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Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said on Tuesday that Ottawa does not plan to pay the $1-billion US price tag for a permanent seat on U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” that will oversee the governance and reconstruction of Gaza.
“There [are] a lot of details to be worked out, but one thing which is clear is that Canada is not going to pay if we were to join the Board of Peace,” Champagne told reporters Tuesday morning on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Champagne’s comments come after Prime Minister Mark Carney — one of the 60 world leaders asked to join the board — accepted the draft invitation, though on Sunday he said his officials hadn’t gone through “all the details of the structure, how it’s going to work, what the financing is for, etcetera.”
A draft of the board’s invitation letter calls for countries to pay $1 billion US for a permanent seat on the board.
“We’re still early days [into] that what’s going to be the terms of reference of that board, how it’s going to operate,” Champagne said.
“The prime minister will have to make the final decision when all the facts are known and all the details have been hammered out — whether this is in the best interest of Canada.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney has accepted U.S. President Donald Trump’s invitation to join his “Board of Peace” proposal, but said his officials have not gone through “all the details of the structure.” A draft of the invitation letter calls for countries to pay $1 billion US for a permanent seat on the board, something a federal official told CBC News that Canada has not been asked for and would not do.
A federal official earlier told CBC News that Canada has not been asked to pay at this time and would not do so.
“Canada wants money to have maximum impact,” Carney told reporters. “We still do not have unimpeded humanitarian aid flows at scale to the people of Gaza.”
He called that a “precondition for moving forward on this.”
Other world leaders have exercised some caution as the details have not been finalized. Some countries have expressed concern about a charter attached to the Board of Peace, one that seems to see Gaza as the first of many conflicts this body would try to resolve, potentially sidelining the United Nations.
More to come
