Watch: Full broadcast of The West Block with Tom Clark, aired Feb. 15, 2015.
Host: Tom Clark
Guest Interviews: Defence Minsiter Jason Kenney, executive director of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Taras Zalusky, director for international policy at the University of Ottawa Roland Paris, parliamentary secretary to the heritage minister Rick Dykstra.
Location: Ottawa
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On this Sunday, cabinet shakeup: Jason Kenney steps in as Defence Minister, our mission in Iraq and what we’re willing to do in Ukraine. We’ll put it all to him, today.
Then, that tense cease fire in Ukraine, we’ll debate the merits of waiting further into that conflict.
And the Canadian flag is 50 years old today but where are the fireworks, the pomp and the circumstance that we’ve seen for other anniversaries? Well, is it all political?
It is Sunday, February the 15th. From the nation’s capital, I’m Tom Clark. And you are in The West Block.
One minute past midnight, the cease fire in Ukraine came into effect but no one is expecting it to be permanent. At best it will buy a few more months or perhaps, just a few more days for a resolution that will end the fighting but so far, that doesn’t seem to be on the horizon. So what happens if and when the fighting starts again? Is non-lethal support all we’re willing to give?
And joining me now from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa is Canada’s new Defence Minister Jason Kenney. Minister thanks very much for being here. The Ukrainian cease fire is just hours old but it’s notable for perhaps what it doesn’t talk about, notably Crimea isn’t even part of this agreement. What’s your general assessment of that cease fire and how long it’s going to hold for?
Jason Kenney:
Well obviously we hope the cease fire holds but let’s be honest, Tom, we are skeptical about Vladimir Putin based on his track record. He’s already violated multiple cease fires. And you’re quite right. This agreement does not cover Crimea. Prime Minister Harper has been clear, Canada will not ever recognize the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory in Crimea and we insist that Russian Forces and those they are backing in Eastern Ukraine with themselves and allows the Ukrainian people to govern Ukrainian territory.
Tom Clark:
Well let’s talk for a second about what we use to back up our words. There were reports for instance that we are now offering the Ukrainians some satellite imagery, is that true?
Jason Kenney:
Now I can tell you that we will also be sharing radar satellite imagery with Ukrainian authorities that will help them to track Russian and enemy troop movements in their territory. This was the number one request made of Canada by Ukrainian President Poroshenko when he visited Ottawa last September. And finally, we are open to considering a meaningful Canadian role in a training mission for Ukrainian Forces being planned by the United States in Western Ukraine.
Tom Clark:
Okay, let’s deal with that because for all the humanitarian aid we’ve given them, night goggles and all that sort of thing, it hasn’t really worked all that well. The Ukrainian Forces aren’t really prevailing on the battlefield at all. How quickly could we move to send trainers in and would we be putting them on the front lines as we do in Iraq?
Jason Kenney:
No absolutely not. First of all, the Americans are taking the lead on establishing a training operation in the far west of Ukraine, could not be further from the actual fighting in far eastern Ukraine. So our men, should they be deployed to that mission would be far out of harm’s way. We are just in the preliminary consideration of that as a possible deployment but Canada is very good, as you know, at those kinds of training missions. We do it for friendly countries around the world and we understand the Ukrainian Forces are very much in need of that kind of support.
Tom Clark:
So, let’s deal with training missions then. You’ve just said that if we do go to Ukraine to train, we’re going to be nowhere near the front lines. In Iraq we train and we’re on the front lines, so I’m wondering what the difference is? And let me put it in this context Minister, there you are sitting at base Petawawa where we train some of the most highly trained soldiers in the world, and it’s nowhere near the front lines. Why do we have to put our troops in harm’s way on the front line in Iraq when we’re not planning to do that in Ukraine?
Jason Kenney:
They’re totally different situations of course and the reason we have dispatched some 70 Canadian Forces, Special Operation personnel to Northern Iraq to the Kurdish region around Erbil is it was to basically help train the Kurdish militia to stop the spread of this genocidal terrorist organization, the so called Islamic State – ISIL. We have stopped the spread of ISIL in Iraq and thanks to the Kurdish in particular, the north are being pushed back. So you can’t do that in some remote area. The Kurds are there on their front lines defending their civilians, their women and children from this genocidal organization and so we have to be with them in training them, not at but close to those front lines.
Tom Clark:
Okay, I’m still not quite sure why there’s a difference between what’s happening in Ukraine and what’s happening in Iraq as far as we’re concerned because there seem to be two conflicts and we’ve deemed the opposition to be evil in both cases. But minister, I want to ask you, you’ve been in this job now for just about a week. Have you been given an estimate as to how much our Iraqi mission is costing?
Jason Kenney:
Well there are different numbers but the situation is fluid, Tom. It’s obviously going to be a significant cost and we’ll be tabling supplementary estimates in the House of Commons in a couple of weeks, the detailed costs incurred to date. So that will be available for disclosure. The department is still working on finalizing those estimates.
Tom Clark:
Now that’s a shift in government policy because your predecessor said that we’d never have those numbers until the conflict was over, but am I right in saying that what you’re saying now is that the Canadian people will have those numbers in a couple of weeks?
Jason Kenney:
We won’t have final precise numbers on the cost of the whole mission until it’s over obviously. Operating an air force base where we are in the Middle East in Kuwait is an expensive exercise and the costs are not…we can’t perfectly predict what the final costs will be. Albeit we have a general sense but the point is, of course we have to receive spending authorization from Parliament and fully disclose and report the actual costs incurred. And the funds that we need, we will be doing that through the supplementary estimates tabled in Parliament before the end of this month.
Tom Clark:
Okay, Minister Kenney thank you very much and I appreciate you coming on so soon into your new portfolio. Thanks very much.
Jason Kenney:
My pleasure. Thank you, Tom.
Tom Clark:
Well coming up, today marks the 50th anniversary of the Canadian flag, so why has the government all but ignored it?
But first, will the cease fire agreement that begins today in Ukraine hold and what should Canada do if it doesn’t? A debate, next.
Break
Tom Clark:
Welcome back. Well as we mentioned earlier, the cease fire in Ukraine is now officially in place but it may not last very long. Before we look at what to do next, let’s look at how we got there in the first place. Here it is, your weekly West Block Primer:
Ukraine consists of three basic regions: the centre, which includes Kyiv, the West and its strong ties to Europe and the East where most people speak Russian and look to Moscow for leadership. The conflict is in the East. Rebels there want to be part of Russia and have launched full-scale war to achieve it. Against overwhelming evidence, Russia denies any involvement in the conflict.
In recent weeks, fighting has intensified. The UN says over 5,000 people have died and nearly one million are homeless. To counter this, sanctions against Russia have been imposed by the West with calls for even more. But it hasn’t stopped the rebel advance. With or without a cease fire, is it time to start sending arms to Ukraine?
Tom Clark:
Well joining me now is Taras Zalusky. He is the executive director of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and also Roland Paris. He is the director for international policy at the University of Ottawa. Welcome to you both. Let me start with you, Taras. Jason Kenney was just on this program and said that Canada is open to and probably will be sending Canadian troops over to Ukraine to further train the Ukrainian Army. Is that enough in your view or do you need more?
Taras Zalusky:
I think it’s a good start. I think Mr. Kenney’s announcement that Canada will be providing satellite imaging in addition to the training. And this training has been going on for a number of years, in fact since Ukraine’s independence. I think this is a continuation of the policies that Canada has been adopting towards Ukraine but obviously we’d still like to watch and see what happens with…
Tom Clark:
You want lethal weapons.
Taras Zalusky:
Yes we do.
Tom Clark:
You want a lot of it.
Taras Zalusky:
Look, we know that Canada doesn’t have a lot to offer in the way of lethal weapons but things like sniper rifles, things like some of the surveillance, some of the anti-tank and anti-aircraft we don’t expect that Canada will be able to necessarily provide but we’d look on the NATO allies too to help fill in there.
Tom Clark:
Roland, take me through…let’s game this out. What are the downsides of Canada getting involved in sending lethal aid to Ukraine?
Roland Paris:
Yeah, well this is a kind of debating point for all western allies right now, particularly in the United States, there’s been pressure growing in the US Congress for the United States to provide lethal aid to the Ukrainian government. And I noticed that Jason Kenney also mentioned that he wouldn’t rule out Canada providing lethal aid, although he also said that we would work in concert with our allies which is I think an important qualification. The main challenge with lethal aid is that it has the potential to prompt Russia to escalate even further. Here’s the problem. Russia can out escalate the Ukrainian military, even with Western weapons. The result might be, of providing lethal aid, might be simply to have a larger conflict with more advanced weapons with more people being killed. And it’s not clear that that is actually going to produce a change in Vladimir Putin’s stance towards Ukraine.
Tom Clark:
And it’s certainly been one of the things that people talked about. You’re talking about the allies; I mean they seem to be going almost in two different directions. The Europeans saying do not supply lethal aid to Ukraine. The Americans and now the Canadians saying well it may be the way to go. Some analysts though, Taras, has said, and I think Roland has maybe referred to this, that if you poke the bear, if you poke Putin and really believe that there’s a military solution to all of this, that it could backfire on you.
Taras Zalusky:
I think you have to look at it in the context of this whole conflict. If you were to look at any of the Geneva agreement, the two previous Minsk agreements, Mr. Putin has never lived up to any of the agreements that he signed up for. So when we look at the escalation that’s taken place in Eastern Ukraine, you’ve had over 2,000 people die in Eastern Ukraine since the first Minsk agreement and the situation has been escalated. We’ve seen larger and more heavy artillery and tanks being provided by the Russian Federation to…
Tom Clark:
But let me ask you, do you believe that there is a military solution for Ukraine against Russia in this?
Taras Zalusky:
I believe that the only thing that Mr. Putin understands is power politics and I think that’s a very sad statement because I think that to arrive at a peaceful solution. I think that you need a strong Ukraine at the table and not one that’s being forced into a corner. I think that Mr. Putin has to date escalated the situation without any defensive military weapons.
Roland Paris:
I don’t disagree with that analysis. Where I have doubts is whether supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons would actually produce the outcome that we want. We simply don’t know. What we do know is that Putin domestically, in Russia, has been telling his people that this conflict has been caused by western intrusion. And supplying western weapons to Ukraine would feed that narrative. It could have the paradoxical effect of actually strengthening Putin domestically within his own country. It would also, as you suggested, create very likely a significant rift in the western alliance between the United States, which is the country considering providing weapons and European allies. And this, I think is Putin’s bigger game, to drive a wedge within the western alliance. That is, I think his long term game and we can’t be playing to his game.
Tom Clark:
But isn’t that exactly what you’re doing in effect by the Congress calling on Canada to send lethal aid. Wouldn’t that be the very thing that Roland’s talking about, about putting a wedge in the alliance?
Taras Zalusky:
I don’t believe that that would be the case. I mean the soldiers…the Ukrainian’s when Mr. Poroshenko and his government took over, they had a decimated military. They didn’t have even the slightest amount of regular military kit. They didn’t have winter uniforms, boots. And frankly, they don’t have the means to defend against the type of heavy weaponry that’s being used against them. And it was only after there were some problems with payroll on the mercenary side that some of them went back to Russia that the Ukrainian’s over the summer had made gains and taken territory back. And at that point, Russia sent in the heavier weapons and regular Russian Forces. So I think that we’re deluding ourselves into thinking that you know if we go along that line, we’re saying that we believe Mr. Putin can be trusted to actually implement the agreement. And I think that at the very least we need to provide Ukraine with the means to defend itself.
Roland Paris:
I think…I agree that we’re facing some very bad options. I mean the choices that we face, none of them is good. And that really came through a couple of weekends ago, there was this big international security conference in Munich where basically everybody in the room wanted to stop Putin but there was a heated disagreement between those who wanted to supply lethal weapons and those who thought that it would be counterproductive. So we’re facing a real policy dilemma here. I think one thing that’s clear is that we need to be supporting the Ukrainian government financially. I’m very pleased that the International Monetary Fund announced a very major multi-billion dollar program for that. We need to increase sanctions. If Putin doesn’t live up to this latest agreement in significant ways, make those economic sanctions punishing and there is an impact on the Russian economy. And we need to keep on communicating that any medaling like this that took place against a NATO member country would provoke the strongest response from NATO.
Tom Clark:
That brings up, just in the last two minutes that we’ve got, I want to put this on the table and that is the question of Canada’s national interest here. Ukraine is not one of our allies. It’s not in one of our alliances. You may want Ukraine to join NATO but at the moment, it’s not. Providing Canadian troops, Canadian bullets, if the government sees it your way, to a non-ally where some people might say I’m not sure where our national interest is there. Does that risk a bigger debate in this country about that?
Roland Paris:
Well I think you know we do have an interest in supporting Ukraine to proceed and to develop in the way that it wants to develop. We clearly have an interest in maintaining a broader European security order which a relatively stable space for generations now, even if that doesn’t directly impinge on NATO allies, and we have an interest in upholding the rule of law internationally, to the extent that we can. Does that mean that those interests rise to the level of our being willing to go to total war to protect Ukraine from Russia? I don’t think that they do. We do have an interest in taking all necessary means to protect our NATO allies but we have sufficient interest in Ukraine to be trying to support the Ukrainians and impose increasing costs on Putin for his behaviour.
Tom Clark:
We’ve only got 20 seconds left but can you give an elevator pitch to Canadians as to why they should be involved in an armed conflict in Ukraine?
Taras Zalusky:
Look, I think that there’s a principle of the security of borders and territorial integrity that has been violated both in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine and we have to be mindful that an aggressor state in the 21st century needs to face consequences so I agree with Roland on those points.
Tom Clark:
Taras Zalusky of the Ukrainian Canadian Council and Roland Paris of the University of Ottawa, thank you both very much. I appreciate the conversation.
Taras Zalusky:
Thank you.
Roland Paris:
Thank you.
Tom Clark:
Coming up next, our flag is 50 years old today but there’s hardly any official celebration. Could it be politics at play? We’ll ask about that next.
Break
Tom Clark:
Welcome back. Well it was 50 years ago to this very day that the maple leaf flag was raised for the first time on Parliament Hill. It was pretty controversial at the time and it’s being celebrated with hardly any fanfare today.
Joining me now from Toronto, Conservative MP Rick Dykstra, who’s also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Heritage. Mr. Dykstra thanks very much for being here but listen, millions and millions of dollars to celebrate Sir John A. Macdonald’s birthday, more than $5 million dollars to commemorate the War of 1812, and $50 thousand for the Canadian flag, why?
Rick Dykstra:
Well look it’s the 50th anniversary obviously on Sunday, February the 15th and one of the important pieces of all of this in terms of celebration, Tom is that it isn’t a need to spend taxpayers’ dollars to celebrate a flag that is known all over the world in terms of what it represents and I think we’re going to see lots of folks over the coming year celebrating the 50th anniversary of the flag out, whether it be the CFL, whether it be Boy Scouts, whether it be Girl Scouts. The celebration on this doesn’t require an expenditure of money.
Tom Clark:
Well, boy I guess the war of 1812 really required an expenditure of money and Sir John A. Macdonald’s birthday. Look, let’s hit the nail on the head here because I’ve heard this from Conservatives that this is in fact political, the fact that you’re only giving this tiny little amount to celebrate the flag, not even a ceremony up on Parliament Hill. They say look red and white, those are the Liberal party colours. The flag was brought in by a Liberal prime minister and the Conservative leader at the time, John Diefenbaker wept openly as the old flag came down. How much of this is politics?
Rick Dykstra:
I think if what you’re expressing is exactly that, it’s politics and partisanship that certainly isn’t coming from this government. It’s not part of what we’re doing in terms of celebrating our country’s symbol that is a symbol of democracy, a symbol of peace, a symbol of good government, a symbol that out of 7 billion people that walk on this earth, when asked a billion of them would say that if they had to leave their country of origin, Canada would be the place to come. There’s no place in celebrating the flag.
Tom Clark:
Fifty thousand dollars compared to $5 million for the War of 1812. You don’t think that’s cheap, huh?
Rick Dykstra:
Well I think a lot less people knew and know about what happened during the War of 1812, Canada’s successes in the War of 1812, ensuring that there is an awareness and educational aspect to the celebration of 1812 certainly is a lot different then people’s understanding, Canadians knowledge and belief and love of the Canadian flag. If money were necessary to celebrate the flag, Tom, we’d spend it. It’s completely unnecessary to do it because everyone knows the Canadian flag and what it stands for.
Tom Clark:
Let’s take a look at what else you’re spending money on. Federal government is going to spend $3 million on a monument to the victims of communism here in Ottawa. It’s been called awful things by the Mayor of Ottawa, the Royal Society of Architects of Canada, as well as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada have all said, what are we doing? This thing is terrible. It’s in the wrong place. It’s just an awful thing. Why are we spending $3 million on a monument that so far, pretty well everybody here in town is just one of the worst things that has ever been proposed?
Rick Dykstra:
Well Tom, I actually don’t agree with you. I don’t think everyone in Ottawa is disagreeing with it. Whenever you go through a process of honouring and ensuring that a memorial is put in place to remember those especially with respect to communism is going to be impacted. There are going to be differences of opinion. We’ve gone through a process since 2008 to ensure we pick the right type of monument and the right location. It’s beside the Supreme Court right in between the Library of Archives of Ottawa and the Supreme Court. It’s in a very good spot for those two…
Tom Clark:
Doesn’t it concern you though that the Chief Justice of Canada has said it’s in the wrong spot?
Rick Dykstra:
No it doesn’t. Chief Justice certainly has and all the members of the Supreme Court have their opinion. From time to time we hear it, whether it’s determining a legal case or whether it’s their individual opinions. So certainly having an opinion is fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. It goes back to the reason we spoke about a little earlier about our flag. So that’s fine. We’ve had organizations involved since 2008. The NCC, the National Capital Commission went through this process, they determined this was the right location. Eight million Canadians have been impacted by the onslaught or the subject of communism. The memorial is in a great spot and I think once it’s complete, Tom, we’re all going to see it’s in the right area and it’s the right kind of monument.
Tom Clark:
Okay, so no backing down at all. Rick Dykstra, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Heritage, thanks very much for being here today. I appreciate your time.
Rick Dykstra:
You bet, Tom. Thank you.
Tom Clark:
Well that is our show for today and as we leave you on this Sunday, we are going to celebrate the maple leaf flag. Here’s a shot of it on Parliament Hill, the maple leaf forever. Thanks for joining us. See you here next Sunday.
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