Mr. Chair, I just want to say at the outset that I will be sharing my time with the terrific member for Parkdale—High Park.

Tonight, we have heard a lot of debate and comments around the government's recent announcement. That is important. I want to thank my colleagues, in particular my colleague from St. John's East, our defence spokesperson, for laying out some really important questions, and for a good back-and-forth with government to clarify some points.

I want to focus a little on the sanctions regime. It is really quite important that we talk about this. We all have the same goal, and that is to help the people of Ukraine. It is important to keep that in mind. The actions we have seen, the aggression we have seen and the posturing we have seen from Putin and from the Russian Federation are clearly unacceptable.

It is a question of how we respond, and how we can be effective in our response. I want to reassure, from our side of the House, the people of Ukraine that we are there to help the people of Ukraine. We are there to help them become more independent, obviously, to look at strengthening institutions, to strengthen their economy, to make sure the people, particularly in the east who have been most adversely affected by this aggression, are going to get the support that we can provide to them. Of course that means helping the government in general.

One of the tools that we have been very focused on on this side of the House, and I know the government has engaged and has made mention of sanctions, is to talk about sanctions and what they are intended to do, and how sanctions can be used to attain the goal. I am going to lay that out. The goal should be paramount. It is not just sanctions for sanctions' sake. It is not just to say we are doing something. It is to say we have sanctions for a clear delineated goal.

It is interesting that I have to go over our position that we have been reiterating. There has been a little change on the other side, thankfully, on the sanctions that we think are missing from the government's list that are incorporated, frankly, by the EU and by our friends in the States. My colleague from Parkdale—High Park just raised this question, but it bears repeating.

With regard to Igor Sechin, the government did, and I acknowledge, put Rosneft, the oil company, on the list. Just so members know, Rosneft owns about 30% of an oilfield here in Alberta, Canada. Rosneft is now on the sanctioned list by our government, and I want to acknowledge that, but not Sechin.

I would really like to hear from the government why Igor Sechin is not on the sanctions list. As I said, I acknowledge they did put his company on the list, but if we are actually going to be effective and use sanctions as a clear tool to effect change, to have an impact, we need to coordinate it with our allies, obviously, and we have to put individuals like Sechin on the list. First, because it sends a message; and second, because it will actually affect and hurt Sechin, and of course Putin and the people around him.

We have also asked for Rostec, the state-owned defence and industrial firm, to be on the list. The CEO, Chemezov, has been on the list. He is the chairman of basically an arms export agency. He was a leader in the United Russia Party. His company was sanctioned in the U.S. in September 2014. In this case, we sanctioned the individual but not the company. This is an inversion of what we have seen.

What we have in some cases is we are putting companies on the sanctions list and not the individual, and in this case, looking at Rostec, we are putting the individual on the list but not the company. What requires an explanation here is the incoherence of the government's approach, which is not in keeping with that of our allies.

Yakunin has been mentioned before. He is the CEO of the Russian railways. He is a long-time friend of Putin. He was sanctioned by the U.S. in March 2014. He is involved in Russian rail projects, joint venture agreements with Canadian companies.

We have these individuals who are not on the list and some companies that are, and it lacks coherence.

I want to just highlight those individuals and those companies because, in the case of Igor Sechin, we will not find someone who is closer.

I would just end with this. Sanctions will be ineffective unless they target significant economic relations. The U.S. and the EU sanctions are what brought the Russians to the negotiating table. Canada's make-believe sanctions have deprived it of any role in these talks. Russians, no strangers to deception, can recognize a ruse when they see it. That was by Michael Byers, who is a professor of law. He pointed this out. I am pointing it out. We have a problem in our approach with sanctions, and I want to lay that on the table.

Paul Dewar

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