Hillary Clinton urges Canada to keep up support for Ukraine, applauds child care plan

Article content

OTTAWA – Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Liberals to keep supporting Ukraine, arguing the battle against Russia is a battle that the whole world can’t afford to lose.

Article content

Clinton was a keynote speaker at the party’s biennial convention in Ottawa Friday night and said western government should continue supporting Ukraine in anyway possible.

“Ukraine’s fight for freedom and against Russian aggression is our fight. It is not just their fight,” she said. “The best way to end Putin’s aggression is for Ukraine to win.”

Clinton said she worked with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev during her time as secretary of state and said Medvedev was open to economic innovation. But she said Putin, who was pulling the strings at the time, didn’t want that kind of openness.

“If you’re going to encourage people to be free thinking in business. Whoa, that’s a threat to the state, eventually.”

Article content

She said a win against Putin in Ukraine will also cool China’s ambitions to potentially invade Taiwan.

She said Ukrainians should be the only ones who decide when the war ends and they should have the west’s support until then.

“I want you to understand you’re dealing with someone who is not only narcissistic and megalomaniacal, but totally untrustworthy,” she said. “We have to continue to provide as much military support to Ukraine.”

Clinton also turned to Canada’s domestic politics and applauded the Liberal government’s child care plan.

“It’s important in today’s political world to get out there and make sure people know what you’ve done. $10 a day for childcare that’s extraordinary,” she said. “The idea of a feminist set of policies of feminist economic policy is exactly where you need to be if you want to increase economic opportunity and economic output.”