Collaborative Proposal Creation
Create, improve and sponsor proposals in a respectful, fully bilingual environment. Grow proposals in the "Hothouse", for promotion to the "Workshop", to become official GPC policy.
Proposal text
The GPC unequivocally condemns Russia's illegal destabilization, invasion, and on-going occupation of Ukraine.
The GPC supports all reasonable means, including providing protective weapons to Ukraine, to end Russia’s illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory recognized by the 1991 Declaration of Independence of Ukraine.
Type of Proposal
Public policy that the party would represent
Objective / Benefit
This policy proposal is designed to update previous Green Party policy with regards to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. It is a proposal that will better reflect the reality of the situation since the illegal and unprovoked mass invasion of Ukraine by the Russian state in February 2022, in line with public statements by sitting Members of Parliament since that time.
Furthermore this proposal brings the Green Party in line with the will of the democratically elected institutions of Ukraine, Canada’s international partners, and Ukrainians in general to pressure the Russian state to vacate all sovereign Ukrainian territory lost since 2014.
If your proposal replaces an existing policy or policies, which one does it replace?
G14-P062 Ukrainian - Russian Conflict
List any supporting evidence for your proposal
Elizabeth May, MP, calling for seizure of Russian oligarch's BC home: https://www.albernivalleynews.com/news/elizabeth-may-calls-for-seizure-of-b-c-property-used-by-harry-and-meghan/
Elizabeth May, MP, address to the House of Commons: https://elizabethmaymp.ca/elizabeth-may-responds-to-president-zelenskyys-address-to-the-canadian-parliament/
Ukraine's stance on 1991 borders: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-president-says-1991-borders-must-be-recognised-adviser-2022-03-17/
Global Greens stand in solidarity with the people in Ukraine against the Russian war of aggression: https://globalgreens.org/gg_resolution/emergency-resolution-ecocide-in-the-kakhovka-region-global-greens-stand-in-undivided-solidarity-with-the-people-in-ukraine-against-the-russian-war-of-aggression/
European Greens R14: https://europeangreens.eu/sites/europeangreens.eu/files/R14%20European%20Greens%20continue%20to%20stand%20in%20undivided%20solidarity%20with%20Ukraine_2.pdf
Budapest Memorandum of 1994, where the Russian Federation, United Kingdom, and United States of America agreed to safeguard the sovereignty of several nations established borders at the time, including Ukraine (Page 169, Section 1): https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf
Does this proposal affect any particular group and what efforts have been made to consult with the group or groups?
N/A
Jurisdiction: Is this proposal under federal jurisdiction?
Yes
Please indicate the language the proposal is being submitted in.
English
This proposal has been accepted because:
This policy was amended at the 19th GM to:
BE IT RESOLVED that the GPC unequivocally condemns Russia's illegal destabilization, invasion, and on-going occupation of Ukraine.
BE IT FURTHER REVOLVED that the GPC supports all reasonable means to end Russia’s illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory recognized by the 1991 Declaration of Independence of Ukraine.
This amended version was adopted with 85% voted in favour of adopting this motion at the 19th General Meeting
95.2% voted in favor of adopting this motion in the post-General Meeting Ratification Vote. This motion is now official GPC policy and will be added to the Membership Approved Policy - Green Book.
Amendments (1)
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Created at
25/02/2024 -
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Conversation with Dimitri Lascaris
With all due respect, I find it remarkable that you would propose a policy advocating for sending weapons to Ukraine without even mentioning that one of the six core values of the GPC is non-violence. I suspect that you omitted to even mention our core value of non-violence because there is no way to reconcile sending weapons to a hot war zone with non-violence. Your proposed policy in fact makes a mockery of non-violence. Moreover, the claim that Russia's invasion was "unprovoked" flies in the face of the historical record. NATO vowed not to expand eastward, yet it did so, repeatedly. The US orchestrated a coup in 2014. That coup installed a government that was intensely hostile to Ukrainians who spoke Russian or were of Russian ethnicity. The Ukrainian government repeatedly flouted the Minsk accords, with the tacit approval of the West. As Dr. Jeffrey Sachs and Dr. Noam Chomsky have noted, the reason why Western governments continue to insist that the invasion was "unprovoked" is precisely because NATO provoked it. Finally, you mention the Budapest memorandum without acknowledging that the U.S. and British governments, as signatories to that agreement, violated the agreement.by fomenting a coup in Ukraine in 2014. That was a blatant violation of Ukraine's sovereignty. At the end of the day, your resolution will not help the Ukrainian people. On the contrary, if it has any effect at all, it will encourage the escalation of a war that will end in the destruction of Ukraine - and possibly in the destruction of humanity.
Thank you for your response Dimitri. Kyle, your proposal is based on misinformation and propaganda peddled in the mainstream media. It also lacks a correct understanding of history and the facts. I urge you to expand your research and read what Dr. Jeffrey Sachs and Dr. Noam Chomsky, among many others have to say about this conflict. They base their comments on factual history; I hope you would be moved to do the same thing. Your proposal also completely violates the GPC principle of non-violence, meaning anti-war. You are using a Reuters news piece as evidence? Our party has enough problems without adopting policy based on "the news".
Thanks for the comment, Lorna.
As has been discussed throughout not just this forum but since the invasion in 2022, there is a lot of complex history to this conflict - but who to stand on the side of is not, in and of itself, a complex issue. Sachs and Chomsky have their views and I respect them, but I reject much of their framing - and I have, in fact, listened to them. Contrary to your extremely condescending tone, I am not just basing policy based on "the news" - this has been an on-going conversation and problem for nearly two years, where nearly everyone with anything to say on the conflict has had the chance to say it. I simply find the arguments you reference lacking.
If we're throwing around big names to listen to, I offer anything Žižek has had to say on Ukraine and why its critical we stand by their fight to maintain their freedoms and community. If you want to have an in-depth discussion, I am very easy to reach.
Not meaning to be condescending just stating an opinion. How you can separate the very long and complex history of the region to the events of present day is very interesting. Here is an essay by Ambassador Chas W. Freeman chairs Projects International, Inc. He is a retired U.S. defense official, diplomat, and interpreter, the recipient of numerous high honors and awards, a popular public speaker, and the author of five books.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/06/the-many-lessons-of-the-ukraine-war/
Here is an interview by Natylie Baldwin who interviews Ivan Katchanovski, a Canadian-Ukrainian professor whose research focuses on the Ukraine coup of 2014 and the killing that year of protesters in Kiev.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/20/the-maidan-massacre-censorship-ukraine/
In the end, your proposal is still in violation of the GPC and International Greens principle of non-violence. Your conversations over the last two years also do not prose credible evidence, but they do propose an opinion. In the end, history will absolve the events of today.
Thank you for the comment, Dimitri.
As was discussed a few times prior during the Hothouse section of the policy process, as well as in many other forums by many other people, providing the means of self-defense does not violate our core value of non-violence in either text or spirit. Our basic commitment is to foster a peaceful world and cooperation between states, peoples, and individuals, and not rely primarily on military strength as the basis of global security - and a deeper look commits us to curtailing the military-industrial complex, promoting and reforming global organizations such as the UN and ICC as arbiters of peace, and indeed - reducing the arms trade. All of this I admit and fully embrace - while noting it is almost all nearly irrelevant to the case of the on-going war inflicted unilaterally by the Russian state upon the people of Ukraine.
Our goal of a world free of the need for military violence does not equate to us staking a position of non-action in the face of aggression, occupation, and genocide. The Global Greens charter notes that the use of force is justified where prevention fails - and the conflict is far beyond any utility acts of global diplomatic prevention can provide at this point. That is simply a fact, as the Russian state and its leadership continues to act without regard to international condemnation and third-party proposals for peace even from friendlier nation-states, such as the People's Republic of China - instead seeking only to inflict its deep-seated distrust of and hatred for a free Ukrainian people in the form of cultural genocide, economic blockades, and daily bombings of industrial and residential centres across Ukraine.
Similar to the genocidal actions of Slobodan Milošević and Serbian nationalists during the breakdown of the former Yugoslavia, the Russian state's irredentist war is fueled by paranoia, resentment, and a desperate need for legacy and control. As such the war will not end until either the leadership's terrifying goals are met - or they simply have no choice but to end it, due to either lack of resources, lack of will, or lack of agency.
And as such Greens not only have a duty to unilaterally condemn the Russian state's actions, truly the most basic move we can take - but I believe we must also support Ukraine's ability to defend itself through material means, because that is how we ensure this war perpetuated by the fascist leadership of Russia ends without tacitly accepting the submission of the Ukrainian people to Putin's authoritarian and genocidal rule. I would hope you wish to avoid such a result, same as I do.
Finally, of course I agree entirely with the goal of not creating a greater, hotter conflict - and a coalition of allies sending material, particularly older stock, for use by Ukraine's armed forces instead of direct involvement is key to avoiding it. Evident by the fact its worked so well to hold the occupation forces at bay, and push them back at points.
Would you not agree that with the numbers of military outposts throughout the world, that the US is playing the game of “most powerful” and because we are a little weak country, Canada must go along with whatever the US decides or we will lose too much of our dependent economy?
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