Joyce Bateman, a member of Canadian parliament with ruling Conservative Party, says entrepreneurial spirit of Ukrainians should be a driving force of changes in the 45-million country.
“Ukraine is
a very important window for democracy in the world and we want to support
that,” she said in an interview with the Kyiv Post. “Ukraine will
find its own way and if we can help them in some small way, that’s wonderful.”
Bateman came to
Ukraine as an observer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe for the Oct. 26 parliamentary elections that Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s
People’s Front and Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc won.
She said the
elections didn’t differ much from how they’re organized in Canada, a country
that is home for the community of 1 million people of Ukrainian descent. It’s
Bateman’s first visit to Ukraine, where she’s been “feeling like at
home.”
Impressed by Andriyivsky
Uzviz, a street in downtown Kyiv devoted to art sales, Bateman admits she saw
“hope in the eyes of people.” However, country critically needs the
reforms to reduce the budget deficit and secure the economic development.
Canadian reforms
may serve as an example, a conservative politician and a representative of the
city of Winnipeg explains. She believes that the government has to make
responsible choices and cut the deficits, or “our children will be
mortgaged forever.”
Serving in the
parliament of Canada since 2006, Bateman recalls the 2011 Canadian Deficit
Reduction Action Plan that set the target for every government office to cut
5-10 percent of their spending. Ukraine critically needs austerity measures too
as its 2014 public expenditures reach 53 percent of the gross domestic product,
while in the Baltic countries, a relevant benchmark, the figure doesn’t exceed
38 percent.
As a
conservative, Bateman believes in necessity to stimulate the private sector
development through tax cuts to create new jobs. Canada conducted some 160 tax
cuts since 2006. “Once you do that, you actually find out that private sector
wants to create jobs and are able to because there is more money left in their
pockets to address the risk that they face.”
In both Canada
and the United States empirical research finds that economic growth is driven
by the entry of new formal businesses rather than by the growth of existing
firms, the World Bank reports.
Bateman, a
former accountant and school trustee, compares Canadian labor market to the
Ukrainian one: “We still have problems in Canada – we have jobs that don’t
have people trained for them and people that don’t have skills to get a job.”
She’s concerned
about Ukraine’s energy crisis. “I feel guilty every time I turn on the hot
water in the hotel,” politician says. Bateman emphasizes that Ukraine
should avoid being so dependent on trade with Russia, a giant energy exporter
and an unreliable partner, given its aggression in the Donbas. “That makes
(you) vulnerable; you’ve just got to spread that out,” she adds. “European
brotherhood of nations – there are so many people there, these are enormous
markets.” Meanwhile, Canada has increased the number of international
trade agreements from 5 to 43 since 2006.
Canada on Dec.
2, 1991, became the first Western country to recognize Ukraine’s independence.
Moreover, North American nation’s Prime Minister Steven Harper was among first
global leaders to come to Ukraine after the May 25 presidential elections to
meet with Petro Poroshenko who won them.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Gordiienko
can be reached at [email protected].
