国际英语资讯:News Analysis: Diplomatic spat escalates over Philippines, Canada trash row_时事

国际英语资讯:News Analysis: Diplomatic spat escalates over Philippines, Canada trash row

Two years later, when Trudeau visited Manila again to attend the ASEAN summit on November 2017, the Canadian prime minister said Canada amended its regulations in 2016 so that it was "theoretically possible" for Canada to bring back trash container in the Philippines. However, he also said there were several obstacles like "who will pay for, where the financial responsibility is, where the consequence is."

This April, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte chastised Canada for failing to take action on the waste issue, threatening to forcibly ship the waste back to Canada and dump some at its embassy in Manila if the Canadian government continues to refuse to resolve the long-running issue.

Duterte's tirade forced the Canadian government to issue a statement, saying it is committed to ship back the rotting garbage and that it will pay the full cost of shipping back the 69 shipping containers. Later, Duterte set May 15 as the deadline for Canada to bring back the trash.

The Department of Finance of the Philippines said in a statement on May 7 that Ottawa informed Manila there will be several weeks delayed because "bureaucratic red tape in the Canadian government has slowed down the process of re-exporting the trash back to (Canada)."

As the Canadian government told its Philippine counterparts, the North American country missed the deadline and caused the recall of the Philippine diplomats.

Aaron Rabena, an associate research fellow from the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations said the Philippines has reason to be angry with Canada's longtime inaction.