Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Russian troops have planted mines in Ukrainian fields to prevent farmers from cultivating their crops, International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan has been told.
Speaking after a meeting of G7 development ministers in Berlin, Sajjan said the Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told them how Russian troops mined fields to prevent farmers growing food.
Russian soldiers were also stealing Ukraine's food stores, reminding Ukrainians of the “terror famine” of the 1930s when Stalin demanded Ukraine's grain and available food.
The international development minister, who is heading to Africa today for talks about food security, said the situation is “dire” and everything must be done to help free Ukraine's wheat stores to feed the developing world.
He plans to speak to his successor as defence minister, Anita Anand, about sending Canadian experts to help demine Ukrainian fields.
“I will be talking to Minister Anand about that and how we and other NATO allies can support with clearing up some of those fields,” he said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said when she visited Ukraine earlier this month she was warned that Russian troops had planted mines in playgrounds, parks and around people's houses.
She was told not to step off the sidewalk in Irpin, a suburb of the capital Kyiv, as Russian troops had buried so many mines before they retreated.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced during the visit to Ukraine with Joly that Canada will donate $2 million to the HALO Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to mine clearance, to help Ukraine.
Heather McPherson, NDP international development critic, said Canada, which has expertise in demining, should help make Ukraine's fields safe for farmers so they can plant and harvest their crops.
In an interview, Sajjan warned that Russia is also spreading disinformation in the developing world blaming the West for higher food prices and shortages following Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
This is deliberate, Sajjan said, to increase Putin's sphere of influence in Africa and other regions.
Joly said Putin, and not Western sanctions levelled at Russia, were to blame for the global food crisis in remarks in a debate in the UN Security Council in New York on Thursday.
“We have made enormous inroads into hunger over recent decades, but all these gains are rolling back,” she said, because of climate change, COVID-19 and conflict.
The foreign minister said hunger and the humanitarian crisis were greater than anything seen in recent years.
“Most recently, we are seeing how President Putin's invasion of Ukraine is directly accelerating this trend. And let me be clear: Russia's invasion is to blame, not the sanctions,” she said.
She said the conflict in Ukraine is “the greatest shock to global food systems - already fragile - in the past 12 years.”
“In attacking one of the breadbaskets of the world and seeking to cut off Ukraine's economy, Russia is destroying Ukraine's capacity to supply the world with food,” she said. “It is blockading Ukraine's ports, displacing farmers and workers, ravaging its farmlands, and attacking civilian infrastructure on a massive scale.”
Ukraine is one of the world's biggest grain exporters but it is unable to export grain to its markets, including in developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, following Russia's invasion.
Lebanon, Bangladesh and countries in North Africa are among Ukraine's biggest customers for wheat, a staple food.
Sajjan said the blockade by Russia of the Ukrainian port of Odesa would exacerbate world food shortages and there is an urgent need to “get the grain out.”
“The whole world, including Africa, needs to send a message to Putin to allow the port to be opened so that the grain can come out,” he said. He warned that a world food shortage could fuel conflicts.
McPherson said Canada needs to up its contributions to developing nations and aid agencies to stave off hunger and even worse future crises, including conflict over food resources.
“We can pay more now or a thousand times more down the road,” she said. “We have conflict that is happening in Ukraine which will lead to more conflict around the world. It's a vicious circle”
Julie Marshall of the UN World Food Program said there have been steep rises in international prices of staple foods including wheat and maize, with soaring international fuel prices making the situation worse.
Together, Ukraine and Russia account for 30 per cent of global wheat exports, 20 per cent of global maize exports, and 76 per cent of sunflower supplies, according to the UN.
Joly said earlier this week that Canada is preparing to send its ships to Romanian ports and other European countries to transport Ukrainian wheat out to beat Putin's blockade.
Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau has also been in talks with her G7 counterparts about food aid for the developing world, as well as help for Ukraine.
But she has warned that Canada and the U.S. had a weak harvest last year because of a drought, so stocks of grain were lower than usual.
Sajjan said if not enough wheat is available, Canada may be able to send stores of other food, including potatoes and carrots, to help countries stave off hunger.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 19, 2022.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
A first-of-its-kind Canadian research study is working towards a major medical breakthrough for a brain disorder, believed to be caused by repeated head injuries, that can only be detected after death.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
Canadian immigrants threatened by hostile regimes are urging parliamentarians to quickly pass the 'Countering Foreign Interference Act' so they can feel safe living in their adopted home.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.