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"Canada in the world"
World leaders of the G20 have agreed to reduce budget deficits at their summit in Toronto – but not at any price. The Americans and the Europeans both got what they wanted at the meeting: a delicate mix of austerity and stimulus.
World leaders of the G20 are meeting in Canada this weekend to talk about solutions to the economic crisis. Toronto, the financial heart of Canada, came through the crisis relatively well. Now it’s a fortress for the summit meeting. In the city’s banking district, skepticism prevails.
Canadian forces are expected to remain active in southern Afghanistan after the current Parliamentary mandate for their mission expires at the end of 2011, says Canada’s Defence Minister Peter MacKay. Canadian troops will focus on training and reconstruction work, while U.S. forces will take over their combat tasks.
Omar Khadr, the Canadian ‘child of Guantanamo Bay’, once seemed a magnificent catch in the war on terrorism. But his detention has been problematic for both the U.S. and Canada. There is international criticism against a military trial for a minor. Canada can help by requesting Khadr’s extradition – but it does not want him back.
Canada is suffering a high number of casualties in the war in Afghanistan. It has become customary to pay respects to soldiers who have died in Kandahar along Highway 401 in Ontario. The stretch of road their caskets travel from Trenton to Toronto has been renamed ‘Highway of Heroes’.
Like the Netherlands, Canada is engaged in an intensive debate on whether or not to extend the military mission in southern Afghanistan. “It is time to define what are the attainable strategic goals,” says the Canadian politician and author Michael Ignatieff.
An exceptionally mild winter has helped propel the issue of climate change to the top of the political agenda in Canada. With the appointment of a new Environment Minister, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is hoping to make a fresh start on environmental policy, the Achilles heel of his government.
Thousands of Canadians demanded an immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan this weekend. After more than 40 casualties, there’s a growing sense in Canada that the operation in Kandahar is not a peace mission. “We fear that we have become involved in a war we cannot get out of.”
Toronto’s Khadr clan is known as the self-described “Canadian Al-Qaeda family”. Patriarch Ahmed Said Khadr relocated his family from Toronto to Pakistan and Afghanistan to pursue jihad. In Canada, grandmother Elsamnah is trying to help her grandchildren as they return one by one.
The Inuit of northern Canada suffer the consequences of global warming first-hand. The sea ice is becoming impassable and traditional hunting areas are getting smaller. “For us, climate change is something that we live with every day.”
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