Dear Readers,
The Toronto Star published my Op Ed on “A New Deal for Ukraine” today. I think this is an important issue, and so wanted to bring it to your attention, especially those who might not be TO Star subscribers. I am posting below a slightly longer version of the published Op Ed, reprinted with permission of the Toronto Star.
The wintry dawn of a third year of the brutal war in Ukraine will soon arrive. The clock starts ticking on year three on February 24. Amidst massive Russian aerial attacks, continuous fighting on multiple fronts and the failure of the Ukrainian spring/summer offensive of 2023, the military situation looks bleak. The question is whether 2024 will be a make-or-break year for Ukrainian resistance.
Canada has an important role to play, and a promise to keep, in ensuring that 2024 is not the year that Ukrainian resistance was broken. The promise was made in the aftermath of the NATO summit in Vilnius last July. The NATO meeting didn’t provide the clear path to NATO membership that Ukraine wanted, but in its place was a declaration by the G7 of long-term security assistance to Ukraine.
The G7 declaration was sweeping, promising sustained military equipment aid, support to develop a Ukrainian defence industry base, training, intelligence cooperation, and cyber defences. The G7 pledged to strengthen the Ukrainian economy, give it financial assistance, and help hold Russia accountable, including through war crimes investigations. Each G7 country’s specific commitments were to be negotiated directly with Ukraine.
The Canadian government launched its security negotiations with Ukraine at the end of August 2023, promising to use “all tools at our disposal to support Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Where do things stand? All we know is that a draft has been sent to the Ukraine government for its consideration on January 12. We only know this because of a statement made by the new Canadian ambassador to Ukraine to a Ukrainian media source. There has been no public update for a Canadian audience. The deal needs more urgency and more transparency.
What tools are “at our disposal?” The military aid cupboard is bare. To enumerate the empty shelves is a dreary exercise. We have no more serviceable Leopard tanks to spare; and we have no air defence systems in our own stockpiles, defences desperately needed by Ukraine to fend off a Russian winter air bombardment of civilian infrastructure. Even the effort to buy an air defence system, known as a NASAM, for Ukraine from the US has been plagued by delays since it was announced in January 2023. Our air force doesn’t fly the F-16 jets promised to Ukraine. We have no capacity to send significant stocks of artillery shells to Ukraine.
But there are other ways in which Canada can sustain Ukraine’s ability to fight on. Some of this we are doing already: military training, cyber security assistance, intelligence sharing, including through satellite imagery. Direct and indirect (through export controls and sanctions) financial assistance is ongoing.
What more can and should be done? Here we have the example of the UK, who signed their own security assistance deal, the first of any G7 member, with Ukraine on January 12. It provides for a significant increase—of 200 million pounds--in British financial and military aid for Ukraine in 2024, leaving hope that the US and EU will overcome their internal disputes and follow suit.
The UK will also significantly boost Ukraine’s drone warfare capabilities. Beyond these headlines, the 10-year UK-Ukraine pact promised support for long-term deterrence, for the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity, and for Ukraine’ s peace formula. The 10-year length of the pact is significant—it is meant to last well beyond any one political regime in London or Kyiv.
Canada should follow suit, quickly finalize its own long-term security assistance deal with Ukraine, and up its monetary commitment. It could also follow the UK lead in mobilising the vibrant drone manufacturing and innovation ecosystem in Canada to channel a key intelligence and warfare capability to Ukraine, and to do it quickly. Some Canadian companies, such as Draganfly, have deployed to Ukraine for de-mining and civilian reconnaissance missions. Much more could be done.
What else? Canada is uniquely positioned to help one vital sector of the Ukrainian economy-agriculture. Both countries are major agricultural producers and exporters. There are strong ties between Ukraine’s grain producers and Canadian farmers, founded on Ukrainian migration to the Prairies at the beginning of the last century. Canada can provide much-needed assistance to ensure an embattled Ukrainian agrarian economy can continue to flourish despite Russian bombardment, occupation, and maritime blockade attempts. Help with seed stocks, climate and soil condition monitoring via drones and satellites, demining, grain storage, support for resilient supply chains could all be vastly increased. On the ground, teams of agrarian experts could be deployed.
The deputy head of Ukraine’s president’s office has now called on the other G7 countries to be “much more dynamic” in concluding their bilateral agreements.
A Canada-Ukraine security assistance pact should be a signature Canadian foreign policy measure. It would have the support of Canadians, and would help ensure that attention continues to be paid to a conflict vital to Canadian interests, that must not be forgotten.
The published version in the Star can be found at this link:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/a-new-deal-for-ukraine/article_f883db4c-b556-11ee-93dd-97cdc300db77.html
All sensible suggestions. Are there any votes in it for Liberals, in close ridings? Is it an issue that can be turned into a wedge vis a vis the Conservatives? If not, don't hold you breath that this will take prominence in the next little while, quite apart from the gap between promises and delivery (2 billion trees). Good thinking though.
I am not sure about this statement Wesley: "Canada should follow suit, quickly finalize its own long-term security assistance deal with Ukraine, and up its monetary commitment." The bureaucracy is pretty good at dragging its heels on these kinds of open-ended commitments. Various Canadian governments have made commitments of this type over the years - 2% of GDP on defence, climate change targets, all kinds of social commitments. We have long practice getting in the way of those things. Finance, for a start, will be wanting to know where the money is coming from and what you are going to cut in order to meet our already strained budget targets. Aside from that, the bureaucracy does not do quick. It is not like we are famous risk-takers.