Peter MacKay says he was chilled by a memory from his time as Canada's defence minister as he absorbed the recent images of Volodymyr Zelenskyy walking through the corpse-laden streets of Bucha.
Last weekend, the stricken and angry Ukrainian president called out the former leaders of Germany and France -- Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy -- for blocking his country's entry into the NATO alliance at their 2008 summit.
The Conservative government of Stephen Harper, with MacKay as defence minister, wholeheartedly supported the expansion. Ukraine dropped its plans to join NATO two years later under former president Viktor Yanukovych, but it became a foreign policy priority again in 2017 under then-president Petro Poroshenko.
As the Bucha news emerged, MacKay dug into an old box of papers and retrieved a blue briefing book with gold lettering from the 2008 summit. He said it felt "ominous" to be reminded of it. "The Ukrainian people naturally yearn for greater freedom, democracy and prosperity. Canada will do everything in its power to help Ukraine realize these aspirations," Harper, who did not respond to an interview request, said at the time.
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