Canada trash issue not discussed during PNoy-Trudeau bilateral talks 

The dumping of Canadian trash in the Philippines was not discussed in the bilateral meeting between President Benigno Aquino III and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is in Manila to attend the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting.

Aquino and Trudeau met for 30 minutes Wednesday night at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza, where both state leaders talked about the “tremendous potential for growing bilateral trade,” said Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma, Jr.

Coloma said Trudeau also expressed support to the Philippines’ possible accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Days before Trudeau’s visit, environmental watchdog group EcoWaste Coalition urged the newly-installed Canadian leader to take back the trash Canada shipped to the country in 2013.

"We hope that the winds of change blowing across Canada will lead to Trudeau's Cabinet wasting no time to re-import the illegally exported garbage to the Philippines and bring this prolonged controversy to a close,” said Rene Pineda, vice-president of environmental watchdog group EcoWaste Coalition in a press statement.

Pineda said such action will show that Trudeau’s government does not and will not condone illegal garbage trade that is treating low and middle-income countries as dumps.

Twenty-six of the 50 container vans of waste shipped from Canada in 2013 were disposed of at the Metro Clark landfill in Capas, Tarlac, between June 26 to July 8, 2015.

Instead of the garbage issue, Coloma said the bilateral meeting focused on the relations of Canada and the Philippines.

Aquino also thanked the Canadian government for making the Philippines a country of focus, one of the 25 countries that will receive 90 percent of Canada’s bilateral aid. —KBK, GMA News