Sri Lanka has been aiming to boost its trade with Canada, with a delegation meeting with businessmen in Toronto earlier this week, despite Canada’s continued concern regarding Sri Lanka’s war-time abuses committed against the Tamil people.

The ten-member delegation visited the country after a gap of almost three years, attempting to enhance trade links between the two. The visit though comes at a time when Canada is lobbying for Sri Lanka to be held accountable for violations of international humanitarian law.

Sri Lanka’s controversial reconciliation commission has completed its report and will present it to President Mahinda Rajapakse in the second week of November.

The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission was set up by the President and was supposed to look into the conflict with the Tamil Tigers, but it has been slammed by human rights organisations and foreign officials as a farce.

The spokesman for the LLRC, Lakshman Wickramasinghe told reporters, that it is not in the commission’s hand to make it public.

Defence Secretary Gothbaya Rajapakse said that,

The leader of the BJP, India’s main opposition party, has demanded an immediate stop to the attacks perpetrated by the Sri Lankan Navy on Tamil Nadu’s fishermen.

"Sri Lanka must be told firmly that the repeated attacks on Indian fishermen must end," he told reporters in Madurai.

"It should not be regarded as a local matter as it does not relate to Tamil Nadu only. It must be regarded as a part of the national strategy and the government must evolve a plan on how to deal with it," he said.

“[Canadian] Prime Minister Stephen Harper deserves credit for making Sri Lanka an issue at the Commonwealth summit in Australia this week.

“There are other human rights offenders in the [Commonwealth], to be sure. But Sri Lanka is in a class of its own.”

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“Australia’s Attorney-General, Robert McClelland promptly quashed the case [against President Rajapaksa], claiming it breached domestic law and Australia's treaty pledges of diplomatic and sovereign immunity for visiting leaders.

“A smokescreen, of course, since domestic law does allow private war crimes prosecutions - if they are taken over by federal prosecutors and approved by the attorney-general.