OTTAWA – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made good on his election-campaign promise to confront “the bully that is Putin” when he had a brief conversation with the Russian President on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey.
Mr. Trudeau said he told Vladimir Putin that Russia must end its “interference” in Ukraine.
“I pointed out that although Canada has shifted its approach on a broad range of multilateral and international issues, we remain committed to the fact that Russia’s interference in Ukraine must cease, that we stand with the Ukrainian people and expect the President to engage fully in the Minsk peace process,” Mr. Trudeau told reporters on November 16.
Last month while campaigning in Toronto to become Canada’s 23rd prime minister, he said that President Putin was “being dangerous with his interventions in Eastern Europe” in response to a reporter’s question about a Dutch-led investigation that concluded a Russian-made missile brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) in eastern Ukraine last year, killing 298 people, including one Canadian.
“Canada needs to continue to stand strongly with the international community pushing back against the bully that is Vladimir Putin,” Mr. Trudeau said. “If I have the opportunity in the coming months to meet with Vladimir Putin, I will tell him all this directly to his face because we need to ensure that Canada continues to stand strongly for peace and justice in the world.”
As it turned out, Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party won the election and he became prime minister a few days after he made those comments, and his chance to speak his mind to the Russian President came a month later.
Mr. Trudeau’s tough talk echoed his prime ministerial predecessor, Conservative Stephen Harper, who told Mr. Putin at last year’s G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, to “get out of Ukraine.”
Unlike Prime Minister Trudeau, who shared details of his chat with President Putin, Prime Minister Harper left his spokesman to recount the 2014 encounter.
According to Jason MacDonald, Mr. Putin extended his hand to greet Mr. Harper. “Well, I guess I’ll shake your hand,” Mr. MacDonald said of Mr. Harper’s response. “But I only have one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine.”
President Putin “did not respond positively,” Mr. MacDonald said.
At the time, a Russian Federation spokesman, who spoke on condition he wouldn’t be identified by Canadian reporters, said that Prime Minister Harper told President Putin, “you should go away from Ukraine,” to which Mr. Putin replied, “It’s impossible since we are not there.”
Australia’s Business Insider magazine covered the Harper-Putin confrontation in a story bearing the headline, “Canadian PM Stephen Harper Just Showed Tony Abbott How to Shirtfront the Russian President.”
Unlike Prime Minister Harper, then-Australian Prime Minister Abbott warmly greeted President Putin at the G-20 summit despite previously saying he wanted to “shirtfront” (a brutal shoulder charge in Australian football) Mr. Putin over the MH17 disaster.
This year’s tough stance by Canada received cheers from the home team.
“The Ukrainian Canadian community is pleased that Prime Minister Trudeau has taken a principled position in response to the aggression of the Russian Federation which has invaded and occupied sovereign Ukrainian territory in Crimea and in Donetsk and Luhansk,” Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) National President Paul Grod said in a statement in response to Mr. Trudeau’s G-20 chat with Mr. Putin. “I look forward to working with Prime Minister Trudeau’s government in ensuring that Ukraine remains a foreign policy priority for Canada; that the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement is ratified; and [that] Canada supports the security and sovereignty of Ukraine.”
“Mr. Trudeau made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that Ukraine will remain a top foreign policy priority for a Liberal government under his leadership,” Mr. Grod said in a statement the day after this year’s Canadian election.
“Mr. Trudeau’s strong statements in support of Ukraine and opposition to Russia’s aggression leave no doubt that his government will strongly support Ukraine,” the UCC leader added.
Following a meeting with Mr. Trudeau before the October 19 Canadian election, Mr. Grod said Mr. Trudeau stated that Ukraine would be a top foreign policy priority of a Liberal government, as it had been under Mr. Harper’s leadership. During the election campaign, the Liberals also indicated support for Ukraine’s admission into NATO, if sought, and continuing participation in military training in Ukraine.
In September, 150 Canadian soldiers arrived at the Ukrainian Armed Forces International Security and Peacekeeping Center in Yavoriv, Lviv Oblast, about 19 miles from the Ukrainian-Polish border, and will spend months there sharing their expertise in explosives detonation and other battlefield skills with their Ukrainian counterparts.
Meanwhile, the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, which Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk signed during a visit to Canada in July, awaits Canadian parliamentary ratification. The deal would eliminate virtually all duties on Ukrainian imports to Canada.
A Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement between Canada and Ukraine has been in force for 20 years.
Then there’s Russia, which Mr. Grod views as a threat to both Ukrainian and Canadian sovereignty and whose “aggression” must be opposed through “strong principled steps [that] must include providing Ukraine with the ability to defend itself and to impose deep sectoral sanctions against Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea, state-sponsorship of terrorism in eastern Ukraine, which has caused over 8,000 deaths in the past two years, and not implementing their obligations under the Minsk agreement.”
“Anything less will embolden Russian President Putin to continue to breach international laws and borders, which may in turn jeopardize Canada’s Arctic sovereignty,” said Mr. Grod. “By helping protect Ukraine, Canada will be protecting its Arctic sovereignty and that is in Canada’s national interest.”
The latter is a topic Mr. Trudeau referred to before the Canadian election when he said that Mr. Putin “is being unduly provocative with his actions in the Arctic” that presumably intensified after the election when Russia government announced plans for three military bases in that strategic northernmost region.