Canada must work with Biden to defend our democracies against Russia

MARCUS KOLGA, iPolitics, January 2021

Donald Trump’s U.S. presidency is finally over, Russian President Vladimir Putin will instead be looking elsewhere for support, and a door through which he can regain legitimacy in the Western world. He may have his eye on Canada.

A call for a reset of Canada’s relations with Russia was published in a Kremlin-linked foreign-policy magazine in November. The piece, written by two Ottawa-area professors, suggests that Canada restore high-level relations in order to support the nearly non-existent trade between the two countries.

Garry Kasparov, chairman of both the Renew Democracy Initiative and the Human Rights Foundation, warns that “Putin’s primary philosophy is confrontation, and he respects only strength. Canada should never sacrifice its values and allies for a reset that Putin would never respect.”

The former world chess champion and activist says that “an unearned reset of relations with Putin – or appeasement by another name – will only help reinforce his sense of impunity, and sends a signal to other rogue leaders, which puts democracy and dissidents in greater danger everywhere.”

Aside from providing desperately needed international legitimacy to the Putin regime, it’s unclear what such a reset could offer Canada, given: the ongoing information warfare Moscow is waging against Canada and its allies; the war against Ukraine; and Putin’s repression of human rights and anti-corruption activists at home.

Any suggestion that Canada has severed dialogue with Russia is untrue. Canada maintains an embassy and a substantial diplomatic presence in Russia. It also engages with the Russian government in multilateral forums such as the Arctic Council.

Trade with Russia is insignificant. According to the World Bank, Canada exports more goods and services to Botswana and Bangladesh than to Russia, which is our 41st-most important trade partner. Meanwhile, foreign investors in Russia have been repeatedly burned by the Kremlin’s corporate raiding, theft, and corruption. Putin’s own officials avoid keeping their money in Russia, preferring to hide it offshore – including right here in Canada.

The argument for a reset with Russia points to some European countries that are indeed more closely engaged with Russia at the moment.

Germany is currently praying that the U.S. will not sanction entities involved in the Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline, which will increase Europe’s dangerous over-reliance on Russian energy. That’s unlikely, given that the U.S. Congress recently passed an expanded set of sanctions “targeting any company willing to certify the pipeline or provide facilities, equipment upgrades, insurance, or inspection of pipe-laying vessels involved – overriding a veto by President Donald Trump.”

Populist EU governments like Hungary’s have cozied up to Putin’s xenophobic policies, and far-right nationalist parties in France and Italy have benefitted from Kremlin funding and support. The senior partner in Estonia’s far-right anti-EU coalition maintains a co-operation agreement with Putin’s United Russia party, and Austria’s far-right coalition collapsed in 2019 after efforts to secure Kremlin funding were exposed.

These nationalist movements help the Kremlin reach its goal of eroding the cohesion of Western alliances such as the EU and NATO. Putin knows that his government can only succeed when his enemies are fractured and destabilized.

The deep polarization that has recently infected the United States and parts of Europe is one of Putin’s great achievements. Canada’s own intelligence agencies, as well as the National Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, have repeatedly warned that the Russian government is actively working to undermine Canadian democracy, as well.

Putin’s use of cyberattacks to destabilize Estonia in 2007, the invasion of Georgia in 2009, the illegal annexation of Crimea, and the ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine all demonstrate his violent ambition to reconstitute the Soviet imperium.

Those who question Putin’s repressive authoritarianism often face unspeakably grim consequences. Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who questioned his war in Chechnya, was gunned down outside her apartment in 2006. Alexander Litvenenko, who exposed the FSB’s plot to blow up apartment buildings in Ryzan to legitimize the same war, was poisoned with radioactive polonium that same year. Popular opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was killed near the Kremlin in 2015, while Vladimir Kara-Murza and Alexey Navalny have both been poisoned to within a hair of their lives. The Kremlin continues to intimidate critics abroad, including here in Canada.

In Crimea, the occupying Russian authorities actively repress the Tatar minority. Mean while, hundreds of LGBTQ people have been killed, tortured, or disappeared in the Russian republic of Chechnya over the years.

For the past year, the Russian government has engaged in efforts to sow confusion and intensify the effects of the COVID pandemic on Western societies by amplifying disinformation, conspiracies, and cyber-operations. In July, the Russian-government hacker group, APT29, hacked Canadian medical-research facilities to collect intelligence and “hinder response efforts” against COVID-19.

Instead of entertaining irresponsible proposals to appease the Putin regime, Canada should recommit itself to rallying its allies to defend our democracy and engage in a dialogue with the incoming Joe Biden administration to coordinate a multilateral approach against these hostile foreign regimes. This includes expanding and harmonizing sanctions, monitoring and defending against information warfare, and supporting civil society groups that protect and promote democracy, human rights, and freedom.

Rewarding Putin with a reset will only put Canada at odds with our true allies, and raise concerns in Washington and among Canada’s NATO and Five Eyes allies, putting our national security at risk. This is no time for a reset with Putin’s Russia.