to ask you about what food security is like in Ukraine right now, if there is going to be enough food to see people through the winter and what Canada might be doing to help in terms of agricultural aid — not just providing food, but providing support afterwards to restore Ukraine’s fields that have been so traumatized by this invasion.
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you so much for this question. Fortunately, the situation with food security in Ukraine is a stable one. I would like to use this opportunity to invite all the members of the standing committee to visit Kyiv.
Unfortunately, not a single member of the Canadian Parliament has visited Ukraine since the beginning of this war, so you would have a strange picture. On the one side, fights go on all day and night along the front line, which is 1,500 kilometres long; on the other side, here in Kyiv, you would see people drinking coffee in cafés and enjoying the sun. If you visit some food stores, you would see that basically everything is there.
We need your country, Canada, to ensure that Ukraine is able to export the grains that we have produced because this initiative that we have now with the route via the Black Sea is working, but it is a difficult process with Russia. We need your support with that to ensure that this export route for Ukrainian goods — and I’m speaking only about grain because this route is foreseen only for grain supplies — remains open. All the container terminals in Odesa and in the region are blocked, so not a single port has been working. We need some initiatives to allow Ukraine to unblock all the exports because we cannot do it via rail to Poland. Only a small part of our exports can be delivered. We definitely need help with that to help us stabilize our budget. I mentioned the huge deficit. It will remain because our economy has dropped so heavily. Thank you so much.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you, deputy minister, for visiting us today. We very much appreciated your presentation.
A few days ago, Brazilian President Lula da Silva met with President Biden in Washington, and he expressed his views on the war in your country. Although Brazil condemns Russia’s invasion, the Brazilian President put forward the position of non-ally countries. In fact, African and other countries seem to share Brazil’s view. While non-ally countries may not support Russia’s invasion, their stance is hard to reconcile.
Minister, what do you make of the position of non-ally countries? I’m talking about countries like those in Africa, which, for the most part, have refused to condemn the invasion of your country?
[English]
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you so much, senator, for your question. It is a real challenge, I have to admit. Although we experienced some support from those countries, like Brazil or most of the African countries within the UN General Assembly, you are right in the sense that those countries try to be neutral. From our perspective, that does not seem tenable and cannot be tolerated since you cannot be neutral when you see that acts of genocide are committed and that people are murdered. It is not just a war like a conflict between two neighbouring countries; it is a genocidal war, a war of extinction that is aimed at eliminating Ukrainian statehood and eliminating us as a cultural nation, if you will.
We are now trying to reach out to those countries in Africa and also in Latin America. I am responsible for the Central American, Caribbean and South American countries in our house. We are now preparing a strategy, a master plan, on how to deal with the challenge to move those countries.
You mentioned Brazil. Today, the diplomatic advisers of the president have spoken. We are trying to find ways to persuade not just the political elites in those countries but foremost the societies to support Ukraine, not just with words or with some declarations of solidarity but with practical deeds, be it humanitarian aid or military assistance, which we need. Some countries on the Latin American continent have more Leopard 2 tanks than Germany itself.
We see the challenge. I have conducted fruitful contacts with your colleagues from the foreign ministry in Canada. We count on your expertise and support in the continent to help us accomplish this task, which would take not months but surely years, if not decades.
Senator Coyle: Thank you so much, Deputy Minister Melnyk, for being with us and for your introductory remarks. They were very clear. First, we’ve all heard your gratitude toward the Canadian people. At the same time, I want to extend to you our solidarity with you and with all the people of Ukraine.
You thanked us for our military and humanitarian assistance, for our sanction regimes and you put forward to us some pretty concrete requests. I think everybody has heard them. You’d like to have us put forward and support a motion on long-term — five years, hopefully — commitments to Ukraine; a motion regarding Ukraine joining NATO; you’d like to see more military equipment, particularly that equipment that flies and that is ocean-going and you’ve talked about the international tribunal and having Russian crimes being tried there.
You’ve also mentioned that your people face a clear-cut war of annihilation and that, as a KGB man, Putin knows very well how to instill fear not only in the Ukrainian people but also in the international community beyond Ukraine.
My first question is about the psychological state of both your military and the general population of Ukraine. What is the situation now? What can be done? You’ve mentioned these material things, which I know are helpful, but I’d like to understand where you are right now with this very difficult situation.
Second, if you have time, can you address the issue of sanctions? We’re studying our sanctions regime right now. How effective do you find these international sanctions are? Are there any things that you think could be done to improve them?
The Deputy Chair: We may have to use the second round for the second question.
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you so much for your kind words of solidarity. We do appreciate it and we feel that support.
Regarding the first question, well, it’s difficult. In the army, the people and the soldiers are ready to fight, even though it is a difficult fight for our military. We see that Russia still has the second-biggest army in the world and it remains so, even though it sustained such huge losses during the last year.
The mood is there. People are ready to defend our country because we have no other option. That’s the view of the army but also of the society. On the other hand, of course, it’s almost one year since this war broke out and people are traumatized, not just physically but each Ukrainian would definitely need a psychologist. You can ignore these traumas for some time, but it is a heavy burden that we have to carry each day. But, at the end of the day, there is no other way. All the proposals to start negotiating and find a compromise — how can you find a compromise with someone who just wants to destroy you physically and delete us from the geographic map?
Therefore, that is the basic mood. People are still there, and we are going to defend at any cost. Can you please repeat your second question?
The Deputy Chair: It was on sanctions, but we’ll come back to that on second round.
Mr. Melnyk: We’ve seen the sanctions. They weakened the Russian economy, but not to the extent we would have wished to see it. They have problems with their export revenues, we see that, but the economy is still working. Foremost, the military complex is there, and our military see and feel it on the ground. Therefore, we have to step up and see how we can find and close the loopholes.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts for being here today. As part of your introduction, which was clear, we are doing everything we can at the national level to share our values, integrity and solidarity, including a meeting with our U.S. counterparts last week while in Colorado Springs. I am hopeful that work continues.
I have three questions. One is the conversation. The coverage we get is about Ukraine and weapons. I am wondering what assistance has looked like for Russia attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, specifically your energy infrastructure. Is there a need for materials or expertise to get power stations back online after a missile attack? Have you asked for Western assistance in this area, and if so, has it been met?
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you so much, Senator Deacon, for your question. Indeed, just yesterday, your foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, was here and I was at the meeting of all prime ministers, and that question was addressed. That was the main issue that our head of government raised during the meeting and, of course, we need that help to compensate the losses and the destruction that we had because of the rocket strikes. This night, there were 36 rockets shelled on facilities in the whole country, not just in the eastern part. Therefore, we have provided the whole list of generators and transformers to the Canadian government and we hope that your government would support us not to just get through the winter but also to modernize the whole energy grid. It has been an old one, and therefore many things have been destroyed, so we have a chance to renew it with renewable technologies in solar and other respects to get rid of coal-generated facilities. Therefore, thank you so much for this question. We would need this support from government.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you very much for that. We can’t help here in Canada, and I’m sure the world is feeling the same thing, that in eight days, we will reach the one-year anniversary — I hate to use that word — or the one-year mark of the Russian invasion.
We also know that Mr. Putin is big on anniversaries and symbolism. Have you seen an increase in the Russian offensive in contested areas or a buildup of Russian troops that would suggest some kind of renewed assault on February 20?
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you for your question. Yes, you’re right. Putin is crazy about all that symbolism and symbolic dates. But the fact is the Russian army has already started this new huge campaign and a huge attack along the whole front line. So we should be ready at any time and, of course, on that day, maybe he would shell not 30 but maybe 100 rockets on our infrastructure facilities and on the civilian objects, so that’s the reality. Therefore, there is this necessity of receiving air defence systems as soon as possible. Thank you again for the NASAMS air defence system that Canada is providing. It saves the lives of citizens of Ukraine, and we hope that we can further strengthen this line. Thank you so much.
Senator Boniface: Thank you very much for joining us this morning — it’s afternoon for you. We appreciate it, and we commend the resilience of the Ukrainian people through this last year.
My question follows on one of our last meetings on the topic of Ukraine. We heard Russia was attacking certain critical infrastructure to weaponize winter by reducing the ability of Ukrainians to stay warm and store food.
Could you give us an update on how Ukraine is faring against this strategy over the winter? Have you been able to keep needed infrastructure or get it back up and running?
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you so much. In fact, this challenge remains. We have lost one half of our energy generation. So we had 24 gigawatts of energy generation, and now we have about 12. From the nuclear power station in Zaporizhzhia alone, it’s like six gigawatts that we have missed because Russians have occupied it in the first weeks of this war. Therefore, the government has a clear plan for how to supplement those missing facilities that were destroyed or damaged. We hope that the Canadian government would support us in that sense, by like replacing the bulbs. We could compensate for almost one gigawatt worth of generating facilities just by replacing the usual bulbs for LED bulbs, or providing the mobile gas power station, which we have ordered and some partners are offering this help.
I think it is feasible to compensate for those lagging facilities, and we would appreciate any help that the Parliament of Canada could provide and finance those initiatives of the government. Thank you.
Senator Marwah: Thank you, Deputy Minister Melnyk, for being with us today. Clearly, the war that’s going on is a war of attrition, a test of endurance and is especially hard. In this kind of situation, there are no winners, and in your case the civilian population has taken the biggest brunt of this war.
I worry about an escalation of the war, particularly if Russia believes that they are losing and decide to escalate and they go along the nuclear side. Is it something that worries you as to how this might escalate and the consequences of that?
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you, Senator Marwah, for this question. Of course, we are worried. No one can look into Putin’s head as to what he has in mind. He has this possibility. Russia has nuclear weapons, the biggest arsenal worldwide, and they are the foremost of tactical nuclear weapons. We see the risk. On the other hand, we count on our partners, foremost on other nuclear powers, to find ways. We have seen the conflicts during the whole Cold War, and it was possible to prevent a nuclear strike.
Therefore, Ukraine can do nothing in that sense. We were just defending ourselves, so you can interpret that as an escalation or not, but the only instruments that can influence Putin’s decision not to employ nuclear weapons are the United States, Great Britain, France and other nuclear powers that can communicate to Putin, hopefully, that risking this step would be the destruction of the Russian state; it would be a catastrophe for Russian statehood.
I hope those signals have been sent to the Kremlin. That’s the only way we can deal with that.
If Ukraine had nuclear weapons, then that would create some balance. As you know, we refused and gave it back in 1994. So we can only hope that our partners find an adequate language to address this issue.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Senator MacDonald: Mr. Melnyk, it is great to see you today and to speak to you.
I have been corresponding with friends of mine in Kyiv and in Warsaw who have fled. There are over 8 million refugees who have fled to the surrounding countries. There are 1.5 million in Poland and over 2.8 million in Russia.
I am curious. How do the circumstances of these refugees compare? The 2.8 million people in Russia — are they refugees or are they hostages? What are the circumstances there? How are they being treated?
I know the people who have gone to Poland are treated very well as far as I can tell, but how does that compare to the other refugees in the surrounding countries?
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you so much.
You are right, Senator MacDonald, that those Ukrainians who are now in Russia — or I would say the majority of them — are not refugees but hostages. In the occupied territories, Russia just forcefully deports populations. They take our kids from orphanages and other facilities, even when there are parents, and then they try to re-educate them “patriotically” in Crimea or in Russia itself.
Maybe there are some of them who had no other opportunities to flee from Ukraine as to do it via Russia, and many left Russia and tried to reach European countries.
But unfortunately, you are right. We do not have very much information about what is happening to those Ukrainians. What we hear is that they are resettled to the far east throughout Russia such that we are losing those people. They will be integrated forcefully into a Russian society and economy. That’s a big challenge.
We hope that the international community and our partners also in Canada would have it in mind on how to deal with those Ukrainians who had no other choice or were forcefully deported. Thank you.
Senator MacDonald: What about the refugees who have gone to Slovakia, Hungary and other countries? What is their relative treatment under these circumstances?
Mr. Melnyk: Regarding all those Ukrainians in Germany, Poland or other European countries, we have basically gotten positive feedback. People are treated well. The kids have access to education. In some countries — like in Germany — they have access to social systems, so they are treated basically as unemployed Germans, for instance. We cannot complain. We are grateful to our neighbours in the West. They have accepted those Ukrainians.
We still hope that they will not remain there forever. Even if the war were over tomorrow, we would need those people to rebuild Ukraine and our economy. It will be an enterprise for the next few decades to get our economy running again. One of the challenges we face now is how to make a proposal to those Ukrainians living in Poland, Germany and other countries in Europe to come back and help us rebuild Ukraine.
Senator Greene: Thank you very much. It’s my honour to be here with you.
I notice in the media this morning that the President of Belarus is saying that he won’t attack Ukraine unless Ukraine attacks it first. Could you comment on that?
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you, Senator Greene, for this question.
We don’t know what Lukashenko will do. We know that Putin has been trying to persuade him that the Belarusian army should join the Russian offensive from the north. He should take in mind that our common border between Ukraine and Belarus is over 1,000 kilometres long. It’s a danger we face, but we still hope that Lukashenko would not be compelled to join Russian forces, because that would be a huge catastrophe for the people, and he doesn’t know whether people would support it.
So the mood is shaky in Belarus. People don’t want to fight or die in Ukraine, because they have seen that the Russian army has not had many successes on the battlefield. Therefore, our hope is and our appeal to our neighbours, including to Belarus, is that they abstain from intervening.
Although Belarus is a state — and that has to be said — we see Belarus as an aggressor state, because most of the airstrikes on Kyiv and other cities are made from military facilities situated on Belarusian soil. Therefore, we still see that Belarus has been giving military support and assistance, but not intervening with their own troops so far. So we hope that, in that sense, Belarus will abstain from the war.
The Deputy Chair: Colleagues, we will go to the second round.
Senator Coyle: Thank you again, Mr. Melnyk.
I would like you to continue your remarks, if you have anything further to say, on the sanctions regime. You did tell us they were helpful but not as helpful as we and you had hoped. The Russian economy has not sustained as serious an impact as the one hoped for with the original intention of the wide-ranging sanctions that had been imposed.
You talked about closing loopholes. Is there anything further that you could fill us in on or clarify for us as to what you mean by that in terms of closing those loopholes? Is there anything further we need to be doing with the sanctions that we and our international partners are enforcing?
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you, senator, for your question. There are a number of issues that might be addressed in that sense.
We have to make sure that the sanctions regime that has already been installed is duly implemented, because Russians try to find loopholes. Now we hear they are buying, for instance, spare parts for the military industry from China — and not only from China but from other countries — which keeps the military economy running. That is one of the issues that we have to look at.
There is no ban on trade with Russia. There has been a recommendation for European partners worldwide to just abstain and not invest there, but there have been no political decisions in any of the countries to influence that process. As an example, Germany, where I used to serve as an ambassador, imported from Russia goods worth €30 billion last year. Basically, €30 billion was invested in the Russian economy through taxes and other means and helped Russia to continue that war. That is one example that we have.
Maybe we can find an instrument, which is not easy, to influence the decisions of Canadian enterprises and firms to at least not expand the trade, because it is there. It is not prohibitive to invest in Russia except in certain spheres where there have been sanctions introduced.
Atomic energy in Russia is one important branch of the Russian economy which is still out of the sanctions regime. We have not been successful to convince our partners in the West to introduce tough sanctions on Rosatom and other industries in that sense. These are just a few examples of how we can further isolate Russia internationally and cut the revenues for continuing this war.
The Deputy Chair: I am going to take three other questions, and then, Deputy Foreign Minister Melnyk, if you can, please respond to each as briefly as you can within the time we have.
Senator Simons: National Public Radio in the United States reports this week that there appears to be a Russian attempt to drain the Kakhovka Reservoir, imperiling drinking water, agricultural production and the safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plants. Can you update us on what’s happening at the Kakhovka Reservoir?
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Mere days after the invasion began, Ukraine formally applied to join the European Union, or EU. The application was accepted in June, which is record time. However, a number of European countries do not support Ukraine’s bid to join the union or are divided on how quickly its application was accepted. What do the next steps look like as far as joining the European Union goes? How might the process be fast-tracked? How do you think Ukraine’s membership in the EU could affect the conflict?
[English]
Senator MacDonald: Mr. Melnyk, yesterday the U.S. press reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed some hesitation on the prospect of reincorporating Crimea into Ukraine at this time. He implied that a Ukrainian offensive into Crimea may be a red line for Putin. You spoke about not being intimidated by Putin. Are you concerned about Secretary Blinken’s comments in this context? Do you worry that the West is being intimidated by Russian threats?
The Deputy Chair: Thank you for the questions. Deputy foreign minister, would you like to respond?
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you, I will try to be concise.
Kakhovka is a very dangerous situation because the water from that artificial lake is used for cooling down the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, so if there is no water, the danger is obvious. Therefore, we call upon our partners to help us to persuade the Russian Federation to stop that activity because it will endanger not just Ukraine but the whole region.
On the question of the EU, it is a main, strategic goal of Ukraine we have been pursuing to join the European Union as soon as possible. We hope to start to begin the negotiation process this year. It is possible, as we see it, so our ambition is to start the process. We don’t need any exceptions. We just would like to have a fair process and I hope we would be able to finish those negotiations within the next five years or so.
It is realistic from our point of view, and that is something which will not have any impact on the conflict; at least we have not heard any intimidation from Putin that our way towards the EU could be a further escalation.
The last question on Crimea is not an easy one. We have experienced in the past months similar fears that trying to liberate Crimea — which is a Ukrainian territory according to international law — could provoke Putin and push him to use nuclear weapons or other means.
Of course, Putin will be playing with that fear. It is his most effective weapons. The heaviest weapon that Putin has is not the nuclear weapons themselves but the fear of using them. We have to learn how to deal with that threat which we face. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: That brings us to the end of this first panel. I want to thank, on your behalf, Deputy Foreign Minister Melnyk for his candour. I note your invitation for us to visit, and I do think it would be very helpful for this committee in its ongoing watching brief on Ukraine to have that opportunity. But we do wish you well. Godspeed, and thank you again for being with us.
Mr. Melnyk: Thank you, Senator Harder.
The Deputy Chair: Colleagues, we will now move to our second panel.
We are pleased to welcome, from Alinea International, Bob Francis, President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Francis is coming to us from Alberta. With him is Tawnia Sanford Ammar, Director, Ukraine; Oksana Osadcha, Program & Technical Director; and, by video conference, Tracy Hardy, Senior Police Advisor, who has been involved in programming.
Mr. Francis, as you know, you have five minutes for your opening statements, and we’ll then move to questions, as we did in the previous panel, which I know you and your colleagues were happy to observe.
Bob Francis, President and Chief Executive Officer, Alinea International: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to this committee for inviting us to speak about our work in Ukraine.
Alinea is one of Canada’s longest-standing international development companies. We have been supporting the Government of Canada since 1986 to deliver development programs around the world, and I am particularly proud of the work in conflict-affected areas and fragile states that we have done.
Representing Alinea is the easy part for me today. What is more difficult is representing the courage and dedication I have witnessed in Ukraine over 15 years of involvement in the country working with 200 Ukrainian staff members of ours, particularly throughout the last year. We are one of the few development partners who have been operational all through the war.
In January, I spent a week in Kyiv to support our project teams, expressing solidarity with our Ukrainian partners. I heard stories from government counterparts, community stakeholders and project staff about the resilience, persistence and adaptation that has become part of their lives.
My colleagues joining me today are central to this story. Based in Kyiv since 2009, Tawnia Sanford Ammar is Alinea’s country director for Ukraine and leads our governance support teams. Tracy Hardy is a retired RCMP assistant commissioner and contributes to our programming efforts to build a trustworthy police service, and she joins us today in Warsaw. Oksana Osadcha is our program and technical director for defence reform programming. They can share first-hand testimonies about the impact of Canada’s support to Ukraine.
To provide an overview, our work started in juvenile justice back in 2009. Canada designed a program to foster rehabilitation programs for youth who have broken the law, focusing on reform in the community instead of incarceration. When the project started, there were more than 2,000 young people in custody, and now there are fewer than 50.
The Maidan Revolution in 2014 brought in a wave of reformers to the government, being new to government, they reached out to Canada for support, marking the beginning of two consecutive projects dedicated to the reform of systems and processes to improve daily life for Ukrainians.
Consistent throughout our work is building the integrity and performance of Ukraine’s national institutions in the interest of meeting citizens’ needs. There is work underway across almost every Ukrainian ministry and continuing today. For example, we have digitized dozens of essential services, from health care to passports, provided by multiple ministries and increasing transparency and curtailing corruption.
Our support to Ukraine’s reform efforts is helping the country move closer to aligning with NATO and European Union principles and standards.
In 2020, Canada entrusted Alinea to support institutional reform in Ukraine’s security and defence sector. Reporting to Global Affairs and the Department of National Defence for Canada, we are making progress on democratic oversight, advancing gender equality and improving planning and resource management across the country and sector. We are also working on a review of defence capabilities and military planning needs for immediate and long-term horizons.
Conflict-related sexual violence is among the war crimes that should be prosecuted. We assist in the coordination of response through trauma-informed approaches and mobile response teams made up of police and social service providers to support survivors.
There have been significant achievements in rebuilding public trust in law enforcement through another Canadian program implemented by Alinea. Our team works with national police leadership on advancing best practices in community policing and promoting the role of women by establishing and continuing to support the Ukrainian Association of Women in Law Enforcement. Now, in wartime, when police enter recently liberated communities, Ukrainians see officers as trusted partners to maintain public order and security.
I want to draw your attention to Global Affairs Canada. When the war started, not within hours but within days, the Global Affairs program immediately allowed us to respond with a percentage of program funds to provide emergency assistance. Across our projects, $3.5 million provided by Canada triggered $25 million worth of assistance from other international partners.
Now, as we assess the past year and the scenario for the future, one thing is clear: Ukraine needs Canada more than ever. It’s important to support the defence effort with military equipment and boost the economy with sovereign loans, and Canada is doing our part. But Ukraine is also looking towards recovery, and recovery is multi-faceted.
Key reforms must continue in order to further rehabilitate governance systems, processes and structures across an entire society affected by the war. Reconstruction cannot happen without a well-planned and managed recovery that sustains good governance, economic growth, social protection and peace and security. Thank you very much. I’m sorry about my emotion.
The Deputy Chair: We share your emotion.
Colleagues, we’ll go to the first round, again with four minutes for questions and answers.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for being here virtually and in person. And truly, thank you for your vulnerability. This is tough stuff.
Just reviewing your website, I have to say, which is almost like a new paper-and-pencil exercise, it certainly evoked emotion.
To start off, in preparation for our meeting today, I came across a 2019 announcement on your website concerning funding for Ukraine’s reforms for governance, with a specific focus on women and girls.
For sure, every country is a work-in-progress, and Ukraine, of course, is no exception. I’m wondering how big a setback conflicts like this present to such a program. Is it a matter of picking up where you left off once the fighting has ended, or are such reforms actually having a significant setback, meaning that you just have to cover ground to get back to where you were before the fighting started?
Tawnia Sanford Ammar, Director, Ukraine, Alinea International: I’ll take that question. The 2019 announcement was about a project that I managed called the Support for Ukraine’s Reforms for Governance. Certainly, gender and support to women and girls is central to that project. It’s central to all of the work we do in Ukraine.
In that project, one of the things we have done is working towards strengthening the strategic planning capacity of the Government of Ukraine and trying to ensure that whatever solutions we come up with work for everybody and that we’re not leaving anyone behind, whether we’re looking at health or education. This is a system that we’re hard-wiring now into the Government of Ukraine. We have a massive digital tool that does results-based, citizen-oriented planning, and this is part of the solution.
Whenever we go into looking at any particular issue — and we support the Government of Ukraine across the board in all sorts of reform initiatives — we do ask those questions: How is this working for women and girls? How is this working for older people? How is this working for people in urban and in rural areas? Does the same solution work?
I’m pleased to say that the Government of Ukraine has been very good at picking that up. That has become a priority for them, and that has remained throughout the war.
One of the things we work on is gender audits within all of the departments in Ukraine. It might surprise you that those gender audits are going on during wartime. The Ukrainian government has not taken their foot off the pedal with reforms — not even these kinds of reforms, which tend to be left behind in any kind of crisis.
Another thing that is important to say — and I might refer to Tracy or Oksana on this — is the large percentage of women that are in the armed forces and the police. Again, this is something that is fairly unique to Ukraine and something that Ukraine is proud of. There’s a lot of work being done to support them.
I’ll come to them in a second. The last thing I would say, again, the Government of Ukraine is very big on gender and very big on removing barriers for the most vulnerable and marginalized. Just yesterday morning I attended a meeting virtually in Kyiv with the Barrier-Free Council, on which I sit. It is a very high-level council chaired by the Prime Minister, and the First Lady attends the council on a regular basis. It is about trying to remove barriers from every single sector. Every minister — the entire cabinet — attends that council at every meeting.
I don’t think that Ukraine has left this issue behind at all. I’m personally very happy to see that, very encouraged by that.
Senator Simons: Rape in war is as old as war itself. I was struck when Mr. Francis mentioned this is a particular issue that you have pivoted to deal with. I wondered, at the risk of talking about something very emotional and upsetting, if you can tell us what you are observing about sexual violence in this time of war and how — this is not what you went there to do, but you mentioned that your staff have been dealing with the effects of that.
Tracy Hardy, Senior Police Advisor, Alinea International: Perhaps I can talk about that a bit. Certainly, dealing with the issues of conflict-related sexual violence is something that not everyone was prepared for. In response to the full-scale invasion, the Minister of Interior and the National Police, as Mr. Francis mentioned, initiated a specialized police mobile response unit to identify criminal offences, including conflict-related sexual violence committed by the Russian military in recently liberated communities. These teams include police officers, psychologists and social services agencies. They’ve had presence in approximately 139 communities so far and have connected with about 2,200 citizens.
We’ve provided equipment to these mobile teams, which included tech equipment, sleeping bags and thermal clothing, and emergency packages are very important, which they can provide to survivors and their children, which include food rations and hygiene products.
The government leadership has requested development of learning tools. Again, the level of awareness is of concern. They’re learning materials that help police officers better understand the nature of CRSV — conflict-related sexual violence — and develop skills they need to address the challenges, focusing on ensuring a survivor-centred approach — understanding it and its impact on individuals and communities, how to properly gather information in accordance with international standards, identifying survivors and witnesses and working in collaboration and partnership with social services to provide comprehensive assistance to survivors, and police officers themselves are not immune to this traumatic impact. This package has included psychological advice to help prevent burnout.
We stressed to the police that their actions that they take and the rapport they build with the survivor will have a lasting impact throughout the person’s life and that the police response will directly impact three critical components: the survivor’s ability to work towards healing and recovery, the overall investigation and any court proceedings.
Again, there’s no doubt that Ukrainians are facing unprecedented incidents of CRSV. As in past wars, it’s expected that some survivors will come forward after hostilities. It will be the work of the police, both from a response and investigational approach, that every effort be made to bring perpetrators to justice. Thank you.
Oksana Osadcha, Program & Technical Director, Alinea International: Thank you very much for this burning question. In addition to what is done by the national police, there are also governmental efforts. In May of last year, the framework cooperation was signed between the Government of Ukraine and the UN. PROTECT, or Promoting Reform Objectives through Technical Expertise and Capacity Transfer, the program which I work in for Alinea, has an embedded adviser in the office of the Government Commissioner for Gender Policy, which oversees coordination across the government response to conflict-related sexual violence, including the work for the prosecution office, the implementation plan and the working group monitoring the human trafficking. We also do our best to communicate with the armed forces because in the occupied territories these are basically the land forces who first enter the territory and interact with the civilians. It is very important that they have the algorithm for communication and develop the memo that was supported by the land forces command, so it was distributed in the land forces.
The bottom line for all these efforts is, of course, to promote the survivor-centred approach to ensure that, in all those communications, the victims are not re-traumatized.
Senator Boniface: Thank you to all of you for being here. Thank you for the work that you’re doing. I’d like to direct my question to Tracy Hardy, first to say hello and that I’m happy to see someone of your calibre in that position.
I’d be interested in knowing, from the development that’s taken place — I’m somewhat familiar with it and the work you’ve been doing, and the Canadians who have been helping with it in the police training — if you can give us an update in terms of how far you’ve been able to work in terms of creating the police agency that you were expecting.
Second, how has the war intervened in a way of what we would see as regular policing?
Ms. Hardy: Thank you. It’s great to see you.
I’ve been incredibly impressed with the national police in their adoption of community policing principles and forming that strong community practice over the last seven years that provides the element necessary for police to deal with challenges now in time of war, but, most importantly, taking those steps to maintain public trust.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with community policing, it’s the process by which police and community members work together to improve community well-being and safety secured through joint problem solving.
To support community policing practice in conflict-affected regions we’re providing direct support and access to information related to current and emerging public safety issues which includes human trafficking, conflict-related sexual violence, et cetera.
Since 2017, the National Police of Ukraine — NPU — is committed to developing or establishing these community consultative groups, which are continuing in conflict-affected zones. That’s, again, members of the police, the NGOs and citizens delivering incredible service still.
We’re continuing to facilitate the availability of resources to these partners. As I say, there’s a sharing of information, there’s that connectivity and that social cohesion between officers and police. As one example, we currently have a Facebook platform of about 1,700 national and international community policing practitioners who connect to discuss trends.
During war, these trusted partnerships have recently been expanded with their launch of community safety hubs. In seven regions where partners have remained operational during the war, we’re able to work with police to address safety issues and adapt them to the local needs, which are ever-evolving and highly relevant in the current circumstances.
These centres offer multi-agency cooperation that unites the police and the community, as well as other stakeholders. I think it is of importance that these centres are also serving as a communication platform between police and community to assist in the investigation of war crimes, which includes the response to CRSV. Thank you.
Senator Boniface: Ms. Hardy, can you elaborate a bit on what you’re seeing from the side of human trafficking, which is always a great fear in conflict situations?
Ms. Hardy: The human trafficking issue is certainly of concern and, again, is something in which the front-line officers that we deal with have not had a lot of training and awareness. That’s changing and courses are being developed. We’re working closely with our NPU partners as well as the Ministry of Interior personnel to ensure that issue is being addressed and investigated.
One of the big pieces is ensuring that all the international and national agencies that have human trafficking on their radar are connecting and sharing information and, again, supporting the police in their efforts.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you to the witnesses for being here. Your remarks are very compelling. Thank you, Mr. Francis.
In your brief, you said that reconstruction in Ukraine had to be carefully managed and well planned, particularly when it came to Ukrainian refugees returning to their country. You also said that a major international funding effort was needed to support the country’s reconstruction. You think Canada could be an important player in mobilizing international support and funding. Could you give us details on the role Canada could play in the reconstruction of Ukraine? How could Canada help organize the international support effort in a federated way?
[English]
Ms. Ammar: I think recovery is on everybody’s lips already. That might seem strange considering we have a full-scale war that is ongoing and atrocious and creating a great deal of destruction.
If I could share a moment from a village that Mr. Francis and I went to in Kyiv — I won’t let him talk about this today — we went to a small village on the outskirts of Kyiv to visit one of our projects where we are building a centre to provide access to education for the children there. In just three weeks of occupation of that village last March, almost a year ago, the Russians essentially destroyed many parts of that village, but focused on the schools. When we say this is a genocidal war, you can see it in what they destroy. They destroyed the school and the kindergarten. They looted, and they terrorized the people in the village.
Recovery is something that is multifaceted. It is, obviously, rebuilding. You see that right in front of your face. You see the fact that your kids don’t have a place to go to school. We’re doing temporary solutions right now with our project. We’re open distance learning centres which allow the children to come together in a kind of modern one-room schoolhouse. We provide them with laptops and computers and they learn there together, kids of all ages.
Just in that village, 500 children can’t go to school. The Russians, also, by the way, burned out the school buses so the kids couldn’t be bussed to another village for school. They wanted to make sure it would really hurt.
I think it’s broader and deeper. We have to look at the social impacts, of course. We’ve had two years of a pandemic in Ukraine, just like everybody else. Your kids don’t have access to school and don’t have an opportunity to socialize. You have economic implications. Recovery is all of those things. It has to encompass not just the rebuilding, but also the social aspects. It has to encompass healing as well, because everybody has been touched by this. Recovery is about winning this war and then being able to rebuild, but also making sure that we’re able to still have the services, still create the health and education services to bring Ukrainians home, because they all want to come home. Some of them are coming back even while the war is raging. We need to make sure it’s a safe place where they can finally feel safe and their families can thrive.
In terms of what Canada can do, the ongoing support of Canada is invaluable; it gives people hope. I think we have to continue with the spending that we have. As a Canadian taxpayer, I fully support it. We also have to work on the development aspect. It’s not just weapons. It’s weapons right now, but it’s also making sure that we can rebuild entire towns, villages and cities with all of the services people need. That’s also the development work that we and others undertake on behalf of Canada.
Senator Coyle: Thank you so much to our witnesses for your testimony but also, more importantly, for the work you’re doing on behalf of Canadians and in that solidarity that we want to see between our country and our people and Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. Thank you for that.
Some of you were here for the deputy minister’s testimony earlier. Deputy Minister Melnyk spoke about wanting Canada’s Parliament, of which we are one chamber, to pass a motion in support of Ukraine’s membership in NATO. That was one of his requests of us.
Your testimony, Mr. Francis, mentioned that the support that your company is providing Ukraine in its reforms — before this horrible genocidal war, and still — is helping the country move closer to aligning with both NATO and European Union principles and standards. We know that Ukraine desperately wants to be a member of the European Union and wants to be a member of NATO. As Deputy Minister Melnyk said, if it doesn’t get there, particularly on the NATO membership, then it has no future; it will be a sitting duck. I think that’s pretty much what he was trying to say to us.
Could you tell us a bit more about where you see the country in terms of meeting those standards and principles? Are there explicit benchmarks laid out that you are helping Ukraine work towards? What kind of progress are you seeing on that, and what kind of impact are you seeing the war have on that effort?
Mr. Francis: I’d like to hand it over to my colleagues, but I’d like to first say that what we do is about development, and development is about reform. As they reform their government for better processes and systems, that will help them get aligned with NATO and joining the EU. For me to actually talk about what types of things we’ve helped them do, I’m going to hand it over to my colleagues here.
Ms. Osadcha: Thank you very much for the question. This question is indeed essential, and as you absolutely correctly mentioned, the NATO membership is enshrined in the Ukrainian constitution. This is the will of the people, as well. The latest social questionnaires show that the level of support towards NATO membership is the highest probably in the whole of Ukrainian history.
As a team, we have 16 people working in Kyiv currently on this particular topic, enshrining the NATO principles — I would love to use the word “standards” — and core values that allies share in Ukrainian legislation in the area of defence governance, in the area of civilian control and democratic oversight. I also do more practical work, in particular, providing Ukraine with the NATO-type weapons and systems.
It also entitles the moving away from Soviet-type logistics and sustainability. This work is comprehensive and definitely requires the whole international effort and support in this regard. We focus on a few particular items and areas, and we also help Ukrainians to implement those changes in the whole defence management and defence governance system.
As we speak, today there were hearings of the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, which is revisiting the law on national security. One of the main aspects is that, since the beginning of the large-scale invasion — because the war didn’t start in February last year, the war started in 2013 — those military units that were trained according to NATO standards, bilaterally by Canada and by the United Kingdom, proved to be more effective than those who were not so. This understanding of NATO standards and principles is not only about the membership, but it’s also about the effectiveness of the armed forces, which I think is now shared by the majority of the armed forces in Ukraine.
Senator MacDonald: I guess we will talk about something we don’t like to talk about: corruption. Last month, we found out that while inflated prices were charged for food to feed Ukrainian soldiers, the difference was pocketed by high-ranking officials and 10 officials were forced to resign, and a deputy chief of staff to the president was forced to resign. This is, obviously, damaging to Ukrainian morale. It has also damaged the morale of people in the West who are supporting Ukraine, and it’s a betrayal of the people who are fighting for their lives over there.
How has corruption impacted your work on the projects you were involved in? What have you done or what can you do to respond to corruption and deal with it?
Mr. Francis: We work in about 60 countries around the world right now, and there are few countries where we don’t have to deal with some corruption. We do have systems in company to monitor, oversee and make sure the opportunities aren’t there for people to exploit the opportunity for corruption. There is also the risk factor.
What we do in Ukraine is we have been working with helping them build systems that are processes that eliminate the opportunity for people to take advantage of it. That’s one way we can stop the corruption aspect. What we have been doing with Canada there has had a great impact on that.
I would like to hand it over to Ms. Ammar, who can give you some examples and more detail.
Ms. Ammar: That’s true. Despite the fact that we often hear corruption raised alongside Ukraine, often in tandem, there is a lot of progress that has been made in Ukraine to fight corruption.
When I first went there in 2009 — I lived there for many years before that as well — it was a very different country. You couldn’t drive down the road without being shaken down for a bribe. As someone driving a foreign car, I was often a target, and not for my bad driving. It was a part of life. If you saw a police officer, you knew you would have to pay a bribe. If you wanted to get something done — basic things such as a passport, having your car registered, a birth certificate for your child — all those things were incredibly difficult. There was no information around them. There was no process or procedure. You could go to a passport office and there wouldn’t be an application there. In order to get one, you would have to pay someone.
It starts from that. You don’t have systems that are put in place.
Ukraine has changed completely now. It has leapfrogged from these paper databases and lack of information about services. We now have driver’s licences on our phones, in apps created by the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
There is still much more to do, but part of it is creating systems around whatever we are doing. Whether it is bringing in humanitarian aid or rebuilding the country, we have to have strong systems.
We also have to do ethics training and ensure there is an enforcement element as well. I don’t know if we have any more time to turn it over to Tracy, but that’s some of the work we’re doing with police in terms of ethics training.
Again, we’ve hired the right people to be patrol police. We’ve turned that situation around 180 degrees in the last 10 years.
The Deputy Chair: We do have time to hear from Tracy. In particular, I would like you to talk about the police training in Kyiv, which Canada has been actively involved in for at least the last decade.
Ms. Hardy: Yes, senator. Thank you. When we started working with the police force back in 2015, they have come a long way in addressing unethical behaviour. Integrity and trust were founding principles of them building this new police service.
They have a very robust code of ethics, of which there is the rule of law, honesty and integrity. Canada’s reform efforts have contributed to this shift.
Again, part of the NPU has been to build that trusted police service and root out corrupt practices. It’s not happening overnight, but they have learned from other countries’ experiences, including Canada.
It’s ensuring less susceptibility to corruption and living those core values. We’ve seen officers willing to call it out when they see it, and they’ve demonstrated their willingness to hold officers to account and protect their fragile, hard-earned trust with Ukrainians.
Increased pay and improved social benefits have played a role in diminishing the need to take a bribe. I believe that all of the reform work to date has made them less susceptible to corruption.
Reflecting back on my 34 years of past service in the RCMP, I have met many Ukrainian officers across the country who have inspired me with their dedication and professionalism. It’s a true testament to our profession.
Driving these reforms is not an easy task, and I believe they are continuing, even under the hardship of the Russian invasion. Thank you.
Senator M. Deacon: As this testimony continues, I am deeply reminded of the lyrics of Whitney Houston: “I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.” Our children in this Ukraine situation continue to permeate so many things.
You have talked about work done with Ukrainian police with regard to conflict-related sexual violence as well as human trafficking. I’m wondering about the organization working with Ukrainian authorities on the issue of reported abductions of Ukrainian children to Russia. If so, and with great thanks, is there anything you could report on that front?
Ms. Ammar: Thank you. It’s a very important and troubling question, frankly. It also goes back to the question that Senator MacDonald raised a while ago about refugees in Russia.
We’re aware that there are at least 7,000 children that have been forcibly deported to Russia. I use that word because this is a war of genocide, and deportation is part of it. They take entire orphanages and deport the orphanages. There are children in occupied territories that have been sent to summer camp and never returned home. The stories are heartbreaking.
Our project is working with the government, because the way that we work is we support the ministry in doing whatever reform they need to work on. Right now we’re setting up systems to trace those children. That’s just the first step. To get them back will be a very long road. Many of these children, we understand, have already been adopted by Russian families. The longer this goes on, you can imagine the difficulties in bringing them home.
Interestingly — you will hear different numbers — Russia claims to have rescued more than 100,000 children. Ukrainian authorities dispute that number because, of course, from the Russian perspective, they have brought them out of Ukraine to a safer haven, but we don’t see anything near that number. Still, every child is very important, and we’re looking at over 7,000 children.
Senator Boniface: My question goes to Tracy Hardy, but I welcome other thoughts.
I do some work around organized crime. I’m interested in what type of work is being done with neighbouring countries to prevent organized crime from filling the gap that will exist across the country and how that is being addressed, either through the assistance of the EU or others. Can you enlighten me on that?
Ms. Hardy: We haven’t been doing a lot of work in that regard, as we are focused primarily on the response and building the capacity of the front-line, first-responding officers, but I know the EU themselves have been doing incredible work. I know that the National Police are connecting with their counterparts, particularly in neighbouring countries.
We have some plans within our project to provide some training and support in developing the program in Canada known as Operation Pipeline. We are concerned about the transiting drugs, the human trafficking victims and the military armaments. That’s actually something that we’re just in the process of developing to help those police agencies that are patrolling the highway, dealing with the contraband that is transiting in and out of Ukraine. So that is one piece.
Senator Boniface: In terms of the capacity of the Ukrainian police, given all the other issues they have, when you arrived there, would they have had the capacity to deal with those issues already, or is it a training-up scheme that was required?
Ms. Hardy: There was some capacity, but there definitely is a need to modernize approaches, and that’s where the Canadian police mission in Ukraine, as well as the European Union mission, has been providing that support. As well, our American partners have been focusing on that issue.
Senator Boniface: Thank you for your work there, Tracy.
Senator Gerba: In your brief, you indicated that you have been supporting economic growth in Ukraine for several years, and you have notably supported the creation of regional offices that invest in Ukraine, and an entity aimed at increasing investment in the country.
How do you manage to support the Ukrainian economy in these difficult times, and how can investment be boosted in Ukraine?
Ms. Ammar: Thank you for the question. I know it does seem to be a bit of a contradiction to invest in a country currently at war, but as was mentioned earlier, the situation in the country is also multi-faceted. You certainly have a long front line. You have an entire population that has been touched by war in one way or the other.
But you also have regular life, and this is no accident. Ukrainians go to cafés and restaurants, see movies and buy purses as an act of resistance because they are saying, “You know what? You’re not stopping us. We’re going to win this war and victory is buying coffee and celebrating birthdays and just living in the face of war.” We can support Ukrainians by investing in Ukraine because there are some amazing new businesses that have developed and there are so many investment opportunities.
One thing we have worked with UkraineInvest on is helping to show investors what some of those opportunities are in terms of factories and a wonderful, highly educated and highly skilled labour force. Because life does go on, and people are rebuilding their lives even as the war goes on.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: You have mentioned that the $3.5 million that you have in project funding has triggered $25 million worth of assistance from other international partners. Could you tell us, first of all, about what the Canadian development ecosystem looks like and where you fit into that in terms of Ukraine? Where is that other international assistance? Who are those other international partners where this leverage has come from?
And then, slightly unrelated, because you are in so many countries, are there lessons? This seems to me like an unprecedented situation in Ukraine, but are there lessons from some of the other places you have worked that will help you with the partnership around the reconstruction effort?
Mr. Francis: That’s an interesting question. First of all, we’re not a humanitarian assistance company. We don’t qualify as one. We’re a private-sector company, so we do development-type projects in helping them build capacity of government assistance, and I hope you think we’re pretty good at it.
In Ukraine, the Canadian government immediately gave us approval to spend money out of our technical projects. I’m impressed with them. They gave us the authority to start spending money from our development projects and they approved things in hours, not days.
Ms. Ammar: I think it was one of the most timely decisions, and potentially brave decisions, that Global Affairs has ever taken, but I think that decision literally saved lives. That $3.5 million enabled us within hours to be able to call companies and say, “We need blankets, we need water,” and we set up shelters for internally displaced people. We stocked bomb shelters and bought medicine that was delivered directly into Mariupol, and because we were on the ground, just before the full-scale war started, we had sent all of our people home to wherever they thought they would be safe. We had about 200 people that worked for us across the country, and when the decision was made to allow us to spend our money, it gave them the resources right on the ground to work with the local government and set up shelters for IDPs, so when they came they were ready. We know that that little bit of money — just that bit — probably affected 110,000 people.
We were able to support almost 100 bomb shelters, and I think around 60 different shelters for IDPs.
Because we started doing this — the learning curve was massive and we worked 24 hours a day to do this — people took note and understood what we were able to do. We started getting phone calls and had donations from partners in the United States such as the Afya Foundation, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, from diaspora groups of Ukrainians that we call the “Ukrainian Texans” and the Ukrainians in another city of the United States. We had donations from everywhere. And everything now, sadly, has changed to things like wheelchairs, crutches and medical equipment; it’s these kinds of things that we are focused on.
The humanitarian organizations are there now, but what Ukraine still needs is medical support and things for people who have lost limbs, and, sadly, for children who have lost limbs because we have so many child amputees now and burn victims. These are things that in the future Ukraine will need much more.
The Deputy Chair: My question, Ms. Sanford Ammar, is to follow up on your comments about people who work for you in Ukraine. The duty of care is one that occupies us as a committee for the foreign service, wherever they are, and also for humanitarian organizations. Can you describe to us how, even in these circumstances, you are both working in Ukraine and providing the appropriate duty of care to your employees?
Ms. Ammar: Thank you, this is a question we deal with daily and has been for the last year. Just to put it into context, everyone in Ukraine is affected and you are looking at two people who have been displaced by this war. Oksana and I are both at the moment living in Poland because we want to keep our children safe and away from air sirens.
It started before the war, making sure that people’s salaries were paid. We assumed communications and banks would go down, so there was a great deal of forward planning on things we never thought we would have to think about in our lives. We did evacuations of our own staff. Some of our staff went to places like Irpin and Bucha, thinking it would be safe because it’s villages, not the city, and we had to evacuate them.
So every person who works for us has been impacted in some way that’s really difficult to measure.
Interestingly, one of the things that keeps them going that I have noticed is their ability to keep working. That humanitarian and emergency assistance that we had at the beginning of the war, people were so thankful for it not just because of all the people it impacted and that they could do something, but because it made them feel that they had some part in the fight. They weren’t on the front line — maybe their spouses were — but they were able to fight from where they were by taking care of other Ukrainians and providing humanitarian aid. They said over and over again how thankful they were for that and how thankful they were to Canada for that flexibility in allowing them to do that.
It is no small point that they have been working on reforms for a long time, and we have incredible people that work for us who are invested in their country and want to see their country become what they would call a normal country, a country that has European Western values, Canadian values, and they put their heart and soul into their work. On top of everything else — missiles flying, air sirens, et cetera — of course, people were worried about their jobs. We were happy the Canadian government again allowed us to take that pressure off them and say, “It’s okay. You can switch to emergency assistance for a while.” We’re back to reforms, and this is something that needs to continue. This ongoing support is more meaningful than you think. It gives people hope, and hope empowers people to keep fighting.
Senator MacDonald: Thank you.
Since you are a refugee yourself, I thought I would ask you about the refugees coming to Canada. Over 700,000 have applied to come and about 420,000 applications have been approved, but they only have about 130,000 people who have actually made it to Canada. Do you have any insight into reasons for this — the delays and how they are being addressed? Do you have any advice on how to speed up the process?
Ms. Ammar: That’s maybe a little outside of my wheelhouse, and what I can tell you is anecdotal.
First of all, Ukrainians love Canada; Ukrainians have a special affinity with Canada. Senator Simons said this about Alberta, and I think it’s hard to meet a Canadian that doesn’t have some part of Ukrainian heritage.
It’s not that Ukrainians don’t want to come to Canada; Ukrainians want to be home. If we can do everything we can to allow them to be home safely — and that’s stopping the war, first of all, and helping them build their country — that’s great.
In terms of the process, one thing I have heard from several parties is that, especially with older people who cannot travel to get biometrics done, the process is very slow, and this may be something that could be looked into. For younger people who do have the biometrics, it apparently goes very quickly.
The other thing is I know many people who have come to Canada, and, again, they all want to go home eventually. It’s a wonderful thing that Canada has provided this secure, safe haven for this period of time, and, hopefully, that will strengthen ties. We will have a generation of Ukrainians that have their kids in Canadian schools and that have gone back to Ukraine and have friends and people they consider family here.
Ms. Osadcha: As a Ukrainian citizen, I would like to praise the efforts of the Canadian government, especially for launching this special program for the Ukrainians. I applied to come to Canada for five days through this program, because this is the quickest way, and honestly, yes, it surprised a lot of immigration staff in Montreal when I told them, “I’m not immigrating; I’m just visiting.” Nevertheless, I wanted to extend this big thanks to the Canadian people and the Canadian government for opening up to Ukrainians and for taking care of a lot of my fellow citizens in your beautiful country.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. This brings the session to an end, but before I do that, I want, on behalf of the committee, to thank you for your testimony, but more importantly for the work that you have done, you are doing and you will be doing as Ukraine moves forward with our help and ongoing attention.
So thank you again, and on behalf of the committee, I wish you Godspeed.
(The committee adjourned.)