Collision from Home: Trudeau: World Health Organization Has to Answer Criticism of Dealings with China

- Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau says WHO has questions to answer on how it engaged with China during early stages of COVID-19 pandemic

- Trudeau says Canada is closer to Europe than the US on the issue of taxing big tech, says tech giants haven't paid their fair share in the past

- Trudeau joined WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, The Handmaid's Tale author Margaret Atwood, and NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O'Neal at the 32,000-attendee online event Collision from Home

TORONTO, June 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau today said the World Health Organization has questions to answer on how it engaged with China during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Trudeau made the remarks at the 32,000-attendee online conference Collision from Home, produced by the team behind Web Summit – the largest tech conference in the world. 

"There are questions about how it (WHO) can be improved and it needs to answer certain questions that people have around how it engaged with China early-on. But it is really important that we turn to multilateralism to work ourselves through this," said Trudeau.

Asked whether Canada will play a more pronounced role in WHO following US president Donald Trump's May announcement to pull funding from the organisation, Trudeau said Canada will continue to contribute to the global public health effort.

"The WHO is a multilateral institution that has served (us) extremely well – it is extremely important. It is the best gig we have out there in terms of world public health. Can it be improved? Must it be improved? Absolutely.

"But that's work that we should be doing – not walking away from. Canada will continue to be a strong proponent of multilateral institutions and engagements," said Trudeau.

Trudeau said that Canada is looking at ways to ensure major tech companies pay a "fair" amount of tax, adding that the country is a "a little closer to the Europeans than with the US administration on their approach."

"The issue is one of fairness. We need to make sure that people are paying their fair share of taxes, and that's why we've had significant concerns around advertising revenue generated from Canadian sources that go into big tech coffers.

"We are looking, along with Europe, at ways of making sure that the tech giants are paying their fair share of taxes. Everyone should be paying their fair share, and the tech giants haven't been doing that in the past," said Trudeau.

Watch a clip from the interview here.

About Justin Trudeau:

Prime minister Justin Trudeau is a teacher, father, feminist and an advocate for youth and the middle class. In 2008, he was elected as the Liberal Member of Parliament for the Montréal riding of Papineau. He was sworn in as prime minister on 4 November, 2015.

About Collision:

Collision is known by CBC as the "TIFF for tech", while Inc. Magazine calls it the "fastest-growing tech conference in North America". Collision is set to move online for 2020 with Collision from Home. Collision will return to Toronto as a physical event for the second year from June 21-24, 2021 at the Enercare Centre.

About Web Summit:

Forbes says Web Summit is "the best tech conference on the planet"; Bloomberg calls it "Davos for geeks"; Politico, "the Olympics of tech"; The Guardian, "Glastonbury for geeks"; and, in the words of Inc. Magazine, "Web Summit is the largest technology conference in the world".

Whatever Web Summit is, it wouldn't be possible without an incredible team of over 200 employees based in Dublin, Lisbon, Toronto and Hong Kong, including world-class engineers, data scientists, designers, producers, marketers, salespeople, and more. They've disrupted an old industry by building incredible software and designing mind-blowing events, revolutionising how people and ideas come together to change the world.

Useful links:

Collision images: https://www.flickr.com/photos/collisionconf/
Collision speaker lineup: https://collisionconf.com/speakers

Collision schedule: https://collisionconf.com/schedule