Russia bars 13 Canadians from entering the country

THE HAGUE, the Netherlands — Moscow has barred travel to Russia by several close advisers to Prime Minister Harper as well as Conservative, Liberal and New Democrat MPs, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced Monday.

Thirteen Canadians are barred from visiting Russia as “reciprocity for travel bans announced by Canada following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“The Canadian officials named today are not oligarchs and they are not threatening the territorial integrity or sovereignty of the Russian Federation,” was Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s response to the travel ban. “It’s an unnecessary step.”

Among those no longer able to travel to Russia are Christine Hogan, who is Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s foreign and defence policy adviser; Wayne Wouters, clerk of the Privy Council; and Jean-Francois Tremblay, deputy secretary to the federal cabinet. The others on the list:

Andrew Scheer, the Speaker of the House of Commons;

Government House leader Peter Van Loan;

Sen. Raynell Andreychuk, who chairs the committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade; NDP MP Paul Dewar; Liberal trade spokesman and Toronto MP Chrystia Freeland, who is of Ukrainian heritage and used to live as a journalist in Moscow; Liberal MP Irwin Cotler; Tory MPs Ted Optiz, James Bezan and Dean Allison; like Freeland, Optiz and Bezan recently visited Kyiv; Paul Grod, the president of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress; he is the only Canadian on the list with no official connection to the government or Parliament. Grod flew to Kyiv with Harper on Saturday as the prime minister became the first western leader to visit Ukraine since the overthrow of former president Viktor Yanukovych.

Canadian MPs across party lines have “spoken together to stand up to aggression” in Ukraine, Baird said, in a rare instance of non-partisan solidarity.

It was a “badge of honour to be banned from Russia,” Cotler said in a statement, echoing U.S. Sen. John McCain, who was hit with a travel ban last week. “I have no intention of visiting Siberia. I have no investments in Sochi. I have no desire to visit Moscow.”

It isn’t the first time that the Montreal MP, who is retiring at the next election, has been refused entry to Russia. “Indeed, I was first expelled from the Soviet Union and then banned in 1979 while advocating on behalf of political prisoners, including Natan Sharansky,” he said, referring to the Israeli human rights activist who spent years in a Soviet prison as an alleged spy. “I was arrested and accused of consorting with ‘criminals,’ among them the great Soviet human rights dissident Andrei Sakharov.”

Canadian business may have to suffer for “the greater national interest” as a result of Russia’s invasion of Crimea, Harper said in a conversation with Dutch and Canadian businessmen earlier in the day.

“We don’t like seeing any disruption to investment or markets or trade, but looking at it from the point of view of the greater national interest, an occupation of one country of another has serious long-term implications.”

The extraordinary G7 session discussed the need for close collaboration between the G7 and the European Community on economic sanctions and other measures to punish Russia. The moves were to serve as a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin not to move further into Ukraine or into other countries in eastern Europe.

Russia called a snap exercise about 10 days ago on Ukraine’s eastern border, massing about 20,000 troops there, backed by armoured units, artillery and tanks.

Russia’s military occupation of Crimea and these manoeuvres have caused great anxiety in Kyiv and across Europe.

Last Tuesday, Putin said Russia had no plans to seize any more territory beyond Crimea, which he said had been an integral part of Russia for centuries. But he had said the same thing a few weeks before the annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

The G7’s lead actor on the Russia/Crimea file will continue to be Germany, the member country that conducts the most trade with Russia. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Putin have spoken often by phone in recent weeks.

With each conversation, Merkel has grown more angry and frustrated, German media have reported.

The crisis talks in The Hague took place alongside a previously planned summit on nuclear security that has drawn many world leaders.