Michael McLeod, Member of Parliament for the Northwest Territories (NWT), is named on no fly list just released by the Russian Federation.
“I thought it would be more focused on cabinet and the Prime Minister,” McLeod said in a discussion with Northern News Services. “So I was a little bit surprised that my name was on the list. However, if what I stand for, in terms of freedom and democracy, seems to bother them, I’ll certainly wear it with honor.”
The list, written in Cyrillic script, has the text “член палаты общин парламента от либеральной партии” next to McLeod’s name (featured in both Cyrillic and English). The English translation defines McLeod’s position as ‘Liberal Member of House of Commons’.
McLeod is listed as number 174 of 313 Canadian politicians listed on the Russian foreign ministry’s self-proclaimed black list.
He said the ban will have no effect on him, personally.
“I don’t think that having my name, as a person banned from Russia, is going to change anything,” he said. “I had no intentions of traveling to Russia. It’s not a country that I would select in any case, whether it was going to be on holidays or for work.”
The Russian foreign ministry published a statement explaining its move:
“This step is forced and taken in response to the outrageous hostility of the current Canadian regime, which has tested our patience for so long,” the statement reads. “Every Russophobic attack, be it attacks on Russian diplomatic missions, airspace closures, or Ottawa’s actual severing of bilateral economic ties to the detriment of Canadian interests, will inevitably receive a decisive and not necessarily symmetrical rebuff.”
McLeod says he takes Arctic sovereignty seriously.
“We need protection and surveillance from above the clouds to below the ocean waters — that’s the goal. That’s what we’ve been working towards.”
“Some of that is because of what Russia activities that we’ve been seeing,” he continued.
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