Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama held an informal meeting this morning as the G8 summit neared its close in Northern Ireland.
There are no details on what Harper and Obama discussed during the unscheduled meeting, described as a walk and talk, but they reportedly likely spoke about the conflict in Syria, as well as issues closer to home.
"The Keystone XL pipeline project is obviously a big issue for Canada and the U.S.," CBC's Susan Lunn said from Enniskillen. "President Obama will decide this year if is he's going to say yes to the pipeline, which will run from the Alberta oilsands to Texas."
Before the G8, Harper said he understood why Obama is supplying small arms to the Syrian opposition, after the U.S. recently said it had proof that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons against rebels.
U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper did a walk and talk near the end of the G8 summit at Lough Erne Resort in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. (Yves Herman/Reuters) Harper and Obama met the morning after a private dinner at the lakeside Lough Erne resort for the leaders of eight of the world's leading industrialized countries.
Obama held what was described as a tense meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, and the two later said they would both push for peace in war-torn Syria.
Reports in the British press say the other G8 leaders pressured Putin at the dinner to agree to a joint statement condemning Assad's regime for attacking rebels with chemical weapons.
Russia has refused to acknowledge that chemical weapons have been used. The United States, meanwhile, claims to have proof the Assad regime attacked its foes with chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin.
G8 leaders — from the U.K., Japan, Canada, the U.S, France, Germany, Italy and Russia — were spending the final hours of their summit Tuesday haggling to see whether all eight could express a joint position on ending the two-year-old civil war in Syria.
While Putin has appeared firm in backing the Assad government, the other leaders have shown varying degrees of support for the rebels.
Talk of new measures against tax shelters
The G8 leaders also are expected to agree on new measures to restrict the ability of multinational corporations to avoid paying taxes in their home countries by using shell companies and other legal accounting tricks to shelter cash in principalities and islands, many of them British, that charge little or no tax.
Britain's treasury chief, George Osborne, is taking part to help explain Britain's agreement unveiled last week with its far-flung crown dependencies and overseas territories — including the Channel Islands, Gibraltar and Anguilla — to start sharing more information on which foreign companies bank their profits there.
"You're going to see concrete achievements today on changing the international rules on taxation, so individuals can't hide their money offshore and companies don't shift their profits away from where the profit is made," Osborne said.
"Of course Britain's got to put its own house in order," he added, referring to companies' practice of funneling money between the British offshore territories and the City of London, the world's second-largest financial market.
Harper's office issued a statement outlining the steps Canada is taking to combat tax evasion, money laundering and other financial crimes. Some of the measures had previously been announced.
The government has formed a working group on the risks of terrorist financing and money laundering, and will hold stakeholder consultations on corporate transparency.
Changes to the beneficial ownership rules are taking effect in 2014, as are changes to customer due diligence rules that include more monitoring of clients, enhanced record keeping and new measures to deal with high-risk customers. More measures could be introduced following the consultations.
Harper's statement commended Cameron for putting the tax evasion and transparency issues on the agenda for this G8 meeting.
"I applaud the UK Presidency's focus on tax, trade and transparency – priorities that find great reciprocity with our government's commitment to Canadians," said Harper. "Canada, like the UK, believes that these priorities are critical to growth, prosperity and economic development worldwide, and we are pleased to do our part."
Harper also announced that Canada formally adopted an Open Data Charter with the other G8 leaders. It commits Canada to proactively release more information through an online registry of government data holdings, and the charter commits the countries to make their data comparable.
The government also announced Tuesday the launch of a new portal called data.gc.ca on its Open Data Portal that contains datasets from 20 government departments and agencies.
The G8 summit is concluding with rapid-fire news conferences by each departing leader. Obama continues his European trip Tuesday night in Germany.
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