Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly did not close the door on Sunday to a possible shipment of arms to Ukraine.
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Asked directly about this issue on the show Question Period From CTV, the minister was content to answer that Ottawa was going to support Ukraine against Russia, while carefully avoiding answering “yes” or “no” with a view to potential military aid.
Mme Joly said she was very committed to working with the Ukrainians, but she was also unwilling to confirm whether Canada was considering additional sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s superpower.
“The security of Ukraine is the security of Europe and therefore, it is the security of the world and of Canada,” she said.
Talks are taking place between senior US and Russian officials on January 9-10, 2022, in Geneva.
To date, Canada maintains a group of approximately 200 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members in Ukraine as part of Operation UNIFIER. The soldiers, who notably train the soldiers there, must remain there until March 2022.
Tensions with China
In addition, Minister Joly explained in another interview with Global News on Sunday that she was mandated to develop an Indo-Pacific strategy. The goal is to review Canada’s relationship with China, but also with the region as a whole. Details of this new strategy will be unveiled at a later date.
“There is a growing influence of China in the world and each country must make a decision about its relationship with China,” said the federal minister.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has openly denounced Beijing’s “coercive diplomacy” and recently affirmed his wish to see like-minded countries like Canada “show a united front” against China.
Recall that the icy relationship between the two countries dates back to 2018, when Canada detained Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in response to a US extradition request.
In apparent retaliation, China detained two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, for more than 1,000 days, just after Meng Wanzhou’s arrest. The two regained their freedom in September 2021, just hours after Meng Wanzhou reached a deal with U.S. prosecutors to drop the charges against her.
However, far from thawing tensions, China clearly indicated, during a press conference on December 27, that relations between the two countries remained stormy.
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