The latest round of Canadian sanctions against Russia take aim at members of the military units that are accused of massacring civilians outside of Kyiv last spring.
In all, 43 individuals and 17 entities were added to the existing roster on Tuesday.
Several of the military officers on the Liberal government’s updated list belong to the Russian Army’s 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade and were sanctioned months ago by other allies, including members of the European Union.
One of them, Col. Andrei Boevich Kurbanov, was identified in early April and placed on a list of the so-called “Butchers of Bucha” by activists and Ukrainian war crimes investigators.
He and other lower level commanders were sanctioned by the EU in June.
Some of Kurbanov’s superiors, including Col. Azatbek Asanbekovich Omurbekov, the commander of the brigade and Lt.-Gen. Andrey Ivanovich Sychevoy, the commander of the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army, were placed on Canada’s black list in the spring.
Ukrainian Canadian Congress says sanctions are overdue
Even still, the chief executive officer of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Ihor Michalchyshyn, said the federal government has been slow imposing penalties on the lower level commanders and is still reticent to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.
Russia has denied killing civilians in Bucha and claims that evidence of civilian killings was staged to incriminate Moscow.
Forensic technicians exhume the bodies of civilians who Ukrainian officials say were killed during Russia’s invasion and then buried in a mass grave in the town of Bucha, outside Kyiv, Ukraine April 8, 2022. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)
The 64th Motor Rifle Brigade — which was lauded by Russian President Vladimir Putin with the honorary military title of ‘Guards’ for its deployment to Ukraine — arrived in Bucha, a leafy affluent suburb of Kyiv, in mid-March. The brigade is accused of murdering as many as a dozen people during a three week period in the area.
Last spring, Yulia, a clerk at a tiny shop called Memory Kings, located behind the morgue in Bucha, recounted the harrowing Russian occupation in an interview with CBC News.
She said the first wave of Russian troops were respectful, but those who followed — a reference to the 64th Motor Rifle Brigade — were cruel. She said that although she never witnessed an atrocity directly, both she and her husband saw bodies piling up in the street.
They wanted to go out and collect them, Yulia said, and they even commandeered a wheelbarrow before a Russian soldier stopped them and threatened them.
“‘If you touch them, you’ll be next,’ he told us,” said Yulia, who asked that only her first name be used.
A tribute of flowers over the site of a mass grave behind the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints in Bucha, Ukraine. (CBC News/Murray Brewster)
The horrors of Bucha and atrocities in places like nearby Irpine — where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited during his trip to Ukraine last spring — are well-known and well-documented, said Michalchyshyn.
“It’s always good to see that Canada is doing more sanctions, but it’s concerning and Canada isn’t keeping up with our allies,” he said, noting that intelligence sharing does take place among allies and Ukraine.
Before the full-on invasion of Ukraine last February, the advocacy group had been pressing Canada to keep in step with other allies in the imposition of penalties, notably the Russian paramilitary company the Wager Group, which Canada was among the last to sanction.
The reticence to go harder and swifter on sanctions has been tough to understand, said Michalchyshyn.
“We were talking to the Canadian government about sanctions for a long time prior to the war,” he said. “And we’re very frustrated that we were falling behind and not seemingly doing what other allies are doing.”
Global Affairs Canada has yet to respond to a request by CBC News about the sanctions.
U.S. considers labelling Russia a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’
Last week, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. The U.S. House of Representatives is drafting formal legislation.
“To the Biden Administration: You have the complete unanimous support of the United States Senate to label Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Do it,” U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said last week.
Michalchyshyn said his group wrote to the prime minister weeks ago, asking for similar measures in Canada.
“We feel this is a strong next step forward in terms of providing a broad and sweeping directive to all Canadian government organizations, this list of economy, military trade, all the rest of it, and it would have, we hope, wide, sweeping consequences to further isolate Russia and further harm their ability to fund the war,” he said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
