Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is using his platform at the G7 summit in Japan to urge some of the world’s top leaders to stop paying ransom fees to terrorist organizations.
Trudeau has met with G7 leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Shima, Japan on Thursday to discuss a variety of pressing international topics, including trade deals and the dreary state of the global economy.
Outside scheduled topics, Trudeau has another mission: to convince G7 member countries to band together against fulfilling the financial demands of terrorist organizations who abduct innocent civilians.
The prime minister’s message comes after two Canadian hostages were kidnapped last fall by Muslim militants with Abu Sayyaf, a radical Islamic group based in a southern island in the Philippines.
One of the hostages, John Ridsdel, was beheaded in late April. Canadian Robert Hall was last seen in an Abu Sayyaf video posted online on Sunday.
In another Abu Sayyaf video released in April, the captors demanded about $8 million per hostage. Trudeau has pledged that the Canadian government will not accede to the terrorists’ demands.
How to react to high-stakes hostage situations is a topic of growing concern around the globe, according to Deputy Minister of International Development Peter Boehm.
“I think there is a growing sense that the problem isn’t going away, that citizens of our countries can be in danger at any time and by paying ransoms you're just aiding and abetting the terrorists,” Boehm told CTV News.
Trudeau spent the opening day of the summit talking up the Canada-European Union treaty, known as CETA, and touting the Liberal government’s borrow-and-spend approach to economic stimulus.
He also met one-on-one with French President Francois Hollande to discuss the European trade deal.
Trudeau is hardly the most powerful leader in attendance, but he does have a certain wind in his sails. Unlike most of the G7 leaders, Trudeau does not face a looming election, he has a majority in Parliament and he is still considered fairly popular by national polls.
With a report from CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Joyce Napier
