Anti-Taliban law could be tweaked to get more humanitarian aid to Afghans: minister
Anti-Taliban law could be tweaked to get more humanitarian aid to Afghans: minister
Ottawa -
A law outlawing any dealings with the Taliban, which charities complain is impeding their ability to help needy Afghans, could be adjusted by the federal government to give more flexibility to aid agencies.
International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan said the government is looking at making changes to the law to create “flexibility” to make humanitarian help easier.
But, in an interview with The Canadian Press, he insisted Canada would not lift the Taliban’s designation as a prescribed terrorist organization.
“We are looking at options on what we can do to create that flexibility that other countries have,” he said. “The U.S. currently can do more work than us, at least have the options to do more things there. We are looking at similar exemptions we can create as long as we can keep up the pressure on the Taliban, as it is a terrorist entity.”
A law listing the Taliban as a terrorist organization was passed in 2013, before the allies withdrew and the Taliban seized control of Kabul and formed a de facto government last year.
Under the anti-terrorist leglislation, Canadians could face up to 10 years in prison if they, directly or indirectly, make available property or finances to the Taliban.
Canadian aid agencies working in Afghanistan complain the law is impeding their work because they cannot help anyone who may have official dealings with the Afghan government, including people paying rent or taxes.
They have also criticized Canada for not adjusting its regulations following a December 2021 UN Security Council resolution which said “humanitarian assistance and other activities that support basic human needs in Afghanistan” would not violate the council’s sanctions regime.
Giving evidence to a special parliamentary committee on Afghanistan earlier this year, Michael Messenger, president of World Vision Canada, said Canada was “out of step" with other countries, including the U.S., which have made changes to make humanitarian aid easier following the UN resolution.
Ten humanitarian organizations made a submission to the parliamentary committee calling on ministers to relax its laws so they could work on the ground in Afghanistan without fear of breaching Canada's anti-terrorism laws.
In its official report last month, the committee recommended that the government “ensure that registered Canadian organizations have the clarity and assurances needed — such as carve-outs or exemptions — to deliver humanitarian assistance and meet basic needs in Afghanistan without fear of prosecution for violating Canada’s anti-terrorism laws.”
Sajjan said, despite the prohibitions on dealing with the Taliban, Canada had continued to give vast sums of aid to Afghanistan through agencies including the UN and Red Cross.
But he acknowledged the law, brought in before the Taliban formed the government, was preventing some aid work, including “development projects where you have to work through the government’s structure.”
He said Canada had pumped around $150 million into Afghanistan, including aid to help people following the recent earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people and left more than 1,500 injured.
The earthquake struck a remote region near the Pakistan border, damaging more than 10,000 homes, most of which are made from clay and mud. Immediately after the earthquake, the Taliban issued a call for help from the international community.
“The law has not prevented us from helping the Afghan people,” the international development minister said. “We can still help the Afghan people but we are still looking at the options of how to get the exemptions.”
Lauryn Oates, executive director of Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, said humanitarian groups were getting conflicting legal advice on what the rules say they can and cannot do in Afghanistan.
She said the anti-terrorism law was stopping Canadian aid workers paying local taxes, including on rent or salaries. But aid workers could face imprisonment in Afghanistan if they don’t pay taxes, under local laws.
The law is also making it harder to fund scholarships for Afghan women and girls at private universities and creating huge amounts of paperwork, she said. A scholarship can only now be granted if the university signs undertakings pledging that the money, even small sums, would not be used to pay tax.
Oates said she feared a law change could take years when aid is urgently needed in the impoverished country.
“We need an innovative, interim solution now,” she said. “Other countries have been able to come up with them and Canada is lagging behind.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2022.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly was challenged Thursday on her assertion the federal government making the decision to grant a two-year exemption to federal sanctions, allowing a Canadian company to return repaired turbines from a Russian-German natural gas pipeline, was done to 'call Putin's bluff.'
Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair and RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki took turns Monday denying pressuring the RCMP, or interfering in the police investigation into the Nova Scotia mass shooting, saying that their approaches were appropriate and warranted, given the unprecedented nature of the situation.
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem says Canada's inflation rate is set to remain 'painfully high' for the rest of the year. In an exclusive interview with CTV News, Macklem says the path to a 'soft' economic landing is 'narrowing' but at this point the central bank is not projecting a recession.
Five months ago, the first 'Freedom Convoy' trucks rolled into Ottawa. After the federal government took the unprecedented step of invoking the Emergencies Act to end the protests, a series of inquiries and probes have been initiated. With the nation's capital bracing for more protests over the Canada Day weekend, CTVNews.ca takes a look at where the main commissions and studies stand.
Now that the House and Senate have adjourned for the summer, CTVNews.ca breaks down what key pieces of legislation passed in the final days of the spring session, and what key government bills will be left to deal with in the fall.
'After a weeks-long survey of just about everyone I've met ... the overall judgment on Justin Trudeau is one of being a political write-off,' writes Don Martin in an opinion column for CTVNews.ca. 'He’s too woke, too precious, preachy in tone, exceedingly smug, lacking in leadership, fading in celebrity, slow to act, short-sighted in vision and generally getting more irritating with every breathlessly whispered public pronouncement,' Martin writes.
It's time for the whiners to win and the government to reopen the skies, a return to those glory times of flying when the biggest complaints were expensive parking, a middle seat and stale pretzels, commentator Don Martin writes in an exclusive opinion column for CTVNews.ca.
In an exclusive opinion column for CTVNews.ca, Don Martin says Doug Ford coasted to majority re-election victory in Ontario by sticking to the middle of the road: 'Not too progressive. Not too conservative.'
There's a lesson for Canada's political leaders in the short life and quick death of Jason Kenney as premier of Alberta, writes Don Martin in an exclusive opinion column for CTVNews.ca.
It's becoming a make-or-break week for two Conservative premiers as their futures pivot on a pair of defining moments, writes Don Martin in an exclusive opinion column for CTVNews.ca.
Canada’s deputy attorney general says the Department of Justice had ‘no involvement whatsoever’ in the department’s review and delivery of documents to ongoing independent public inquiry into the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia.
Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet is being accused of sexual assault in a class-action lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec. The allegations are part of a series of claims made against clergy members that are included in two class-action lawsuits against the church that have been authorized by a judge.
The first possible case of human-to-dog transmission of monkeypox -- recently reported in a couple and their pet in Paris -- had been a theoretical risk up till now, said Dr. Rosamund Lewis, technical lead on the monkeypox response for the World Health Organization.
A B.C. man, who was among the first Canadians approved for Canada's Vaccine Injury Support Program, says he is frustrated with the length of time it is taking to receive compensation.
Parents of young children will need a prescription for over-the-counter fever and pain medication due to a shortage in pharmacies, Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children is warning.
The next time the Bank of Canada raises interest rates on the scheduled date of September 7, 2022, it could potentially trigger a recession. Although there may be a chance that we don’t enter into a recession and the BoC is still hoping for a soft landing, it’s best to be prepared. Contributor Christopher Liew explains how.
Two infant products, manufactured by baby gear company 4moms, are being recalled due to strangulation hazards, according to a consumer product notice issued by Health Canada.
Canada's year-over-year inflation rate slowed to 7.6 per cent in July, with the deceleration largely driven by a decline in gas prices even as prices for food, rent and travel continued to rise.
Explosions and fires ripped through an ammunition depot in Russian-occupied Crimea on Tuesday in the second suspected Ukrainian attack on the peninsula in just over a week, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people.
Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet is being accused of sexual assault in a class-action lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec. The allegations are part of a series of claims made against clergy members that are included in two class-action lawsuits against the church that have been authorized by a judge.
Canada's year-over-year inflation rate slowed to 7.6 per cent in July, with the deceleration largely driven by a decline in gas prices even as prices for food, rent and travel continued to rise.
Two infant products, manufactured by baby gear company 4moms, are being recalled due to strangulation hazards, according to a consumer product notice issued by Health Canada.
The next time the Bank of Canada raises interest rates on the scheduled date of September 7, 2022, it could potentially trigger a recession. Although there may be a chance that we don’t enter into a recession and the BoC is still hoping for a soft landing, it’s best to be prepared. Contributor Christopher Liew explains how.
Crews are working to drain fuel from a sunken fish boat in U.S. waters just east of Vancouver Island before it fouls a key feeding ground for endangered southern resident killer whales. An update from the U.S. Coast Guard says the 15-metre Aleutian Isle has shifted since it went down Saturday off Washington state, near San Juan Island, roughly 25 kilometres east of Victoria.
Explosions and fires ripped through an ammunition depot in Russian-occupied Crimea on Tuesday in the second suspected Ukrainian attack on the peninsula in just over a week, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people.
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a leader in the Republican resistance to former U.S. President Donald Trump, is fighting to save her seat in the House on Tuesday as voters weigh in on the direction of the GOP in two deep-red states.
A Palestinian human rights group and an Israeli newspaper reported Tuesday that an explosion in a cemetery that killed five Palestinian children during the latest flare-up in Gaza was caused by an Israeli airstrike and not an errant Palestinian rocket.
The international community needs to step up to hold the Taliban accountable for human rights abuses in Afghanistan, a year after the militant Islamist group took control of the country and limited the rights of women and girls, according to Heather Barr, associate director of the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed no regret Tuesday for the deadly attack by Palestinian militants against Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics half a century ago, countering that Israel had committed "Holocausts" against Palestinians over the years.
Canada’s deputy attorney general says the Department of Justice had ‘no involvement whatsoever’ in the department’s review and delivery of documents to ongoing independent public inquiry into the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia.
A former Supreme Court of Canada judge working with the inquiry into the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting says he's worried the federal Justice Department has been discouraging witnesses from being forthcoming with relevant evidence.
The first possible case of human-to-dog transmission of monkeypox -- recently reported in a couple and their pet in Paris -- had been a theoretical risk up till now, said Dr. Rosamund Lewis, technical lead on the monkeypox response for the World Health Organization.
Parents of young children will need a prescription for over-the-counter fever and pain medication due to a shortage in pharmacies, Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children is warning.
While no human crew will travel aboard NASA's Artemis I mission, that doesn't mean the Orion spacecraft will be empty. When the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, scheduled for liftoff on August 29, set off on a trip beyond the moon, the spacecraft will be carrying some special items on board including three mannequins, toys and even an Amazon Alexa.
The fatal film-set shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin last year was an accident, according to a determination made by New Mexico's Office of the Medical Investigator following the completion of an autopsy and a review of law enforcement reports. The medical investigator's report was made public Monday by the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office along with numerous reports from the FBI on the revolver and ammunition that were collected following the shooting.
The next time the Bank of Canada raises interest rates on the scheduled date of September 7, 2022, it could potentially trigger a recession. Although there may be a chance that we don’t enter into a recession and the BoC is still hoping for a soft landing, it’s best to be prepared. Contributor Christopher Liew explains how.
A private fundraising campaign is underway in Norway to erect a statue of a walrus that drew crowds of spectators but was euthanized Sunday after authorities concluded the massive marine mammal posed a risk to humans.
Chloe D'Agostini was at a co-working cafe while living abroad when someone walked in, sat down beside her, and discretely stole her wallet from her bag.
Montreal's Eugenie Bouchard returns to the hardcourt this week following a 17-month layoff. The former fifth ranked player in the world is taking part in the Odlum Brown Vancouver Open WTA 125 event.
Jalen Harris has been reinstated by the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association after serving a one-year suspension for a positive drug test.
A test car with autonomous steering capability veered into oncoming traffic in Germany, killing one person and seriously injuring nine others, police said Tuesday.
