Canada, along with all the world’s democracies, must support Ukraine in preventing Putin’s armies from militarily crushing Ukraine and then absorbing it into a new Russian Empire.
Failing to do so will demonstrate that, on a global level, “might does, in fact, make right” and that international peace treaties and pledges of mutual respect for and adherence to the principles of peaceful co-existence are unenforceable and, hence, worthless.
More formally, failure to act will mark the end of the 75-year United Nations-inspired international rules-based order in which no single country could by military force unilaterally alter the internationally recognized borders of any other sovereign, independent state. Henceforth, no peaceful country will be safe from the aggression of hostile and more powerful neighbours.
Russian aggression poses a threat to number of other countries of Eastern Europe (as well as the Baltics), their membership in NATO notwithstanding. Putin has frequently alluded to the tragedy represented by the dissolution of the USSR (by which he meant the entire Soviet empire, which included the occupied (Warsaw Pact) countries of Eastern Europe as well as East Germany — where Putin himself served as a KGB officer in Dresden.
Russian aggression ushers a new global era of rapid re-militarization. In particular, a new nuclear arms race will almost certainly begin led by countries fearing invasion and dismemberment by more powerful neighbours equipped with nuclear weapons and possessing imperial ambitions. This conclusion should be obvious from the lessons provided by the 1994 Budapest Memorandum pursuant to which Ukraine became the first and only country in the world to voluntarily give up its entire arsenal of nuclear weapons in exchange for assurances from the U.S., the U.K. and Russia that they would respect Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. Does anyone seriously believe that after a wholescale Russian military invasion, occupation and conquest of Ukraine, countries such as North Korea, Iran, and others on the verge of becoming nuclear powers (or merely considering becoming nuclear powers) will ever voluntarily abandon their nuclear ambitions, especially in the face of existential threats?
Will create the world’s largest refugee crisis since WWII. Millions of Ukrainian citizens fleeing Russian bombs, missiles, tanks, artillery and over 100 Army battallions will overwhelm the countries of Europe and will place enormous pressure as well on other Western countries such as the U.S., Canada, and Australia to accept by the hundreds of thousands the homeless and displaced victims of Russian aggression.
Further Russian aggression on Ukraine will inevitably lead to a global economic crisis of unprecedented proportions. Crushing sanctions will be placed on Russia by the West. International trade, commerce, investment and development will be disrupted in ways predictable and unpredictable. The economic dislocations will inevitably include significant disruptions in the supply of natural gas to Europe and soaring energy prices around the globe.
Canada has had a close and very special relationship with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people since the 1890s (i.e., for almost the entirety of Canada’s history post-Confederation). In particular:
It was pursuant to the invitations, appeals and exhortations of the Canadian government of the day that large scale immigration from Ukraine to Canada began in the 1890s, for the express purposes of (i) opening the Canadian west to agricultural production and (ii) simultaneously forestalling American expansion northward. By the start of WWI, approximately a quarter million immigrants from Eastern Europe, the vast majority of them from the lands of western Ukraine (then occupied by Austria-Hungary) had started new lives in Canada’s prairie provinces. Today, the number of Canadian citizens who self-identify as of Ukrainian heritage exceeds 1.3 million.
Over the past 130 years, Ukrainian-Canadians have contributed immeasurably to the economic, political, cultural, artistic, and social life (including sports and entertainment) of Canada. In addition, members of the Ukrainian Canadian community have voluntarily enlisted in disproportionate numbers in Canada’s armed forces to defend their adopted country in two world wars, as well as in other regional conflicts in which Canada has played an important peacekeeping role.
On December 2, 1991, Canada became the first western country to recognize Ukraine’s independence and the first country in the world to conclude a free trade agreement with Ukraine in 2016.
If Putin should send his armies into Ukraine and absorb it into a revived and reconstituted Russian empire, Canada will likely be overwhelmed with appeals to open its borders to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of desperate refugees. In addition, the demands for humanitarian aid to a war-torn Ukraine will strain to the limit and beyond Canada’s capacity to assist.
No one, least of all Ukraine, is asking Canada to send soldiers to Ukraine’s defense. No one is asking that Canadian lives be put at risk in defense of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, or territorial integrity. Ukrainians are more than prepared to fight to their last breath against Putin’s imperial ambitions for a Greater Russia. And the reason, as has been expressed many times now, is that Ukrainians have no place else to go. It is their land, their country. They will fight for it. All they are asking of Canada is for the military equipment they need to defend themselves and for the economic assistance and humanitarian aid they require in light of the scarce resources they are being forced to divert to the country’s defense.
14th of February Canadian government offered a loan of up to $500 million to the government of Ukraine through the Bretton Woods and Related Agreements Act (BWRAA), to support the country’s economic resilience in the face of Russian military aggression. This is in addition to Canada’s offer for a loan of up to $120 million, announced on January 21, 2022.
In addition to this loan Canada sent $7.8 million worth of lethal equipment and ammunition to Ukraine as the threat of a Russian invasion grows, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on 14th of February.
Canada has not yet established a Ukrainian refugee program. We are expecting this to happen soon.Please see the official website of Canada, Canada.ca, use the code Ukraine 2022 when submitting immigration documents.
If you are able to provide housing for the refugees we are expecting soon, please register with https://albertastandswithukraine.ca/ with the following information: your name, address, phone number, email, where the housing is located, what kind of housing you can provide (eg. house, apartment, room) and for how long, how many people you can accommodate and any special needs you can accommodate such as disabled persons or pets.