Joint statement by Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy regarding international collaboration in addressing COVID-19
On Friday April 10th, we convened an extraordinary video conference bringing together Ambassadors from across the entire membership of the United Nations with high-level representatives from the UN, G20, IMF, World Bank Group and OECD to engage in the first truly global discussion on managing the socio-economic and financial impacts of COVID-19. We thank the more than 300 participants who attended.
Today, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Seamus O’Regan, participated in a videoconference meeting of G20 Energy Ministers, and released the following statement:
“Canada fully supports the UN Secretary-General’s appeal for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now is the time to put armed conflict on lockdown, to protect the most vulnerable and to focus our efforts together in the fight against this virus. We are proud to have led 58 countries in supporting the Secretary-General’s appeal, and we encourage all countries to do the same.”
“On April 8, the Investigation and Identification Team of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW] released its first report. In the report, the team identifies the Syrian Arab Air Force as the perpetrator of several chemical weapon attacks carried out in Syria in March 2017. The overwhelming majority of victims of these attacks were civilians.”
Today, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Mary Ng, Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade, issued the following statement.