Honourable senators, I rise today to speak about this great nation’s place on the world stage. For generations, Canada was known the world over as being a mighty defender of freedom, democracy, rule of law and human rights.

Despite being outmanned and outgunned, Canada has never taken a knee in the face of atrocities and injustices committed outside of our borders. We have never allowed individual legacy building or personal interests to trump who we are and what we stand for as a nation, and we shouldn’t start now. We must stand with our allies in naming genocidal behaviour for what it is, but we must also call out our allies who are not respecting the values we hold dear. We must not allow bad actors to take advantage of their relationships with us or members of our government, and those close to it, to excuse or justify their egregious behaviour.

We certainly shouldn’t be party to these acts like we were last year in the Nagorno-Karabakh, when Canadian military equipment was used to kill innocent Armenian civilians. We have blood on our hands as a result. We should have known better.

We know that Turkey is not an honest broker; we have placed a ban on military exports to Turkey for a reason. We now know that all it took was a few phone calls before we bowed to their pressure, and hundreds of innocent lives were lost as a result.

Colleagues, one should never turn a blind eye to the egregious behaviour of regimes like Erdoğan and Xi. When one does, it’s almost like they are condoning their actions. We Canadians must never abrogate our responsibilities in standing up for basic human rights.

Turkey draws on the fact that it is a member of NATO, but they do not honour that membership; on the contrary, they take advantage of it, using their NATO standing to legitimize their rogue behaviour and insulate themselves from consequences. Colleagues, this must stop. It’s time to put personal interests and the relationships aside, and return to representing Canada on the world stage and the values that we as Canadians hold dear.

Thank you.