News
Canadian officials have met with Taliban more than a dozen times since Kabul fell: documents
|
|
Canadian government officials have met with representatives of the Taliban on at least 13 occasions in Qatar since it swept to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, documents obtained by CBC News reveal.
The documents, obtained through access to information law, show David Sproule, Canada’s senior official for Afghanistan, has been — along with various Global Affairs Canada (GAC) officials and representatives of allied countries — pressing the Taliban for commitments on extending the right to an education to women, fighting terrorism and granting safe passage to Afghans who want to leave the country.
Unlike foreign affairs departments in the U.S. and Pakistan, Canada does not provide regular updates on its talks with the government in Afghanistan.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly declined an interview request for this story, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told journalists Wednesday morning that Canada has no intention of recognizing the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government.
“The reality is, along with international partners, we have to continue to press on them to respect womens’ rights, to make sure the girls can go to school, to help the safe passage of people who want to leave Afghanistan. There is a need to engage even though we will not be recognizing them,” he said.
In a statement, GAC spokesperson Charlotte MacLeod emphasized how Sproule has been engaging the Taliban informally, with allied countries, and all would continue to press them on human-rights related issues, fighting terror and other “key priorities.”
The documents obtained by CBC News are mostly emails Sproule sent to his GAC colleagues. They show the Taliban has made its own requests of Canada and other countries — and has issued denials regarding the dangers faced by Afghans trying to leave, despite multiple reports by CBC News and other media outlets about those dangers.
In a meeting on Oct. 12, 2021 — not long after it took over — the Taliban asked representatives of foreign governments to reopen their embassies in Kabul.
According to a note Sproule wrote to his colleagues, Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister at the time, Amir Khan Muttaqi, also asked those governments to lift their sanctions and claimed his government was inclusive because it included ethnic minority representation and “women in government have not been fired.”
During that same meeting, Sproule reported, the Taliban claimed that “people are using security as an excuse to leave the country, but are really leaving to seek economic opportunities.” Sproule said the Taliban also claimed that while it did not want anyone to leave, it would “not create hurdles if they wanted to go.”
Sproule said that the Taliban suggested that foreign governments “interested in helping women … should start by paying the salaries of 200,000 female teachers, including 28,000 in Kabul.”
Sproule reported that during his next meeting with Afghan government representatives, also in October, the Taliban acknowledged “a minor problem in cabinet” — a lack of women.
Taliban representatives also claimed, he said, that “women judges, prosecutors and others” taking part in demonstrations against the regime “are deliberately provoking security personnel to retaliate against them so they can produce video of the retaliation to back up their claims for asylum abroad.”
Sproule reported the Taliban accused “the international community” of a double standard because it “recognized many other governments that came to power by force but had the support of the people.”
He said that on Nov. 23, he asked another Taliban official (whose name and title were redacted in the documents) why they would not consider a power-sharing agreement “with respected figures outside the movement to give it added legitimacy.”
The Taliban representative agreed there would be an “advantage in doing so,” Sproule said, since the last four decades in Afghanistan showed that one political group could not fully control the country by force — but the regime was maintaining “100 per cent monopoly over power.”
Embassy intrusion
The correspondence also showed Sproule was troubled by Taliban members entering Canadian diplomatic property on Sept. 10, 2021, a little less than a month after the regime seized power and after Canada announced it was temporarily shutting its embassy and vacating staff.
A report by the British news organization Sky News from that day shows journalists entering the British and Canadian embassies accompanied by Taliban security guards. Footage from the Canadian compound shows discarded bottles of wine on the ground and a Taliban member saying, “They must have had a lot of money to eat this much … They used to eat good food, get drunk and then have sex with each other.”
The first reference to this event in Sproule’s documents comes in a note he wrote on Sept. 20, 2021. In it, he says he plans to formally register “concern about Taliban individuals entering our diplomatic property in Kabul in violation of Afghanistan’s treaty obligation to protect diplomatic property.”
The documents say Sproule brought up the event again during meetings in October and November of 2021 with different Taliban representatives. He reports he was told to “forward the video clip of the incident for the matter to be pursued.”
The last meeting between Sproule and Taliban representatives summarized in the documents took place on Feb. 16 of this year. One document says Sproule warned the Taliban that “future engagement of the international community” with their government would be “directly influenced by its actions against terrorist groups” and that Afghanistan should “not again be allowed to serve as a base for terrorist activities.”
In response, says the document, Taliban defence official Abdullah Hanefi insisted that the Taliban controlled “all of Afghanistan’s territory” and while small cells might exist, no terror group was using Afghanistan as a training ground or to finance activities.
Nipa Banerjee, a professional in residence at the University of Ottawa School of International Development and Global Studies, said that while it may not be easy to conduct diplomacy with the Taliban, “it is absolutely essential.”
“Abandoning the Taliban at this stage, to me, is equivalent to abandoning the ordinary Afghans who have nobody to support them,” she said.
Banerjee worked at the Canadian embassy in Kabul for four years that overlapped with Sproule’s tenure as ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007.
Banerjee said Canada could team up with allies in the international community to open a representative office in Afghanistan in order to have a presence on the ground — without committing to a full embassy.
She said such an office could fact-check Taliban claims that it is allowing girls to return to school and is not jailing political dissidents.
“Whether or not [the Taliban] are trustworthy is something that needs to be established and the government has to figure out how to establish that,” she said.
“I’m saying that fact-checking with goals, outcomes and indicators of outcomes, this can be done and we should work on that.”
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Wednesday that while he doesn’t support recognizing the Taliban government, he does support talks between Canada and the Taliban.
“Our goal as New Democrats is to make sure we get people that have put their lives at risk, that have supported our troops, we find a way to get them to safety,” Singh told a news conference.
“If that means having some meetings and having ongoing dialogue, then for the goal of securing the release and the safety of those who have put their lives at risk to support our troops, yes, we should do that.”
Singh added he also wants to see the Canadian government put pressure on the Taliban to respect human rights in Afghanistan.
GAC’s departmental statement to CBC News suggested it has little basis to believe the Taliban’s claims. It noted “the human rights situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate severely, especially with regard to secondary education for girls,” and it is “deeply concerned about reports of extrajudicial punishments … such as reprisals and summary executions, disappearances and detentions.”
Canada has allocated more than $143 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and the region this year.
Former foreign affairs minister Marc Garneau appointed Sproule as senior official for Afghanistan during the last Canadian federal election. He made the announcement on Twitter on Aug. 27, 2021.
News
Capital gains tax change draws ire from some Canadian entrepreneurs worried it will worsen brain drain – CBC.ca
A chorus of Canadian entrepreneurs and investors is blasting the federal government’s budget for expanding a tax on the rich. They say it will lead to brain drain and further degrade Canada’s already poor productivity.
In the 2024 budget unveiled Tuesday, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government would increase the inclusion rate of the capital gains tax from 50 per cent to 67 per cent for businesses and trusts, generating an estimated $19 billion in new revenue.
Capital gains are the profits that individuals or businesses make from selling an asset — like a stock or a second home. Individuals are subject to the new changes on any profits over $250,000.
The government estimates that the changes would impact 40,000 individuals (or 0.13 per cent of Canadians in any given year) and 307,000 companies in Canada.
However, some members of the business community say that expanding the taxable amount will devastate productivity, investment and entrepreneurship in Canada, and might even compel some of the country’s talent and startups to take their business elsewhere.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unveiled the government’s 2024 federal budget, with spending targeted at young voters and a plan to raise capital gains taxes for some of the wealthiest Canadians.
Benjamin Bergen, president of the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI), said the capital gains tax has overshadowed parts of the federal budget that the business community would otherwise be excited about.
“There were definitely some other stars in the budget that were interesting,” he said. “However, the … capital gains piece really is the sun, and it’s daylight. So this is really the only thing that innovators can see.”
The CCI has written and is circulating an open letter signed by more than 1,000 people in the Canadian business community to Trudeau’s government asking it to scrap the tax change.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke and president Harley Finkelstein also weighed in on the proposed hike on X, formerly known as Twitter.
We need to be doing everything we can to turn Canada into the best place for entrepreneurs to build 🇨🇦<br><br>What’s proposed in the federal budget will do the complete opposite. Innovators and entrepreneurs will suffer and their success will be penalized — this is not a wealth tax,…
—@harleyf
Former finance minister Bill Morneau said his successor’s budget disincentivizes businesses from investing in the country’s innovation sector: “It’s probably very troubling for many investors.”
Canada’s productivity — a measure that compares economic output to hours worked — has been relatively poor for decades. It underperforms against the OECD average and against several other G7 countries, including the U.S., Germany, U.K. and Japan, on the measure.
Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers sounded the alarm on Canada’s lagging productivity in a speech last month, saying the country’s need to increase the rate had reached emergency levels, following one of the weakest years for the economy in recent memory.
The government said it was proposing the tax change to make life more affordable for younger generations and fund efforts to boost housing supply — and that it would support productivity growth.
A challenge for investors, founders and workers
The change could have a chilling effect for several reasons, with companies already struggling to access funding in a high interest rate environment, said Bergen.
He questioned whether investors will want to fund Canadian companies if the government’s taxation policies make it difficult for those firms to grow — and whether founders might just pack up.
The expanded inclusion rate “is just one of the other potential concerns that firms are going to have as they’re looking to grow their companies.”
He said the rejigged tax is also an affront to high-skilled workers from low-innovation sectors who might have taken the risk of joining a startup for the opportunity, even taking a lower wage on the chance that a firm’s stock options grow in value.
But Lindsay Tedds, an associate economics professor at the University of Calgary, said the tax change is one of the most misunderstood parts of the federal budget — and that its impact on the country’s talent has been overstated.
“This is not a major innovation-biting tax change treatment,” Tedds said. “In fact, when you talk to real grassroots entrepreneurs that are setting up businesses, tax rates do not come into their decision.”
As for productivity, Tedds said Canadians might see improvements in the long run “to the degree that some of our productivity problems are driven by stresses like housing affordability, access to child care, things like that.”
‘One foot on the gas, one foot on the brake’
Some say the government is sending mixed messages to entrepreneurs by touting tailored tax breaks — like the Canada Entrepreneurs’ Incentive, which reduces the capital gains inclusion rate to 33 per cent on a lifetime maximum of $2 million — while introducing measures they say would dampen investment and innovation.
“They seem to have one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake on the very same file,” said Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
Some business groups are worried that new capital gains tax changes could hurt economic growth. But according to Small Business Minister Rechie Valdez, most Canadians won’t be impacted by that change — and it’s a move to create fairness.
A founder may be able to sell their successful company with a lower capital gains treatment than otherwise possible, he said.
“At the same time, though, big chunks of it may be subject to a higher rate of capital gains inclusion.”
Selling a company can fund an individual’s retirement, he said, which is why it’s one of the first things founders consider when they think about capital gains.
Mainstreet NS7:03Ottawa is proposing a hike to capital gains tax. What does that mean?
Tuesday’s federal budget includes nearly $53 billion in new spending over the next five years with a clear focus on affordability and housing. To help pay for some of that new spending, Ottawa is proposing a hike to the capital gains tax. Moshe Lander, an economics lecturer at Concordia University, joins host Jeff Douglas to explain.
Dennis Darby, president and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, says he was disappointed by the change — and that it sends the wrong message to Canadian industries like his own.
He wants to see the government commit to more tax credit proposals like the Canada Carbon Rebate for Small Businesses, which he said would incentivize business owners to stay and help make Canada competitive with the U.S.
“We’ve had a lot of difficulties attracting investment over the years. I don’t think this will make it any better.”
Tech titan says change will only impact richest of the rich
Toronto tech entrepreneur Ali Asaria will be one of those subject to the expanded capital gains inclusion rate — but he says it’s only fair.
“It’s going to really affect the richest of the rich people,” Asaria, CEO of open source platform Transformer Lab and founder of well.ca, told CBC News.
“The capital gains exemption is probably the largest tax break that I’ve ever received in my life,” he said. “So I know a lot about what that benefit can look like, but I’ve also always felt like it was probably one of the most unfair parts of the tax code today.”
While Asaria said Canada needs to continue encouraging talent to take risks and build companies in the country, taxation policies aren’t the most major problem.
“I think that the biggest central issue to the reason why people will leave Canada is bigger issues, like housing,” he said.
“How do we make it easier to live in Canada so that we can all invest in ourselves and invest in our companies? That’s a more important question than, ‘How do we help the top 0.13 per cent of Canadians make more money?'”
More money will land in the pockets of Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit (CCB) installment.
The federal government program helps low and middle-income families struggling with the soaring cost of raising a child.
Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or refugees who are the primary caregivers for children under 18 years old are eligible for the program, introduced in 2016.
The non-taxable monthly payments are based on a family’s net income and how many children they have. Families that have an adjusted net income under $34,863 will receive the maximum amount per child.
For a child under six years old, an applicant can annually receive up to $7,437 per child, and up to $6,275 per child for kids between the ages of six through 17.
That translates to up to $619.75 per month for the younger cohort and $522.91 per month for the older group.
The benefit is recalculated every July and most recently increased 6.3 per cent in order to adjust to the rate of inflation, and cost of living.
To apply, an applicant can submit through a child’s birth registration, complete an online form or mail in an application to a tax centre.
The next payment date will take place on May 17.
Keffiyehs remain banned in the Ontario Legislature after a unanimous consent motion that would have allowed the scarf to be worn failed to pass at Queen’s Park Thursday.
That vote, brought forth by NDP Leader Marit Stiles, failed despite Premier Doug Ford and the leaders of the province’s opposition parties all stating they want to see the ban overturned. Complete agreement from all MPPs is required for a motion like this to pass, and there were a smattering of “nos” after it was read into the record.
In an email on Wednesday, Speaker Ted Arnott said the legislature has previously restricted the wearing of clothing that is intended to make an “overt political statement” because it upholds a “standard practice of decorum.”
“The Speaker cannot be aware of the meaning of every symbol or pattern but when items are drawn to my attention, there is a responsibility to respond. After extensive research, I concluded that the wearing of keffiyehs at the present time in our Assembly is intended to be a political statement. So, as Speaker, I cannot authorize the wearing of keffiyehs based on our longstanding conventions,” Arnott said in an email.
Speaking at Queen’s Park Thursday, Arnott said he would reconsider the ban with unanimous consent from MPPs.
“If the house believes that the wearing of the keffiyeh in this house, at the present time, is not a political statement, I would certainly and unequivocally accept the express will of the house with no ifs, ands or buts,” he said.
Keffiyehs are a commonly worn scarf among Arabs, but hold special significance to Palestinian people. They have been a frequent sight among pro-Palestinian protesters calling for an end to the violence in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war continues.
Premier calls for reversal
Ford said Thursday he’s hopeful Arnott will reverse the ban, but he didn’t say if he would instruct his caucus to support the NDP’s motion.
In a statement issued Wednesday, Ford said the decision was made by the speaker and nobody else.
“I do not support his decision as it needlessly divides the people of our province. I call on the speaker to reverse his decision immediately,” Ford said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford reiterated Thursday that he does not support Speaker Ted Arnott banning keffiyehs in the Ontario Legislature because they are “intended to be a political statement,” as Arnott said in an email Wednesday.
PC Party MPP Robin Martin, who represents Eglinton–Lawrence, voted against the unanimous consent motion Thursday and told reporters she believes the speaker’s initial ruling was the correct one.
“We have to follow the rules of the legislature, otherwise we politicize the entire debate inside the legislature, and that’s not what it’s about. What it’s about is we come there and use our words to persuade, not items of clothing.”
When asked if she had defied a directive from the premier, Martin said, “It has nothing to do with the premier, it’s a decision of the speaker of the legislative assembly.”
Stiles told reporters Thursday she’s happy Ford is on her side on this issue, but added she is disappointed the motion didn’t pass.
“The premier needs to talk to his people and make sure they do the right thing,” she said.
Stiles first urged Arnott to reconsider the ban in an April 12 letter. She said concerns over the directive first surfaced after being flagged by members of her staff, however they have gained prominence after Sarah Jama, Independent MPP for Hamilton Centre, posted about the issue on X, formerly Twitter.
Jama was removed from the NDP caucus for her social media comments on the Israel-Hamas war shortly after Oct. 7.
Jama has said she believes she was kicked out of the party because she called for a ceasefire in Gaza “too early” and because she called Israel an “apartheid state.”
Arnott told reporters Thursday that he began examining a ban on the Keffiyeh after one MPP made a complaint about another MPP, who he believes was Jama, who was wearing one.
Liberals also call for reversal
Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie also called for a reversal of the ban on Wednesday night.
“Here in Ontario, we are home to a diverse group of people from so many backgrounds. This is a time when leaders should be looking for ways to bring people together, not to further divide us. I urge Speaker Arnott to immediately reconsider this move to ban the keffiyeh,” Crombie said.
Keffiyehs are a common garment across the Arab world, but they hold a special meaning in the Palestinian resistance movement.
Stiles said MPPs have worn kilts, kirpans, vyshyvankas and chubas in the legislature, saying such items of clothing not only have national and cultural associations, but have also been considered at times as “political symbols in need of suppression.”
She said Indigenous and non-Indigenous members have also dressed in traditional regalia and these items cannot be separated from their historical and political significance.
“The wearing of these important cultural and national clothing items in our Assembly is something we should be proud of. It is part of the story of who we are as a province,” she said.
“Palestinians are part of that story, and the keffiyeh is a traditional clothing item that is significant not only to them but to many members of Arab and Muslim communities. That includes members of my staff who have been asked to remove their keffiyehs in order to come to work. This is unacceptable.”
Stiles added that House of Commons and other provincial legislatures allow the wearing of keffiyehs in their chambers and the ban makes Ontario an “outlier.”
Suppression of cultural symbols part of genocide: MPP
Jama said on X that the ban is “unsurprising” but “nonetheless concerning” in a country that has a legacy of colonialism. “Part of committing genocide is the forceful suppression of cultural identity and cultural symbols,” she said in part.
“Seeing those in power in this country at all levels of government, from federal all the way down to school boards, aid Israel’s colonial regime with these tactics in the oppression of Palestinian people proves that reconciliation is nothing but a word when spoken by state powers,” she said.
Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, said on X that it is “deeply ironic” on that keffiyehs were banned in the Ontario legislature on the 42nd anniversary of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“This is wrong and dangerous as we have already seen violence and exclusion impact Canadians, including Muslims of Palestinian descent, who choose to wear this traditional Palestinian clothing,” Elghawaby said.
Arnott said the keffiyeh was not considered a “form of protest” in the legislature prior to statements and debates that happened in the House last fall.
“These items are not absolutes and are not judged in a vacuum,” he said.
Botched home sale costs Winnipeg man his right to sell real estate in Manitoba – CBC.ca
Dow Jones Rises But S&P, Nasdaq Fall; Nvidia, SMCI Flash Sell Signals As Bitcoin's Fourth Halving Arrives – Investor's Business Daily
Want to Outperform 88% of Professional Fund Managers? Buy This 1 Investment and Hold It Forever. – Yahoo Finance
Silver investment demand jumped 12% in 2019
12 Bizarre Things People Did Just To Make Social Media Content
Global Media Markets, 2015-2020, 2020-2025F, 2030F – TV and Radio Broadcasting, Film and Music, Information Services, Web Content, Search Portals And Social Media, Print Media, & Cable – GlobeNewswire
-
Media8 hours ago
DJT Stock Rises. Trump Media CEO Alleges Potential Market Manipulation. – Barron's
-
Media10 hours ago
Trump Media alerts Nasdaq to potential market manipulation from 'naked' short selling of DJT stock – CNBC
-
Investment9 hours agoPrivate equity gears up for potential National Football League investments – Financial Times
-
Health22 hours ago
Type 2 diabetes is not one-size-fits-all: Subtypes affect complications and treatment options – The Conversation
-
Media22 hours ago
DJT Stock Jumps. The Truth Social Owner Is Showing Stockholders How to Block Short Sellers. – Barron's
-
Business22 hours ago
Tofino, Pemberton among communities opting in to B.C.'s new short-term rental restrictions – Vancouver Sun
-
Business21 hours ago
A sunken boat dream has left a bad taste in this Tim Hortons customer's mouth – CBC.ca
-
Sports23 hours ago
Start time set for Game 1 in Maple Leafs-Bruins playoff series – Toronto Sun
