LISTEN: Should Canada do business with Saudi Arabia

LISTEN: Should Canada do business with Saudi Arabia

Postby Oscar » Sun Nov 08, 2015 10:36 am

LISTEN: Should Canada do business with Saudi Arabia? Michael's essay

[ http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayeditio ... -1.3307349 ]

Sunday November 08, 2015

In the last convulsive days of Election 2015, two clearly embarrassed Harper ministers stood nervously before television cameras to unveil a "barbaric cultural practices" snitch line. The idea, I think, was this: if one of your neighbours or perhaps your boss or school principal was engaging in barbaric cultural practices, you would call the snitch line and something -- nobody knows what -- would happen.

I'm sorry the snitch line didn't happen. I wanted to use it to report on the Canadian government's great good friend and wartime ally -- Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and barbaric cultural practices go together like peanut butter and strawberry jam.

It has long been clear that various regimes of The Kingdom persecute women, dissidents, non-Muslims, so-called blasphemers. At the same time, it finances and sponsors terrorist cells all over the Middle East with its propagation of violent Wahhabism.

The latest outrage proposed by the Saudis was ably reported last week in his New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof. A young man named Ali al-Nimr has been sentenced to be beheaded, and then to be crucified in a public place, to deter others from committing his crime. Which was participating in anti-government protests. As Kristof pointed out, this backward, barbaric regime also executes witches, and publicly flogs and imprisons gay people.

Western governments have historically sucked up to the Saud family and its thousands of princes, because of what lies beneath the country's sands. Oil, and the fatuous idea that Saudi Arabia is a stabilizing force in the area, fuel the relationship.

In turn, Western countries, including Canada, have benefited from huge trade deals with the Saudis, trade deals involving military equipment and arms. In 2012 and 2013, Saudi Arabia was the largest purchaser of Canadian military goods, with sales of more than $575-million over those two years. Ground vehicles and military components account for about 92 per cent of all our exports to The Kingdom.

It is quite possible that Saudi Arabia will soon replace the United States as Canada's largest arms customer, with deals over the next few years running into the billions. Under Canadian law, the Department of Foreign Affairs is supposed to carry out a human rights assessment of any country with a dubious record before trade deals are concluded. But according to the Globe and Mail, no such assessment of Saudi Arabia has been done over the past two years, even while the multi-billion dollar trade deal was being negotiated. Foreign affairs officials apparently could offer no reason as to why they were issuing export permits without the human rights assessment. Stephen Harper's government called the Saudi contract a major success which over the next decade or so would provide three thousand manufacturing jobs.

Saudi Arabia is a country where forced marriage of girls under 15 is permissible. Where a woman may not wear a car seat belt because it might outline her body. Where conversion to another religion is punishable by death.

So far this year, the regime has beheaded more than 102 people. It is now advertising for more executioners to deal with the increasing workload.

Perhaps someone in our new government could slip our new Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion a piece of paper with a question on it:

Do we really want to do business with these people?

- - - -

CONTACT Minister of Foreign Affairs Stephane Dion:

Stephane Dion, MP
440-750, boul. Marcel-Laurin
Saint-Laurent, (QC) H4M 2M4
Tél / Tel : (514) 335-6655
Tlcpr / Fax : (514) 335-2712
stephane.dion@parl.gc.ca

OR

The Honourable Stéphane Dion, P.C., M.P.
Member of Parliament for Saint-Laurent
House of Commons, Ottawa K1A 0A6


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Sign the petition – No more weapons for Saudi Arabia

[ http://www.ceasefire.ca/?p=20379 ]

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Ceasefire.ca in Blog, Petitions

Can you believe it? Following a massive arms deal brokered by a Canadian government agency, the Harper government has approved export permits for the shipment of 15 billion dollars’ worth of Canadian-built military equipment to the repressive Saudi Arabian regime. Its feudal government has outlawed political dissent, routinely conducts public beheadings and floggings, and strictly controls the activities of women, who cannot yet even vote. Worse still, it used Canadian-built military vehicles to help the government of Bahrain crush peaceful pro-democracy protestors. Canadian export control policies prohibit the export of military equipment where there is a reasonable risk that the importing country will use these weapons to perpetrate human rights abuses. Sign our petition and urge the government to deny any further transfers of arms or other military equipment to Saudi Arabia.

During the 2015 federal election signers will not get a substantive response from Leaders but we will continue to tally the numbers and let the parties know where you stand!

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Saudi arms sale “unprecedented

[ http://www.ceasefire.ca/?p=19228 ]

July 22, 2014 by Ceasefire.ca in Blog

Canada’s deal to equip Saudi Arabia with armoured vehicles is even larger than previously thought, according to official data obtained by Project Ploughshares through an Access to Information request (Kenneth Epps, “New facts confirm unprecedented size of Canadian arms deal to Saudi Arabia,” Project Ploughshares, 22 July 2014). Information gathered from the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) indicates that the two contracts awarded by the CCC to General Dynamics Land Systems Canada to sell military equipment to the Gulf monarchy totaled $14.8-billion. [ http://ploughshares.ca/2014/07/new-fact ... di-arabia/ ]

“These contracts are unprecedented in the history of the CCC, a crown corporation in Ottawa that arranges back-to-back contracts between Canadian suppliers and foreign governments,” says Kenneth Epps, senior program officer at Project Ploughshares. “Each contract dwarfs recent CCC awards for military exports to other Canadian-based contractors.”

Combined, the deals account for the lion’s share of the $15.5 billion in military contracts awarded by the CCC during fiscal year 2013-2014. In fact, “this latest total is an order of magnitude greater than equivalent annual totals for the majority of years in this century,” said Epps. The deal is so big that the Gulf kingdom has displaced the United States as the largest annual benefactor of CCC-brokered military export contracts. Canadian military exports to the U.S. shrank to $592.2 million during 2013-14.

“The new contracts change the norm, making Saudi Arabia the alternative major recipient of Canadian arms exports for years to come,” notes Epps. Based on information provided by the government in February, Epps estimates “that they will span at least 10 years, with average annual shipments worth at least $1-billion. This means that Saudi Arabia is slated to be a major, if not the largest, recipient of Canadian military exports for the next decade or more.”

The CCC hasn’t been neglecting other military clients, however. Back in 2010 the CCC chose a Director of Global Defence Sales to advertise Canadian military exports in untapped markets. Recent export figures point to the success the corporation has obtained, especially in the global South. The data released to Project Ploughshares indicate that the crown corporation secured contracts with various Canadian companies appraised at $36.2 million for Mexico, $18.8 million for Argentina, $10.9 million for Peru, and $2.3 million for Norway.

Beyond the significant scale of the armoured vehicles deal, the Saudi contracts raise important questions about the efficacy of Canadian export control standards, which are supposed to “closely control” arms exports to human rights violators and regions at risk of armed conflict: The Saudi government’s abysmal human rights record is well documented. In directing a crown corporation to actively seek out the contracts, the Canadian government has ignored the high risk that Canadian vehicles will become tools of repression. The risk will escalate if Saudi Arabia experiences an “Arab Spring” movement calling for basic rights and freedoms.

Saudi Arabia also boasts the largest military budget in the Middle East, the world’s most militarized region. Huge military expenditures by the Saudi regime provide perhaps the single clearest example of the ‘excessive and destabilizing accumulation of conventional weapons’ warned about by many international agreements to which Canada is a party.

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Canada-Saudi arms deal has 'significant risk'

[ http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas ... 17440.html ]

As Canada prepares to ship $10bn worth of LAVs to Saudi Arabia, critics urge Ottawa to cease arming repressive regimes.

Megan O'Toole | 14 Apr 2014 14:23 GMT | Politics, Middle East, US & Canada, Afghanistan, Bahrain

The Canadian government promoted it as the "largest advanced manufacturing export win" in the country's history.

The deal, announced in February, will see Canada's division of General Dynamics Land Systems build more than $10bn worth of light armoured vehicles (LAVs) and associated equipment for Saudi Arabia. Canadian Minister of International Trade Ed Fast touted the "landmark" contract as a way to benefit hundreds of local supply firms and create thousands of advanced manufacturing jobs, particularly in the populous region of southern Ontario.

But critics contend the Saudi deal represents a dangerous escalation in Canada's willingness to supply military equipment to repressive regimes, and a lack of regard for what impact the equipment could have on the ground - particularly in light of a new report showing Saudi leads the Middle East in military spending.

"Under Canada's own guidelines, this sale should not have gone forward, and in the future similar sales should not go forward," said Kenneth Epps, senior programme officer with Project Ploughshares, a Canadian non-governmental organisation that advocates non-violence. Epps, who has been tracking Canada's global weapons sales for decades, called the Saudi deal unprecedented in scope.

MORE:

[ http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas ... 17440.html ]


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How will Canada’s foreign policy change under Stéphane Dion?

[ http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2015/11/08/how- ... hane-dion/ ]

By Levon Sevunts | english@rcinet.ca

Sunday 8 November, 2015 ,

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named Stephane Dion to be Canada’s new minister of foreign affairs, I admit I was surprised. Like many, I was expecting Dion to take over the environment portfolio, a very sensitive file that Dion, a former environment minister in Paul Martin’s government, knows better than, perhaps, most of his colleagues.

A quiet and very reserved man, Dion didn’t strike me as an obvious choice to be Canada’s top diplomat and all the high-level schmoozing and wheeling-and-dealing associated with the position.

So to find out whether Dion has what it takes to be the minister of foreign affairs and what his nomination says about the kind of foreign policy the new Liberal government is going to pursue, I called Paul Heinbecker. He is a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations and chief foreign policy advisor to former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and a man who literally wrote the book on Canadian foreign policy. [ http://www.amazon.ca/Getting-Back-Game- ... 1554702984 ]

A man of intellect

“Foreign affairs is a difficult portfolio, much more difficult than it looks,” Heinbecker said in a phone interview. “It’s a portfolio above all others where you can’t control events. With other portfolios you can set some goals you can try to realize them. But if you’re in foreign affairs, you are reacting about 90 per cent of the time.”

The government’s foreign policy objectives, goals and interests are constantly tested and challenged by the outside world and events, such as the apparent bombing of the Russian passenger jet over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, Heinbecker said.

“You have to be able to respond intelligently and preferably within the parameters of your own policy thinking and your own vision of what it is you want the country to do,” Heinbecker said. “So that takes a lot of intellect and Mr. Dion has a reputation for intellect.”

Dion was a star academic when he was brought into the Liberal Party by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, he has been the leader of the Liberal party, the leader of the official opposition and he has more experience than most of his Conservative predecessors, he said.

“I think it’s fair to say, although it sounds like an exaggeration, that he’s had more international experience, more under his belt, than the previous four Conservative foreign ministers taken together,” Heinbecker said.

Dion’s mastery of the environmental portfolio will also be very appreciated by his cabinet colleagues as climate change is likely to be one of the most important challenges facing the new government not only on the domestic front but also in its foreign policy, he said.

Not just a change in tone

Heinbecker says under Dion’s leadership Canada’s foreign policy will undergo dramatic changes that go far beyond just a change in tone.

“The foreign policy of the Harper government was failing practically on every count,” Heinbecker said. “They walked away from the UN, they walked away from climate change, they walked away from the Desertification Convention, they didn’t sign the Arms Trade Treaty even though the United States and every other member of NATO did.”

And while Canada walked away from its traditional focus on multilateral diplomacy, Canada’s bilateral ties with its main trading partners didn’t improve either, he said.

Relations with the United States are at their lowest in decades, the Mexican president even cancelled a visit to Canada over the Conservative government’s sudden imposition of visas on Mexican citizens, and relations with China never really took off, Heinbecker said.

MORE:

[ http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2015/11/08/how- ... hane-dion/ ]
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(Ugly) Canada's $15 BILLION Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia

Postby Oscar » Tue Jan 05, 2016 11:57 am

PM Trudeau says Saudi arms deal stands; Minister Dion tip-toes around human rights concerns with Saudi peer

[ https://citizenactionmonitor.wordpress. ... audi-peer/ ]

Did lucrative deal mute stronger expressions of moral and ethical condemnation of Saudi HR abuses?

No 1545 Posted by fw, December 19, 2015

This is a long post about Canada’s arms deal with Saudi Arabia presented in six sections: 1) my open letter to PM Trudeau urging him to cancel a secretive arms deal Saudi Arabia, and an excerpt of reply from PM’s office; 2) CBC news report of Minister Dion’s meeting with Saudi foreign minister; 3) Trudeau says he will not cancel arms deal with Saudis; 4) Dion’s official statement of meeting with Saudi minister; 5) Fact checking Liberal’s side of the story; and 6) What Liberals could learn from Sweden’s dealings with the Saudis. . . . . .

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How Saudi Arabia, and a $15B armoured vehicle deal, became an election issue

[ http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/saudi-a ... -1.3244290 ]

Government says contract will create and sustain 3,000 jobs

By Mark Gollom, CBC News Posted: Sep 26, 2015 5:00 AM ET| Last Updated: Sep 26, 2015 5:00 AM ET

EXCERPT:

"Saudi Arabia is one of the cases where principle is completely trumped by pragmatism. The pragmatism in our relationship with Saudi Arabia is the trade argument — the armoured vehicles — but trade more broadly, and the partnership with a country that's aligned with some of, not all, but some of our geopolitical interests."

"I think the key point to remember, broadly speaking, is that that's the norm," Juneau said. "We may lament that, we may find that unfortunate, but in most cases for Canada, as for other countries, that's the nature of international politics, as ugly as it is in many cases."
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