Jon Liedtke
Rose City Politics
April 12, 2023

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All Ontario MPPs have been banned from Russia for spreading “rabid Russophobia” says the Russian Federation, and Windsor’s MPPs do not care.

Yesterday Prime Minister Trudeau announced that Canada would be providing Ukraine with more aid to support its defense against the illegal invasion by Russia, as well as downplayed the severity of news that Russia had temporarily taken down the PMO website.

When I asked Windsor-West MPP Lisa Gretzky about being sanctioned by the Russian Federation she replied: “Well I made it in the top 100 of the 333 sanctioned. Not a bad day.”

Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Andrew Dowie responded with the Ontario government line about the ban, saying: “Our government’s position on the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine has been very clear. Today’s sanctions of Ontario’s duly-elected parliamentarians are of absolutely no importance and will never change the fact that all of Ontario stands with the people of Ukraine.”

Also included in the list is Canada’s Governor General and former Olympians who signed a letter demanding the Canadian Olympic Committee not allow athletes from Russia or Belarus to participate as “neutrals” in the next Olympics in Paris.

Here is the full translated quote from the Russian Federation website explaining the blacklist:

“In view of the anti-Russian sanctions periodically imposed by the Trudeau regime against officials, politicians, experts, journalists, cultural figures and athletes from Russia, as well as anyone who does not suit the Ottawa “mainstream” and the neo-Nazi authorities supported by it in Kiev, the entry into the Russian Federation is closed on a permanent basis for 333 Canadian citizens.

Adhering to the principle of the inevitability of punishment, the Russian side, in response to Ottawa’s hostile actions, included in the “stop list” representatives of the Canadian leadership, parliamentarians and politicians of various levels, public activists and athletes involved in the spread of rabid Russophobia in the country. The measure is also intended to encourage those on the blacklist to change their behaviour.”