Morally Weak, Intellectually Contemptuous

That's how I regard the justifications for continuing with the Saudi arms deal offered by Stephane Dion and his puppet master, Justin Trudeau. I see I am not alone in that assessment:

Re: Approval of Saudi arms deal was illegal, lawyer argues, April 22

According to the Prime Minister, the Saudi arms deal must go forward, notwithstanding profound universal concern about the Saudi government’s cavalier attitude toward human rights.

According to Justin Trudeau, “We will continue to respect contracts signed because people around the world need to know that when Canada signs a deal it is respected.” That statement is odd and troubling on many different levels.

Does Mr. Trudeau believe himself to be Canada’s CEO or its head of government? Are we employees of Mr. Trudeau or are we citizen of this country? Is Mr. Trudeau our boss or our servant? Does Canada, as a political entity, sign commercial deals, or is it rather commercial enterprises within Canada that sign deals, and it is the government’s job to regulate those deals? Most importantly, perhaps: Is Canada a large commercial enterprise or a nation that calls itself a democracy?

A likely explanation of Mr. Trudeau’s statement is that he has a habit of improvising rationales that are at odds with rationality, such as his perplexing statements to the effect that Canada will use fossil fuel production to combat fossil-fuel-induced climate change.

Stephane Dion has turned into a quick study in the art of sophistical rhetoric and improvised rationales. On the subject of the Saudi arms sales, he says he had “reviewed the issue with ‘the utmost rigour’ and will continue to do so over the life of the 14-year deal.” It seems I have been under a false impression that his government had been elected for a four-year term.

Earlier, he had cleverly stated that the sale was justified because the Saudi government has promised not to use the armoured vehicles to suppress domestic dissent. Even if we were to believe the Saudi claim, what about the serious concern about the Saudi ruling family’s hobby of invading neighbouring countries and massacring their civilian populations? Do we need that blood on our hands?

Al Eslami, North York

Jobs worth killing for? Online video April 24

Full marks to Scott Vrooman for, like many other Canadians, pointing out the rank hypocrisy of Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government. Could there be a more blatant example of this than the Saudi Arms deal?

While our Prime Minister will happily show up at any photo op for a Pride Parade or similar event (as he should), he quite clearly has no problem selling arms to a regime that executes people for the crime of being gay. If he can’t see the hypocrisy of that, he’s a fool.

This government’s supposed fresh new approach (transparency and honesty and optimism) is looking more and more like a variation of the half truths and manipulated facts that contribute to many people’s default setting with politics and politicians: distrust and cynicism.

Paul Romanuk, Toronto

UPDATED: A Further Indictment Of Canada's Arms' Deal With Saudi Arabia

Yesterday's post dealt with the egregious hypocrisy of Canada's condemnation of Saudi Arabia's recent spate of executions while at the same time refusing to revisit the $15 billion arms sale to the Middle East kingdom. A report in today's Globe and Mail suggests the situation is even more grim than previously thought.

Some of the armoured combat vehicles Canada is selling to Saudi Arabia in a controversial $15-billion arms deal will feature medium- or high-calibre weapons supplied by a European subcontractor – such as a powerful cannon designed to shoot anti-tank missiles.

These details shine a light on how lethal a product the Saudi Arabian National Guard – a force that deals with internal threats in the Mideast country – will be getting from Canada.

While the Trudeau government, adamant that the deal go through, is refusing to provide details of the agreement, certain details have leaked out. The two key players in the manufacture of these weaponized vehicles are General Dynamics Land Systems in Canada and its Belgian supplier, CMI Defence.

CMI, which manufactures turrets and cannons, announced in 2014 that it had signed a large contract with a “Canadian vehicle manufacturer” to supply two gun systems, including a medium-calibre weapon and the Cockerill CT-CV 105HP, which it advertises as a “high-pressure gun with an advanced autoloader to deliver high lethality at very light weight,” one with the capacity to fire 105-mm shells and a heavy-armour-penetrating missile. CMI did not name the Canadian company.

About a year ago, The Tyee had this to offer about the weaponry involved:

...various reports say the LAV III light armoured vehicles, made by General Dynamics Land Systems Canada in London, Ontario, are not for the Saudi Arabian Army.

According to reports in a variety of specialist military publications -- including Jane's, the UK-based group of defence industry publications -- the LAV IIIs are for the National Guard (SANG), a 100,000-strong force of Bedouin tribesmen and Wahhabi religious zealots whose prime task is to protect King Abdullah and the royal family from domestic opponents.

According to Ken Epps of Project Ploughshares, the deal is one that could prove very costly to Saudi Arabia's domestic dissenters:

“Such vehicles, far from simple troop carriers, are capable of major destruction, and given the ongoing deplorable human rights situation in Saudi Arabia, there is great risk that they will be used against civilians opposed to the Saudi government. This is why the new Canadian government should be reconsidering the Saudi contract,” Mr. Epps said.

Through its recent spate of executions, the Middle East kingdom has sent a powerful message that those who demonstrate against or oppose the royal family will pay a heavy price. Once this indefensible arms deal goes through, that price will clearly be even heavier.

UPDATE: Owen over at Northern Reflections has a very interesting post on Saudi Arabia's true nature.

The Outrage Continues

In the weekend Star, Tony Burman gave five reasons that Canada should cancel the Saudi arms deal, an immoral agreement which the Trudeau government refuses to budge on. I will simply give the headings of his arguments here:

1. Canadians oppose it

2. Canada is being bought off

3. Saudi Arabia is an awful regime

4. Canadian arms are undoubtedly killing innocent people

5. Canada’s arguments have no moral core

In response to that column, Star readers offer their views:

Canada must cancel the contract selling armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. Yes, let's pay the agreed upon penalties. Canadians are not so venal as to be ready to sell the lives of thousands of people, and in the process, sell their souls for a handful of coins.

Better to pay the penalty for cancelling the sale than the ones implicit in the ratifying of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In the latter case Canada will be liable to pay corporations that deem to be shortchanged by enacting legislation to redress old wrongs, like First Nations inequalities or environmental protection.

Canada should cancel this deal with Saudi Arabia and not ratify the TPP. We expect this government to deliver on the profound human values that have been a hallmark of Canada.

Bruna Nota, Toronto

Once again Tony Burman masterfully and succinctly provides us with an excellent and well-reasoned article on this very serious and important topic. Is our government listening?

As a Canadian and member of the Liberal party I call upon the government to reconsider the Saudi arms deal. Do we really want the blood of those weapons when used on our hands? Is this what Canada stands for? I think not. While this is a complex issue, there is a line to be drawn in the sand.

Canada is not “back” when it sells out its moral fiber with such a deal.

Janice Meighan, Toronto

Mr. Burman provides five compelling reasons why Canada should kill the $15 billion arms agreement with Saudi Arabia. Here are two more:

1. Canada may have bypassed its own tough weapons export control laws to ink this deal. In doing so it circumventing its own rule of law and due process.

2. Canada needs to bring Saudi Arabia's extremist theological and financial support for groups like Daesh, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the like to light rather than trying to gain from it.

Ali Manji, Thornhill

Unfortunately, given the obdurate stance of the Trudeau government, it is doubtful that any of these compelling points will move any of our representatives' hearts and minds on this very important issue.

Who Do You Trust?

When it comes to a choice between believing a government with a vested interest in protecting a $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia and independent reports that those armaments are being used against domestic populations, I tend to side with the later.

Consider the evidence.

The Saudi Arabian National Guard, a buyer of Canadian-made light armoured vehicles, posted this photo on Twitter in November, 2015. It shows combat vehicles being moved to Najran, a Saudi town near the border with Yemen.

Two years ago, the following was reported in the Globe and Mail:

Canadian-made armoured vehicles appear to be embroiled in Saudi Arabia's war against Yemeni-based Houthi rebels – caught up in cross-border hostilities that critics say should force Ottawa to reconsider a $15-billion deal to sell Riyadh more of these weapons.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis – who are aligned with Iran – has already been accused by a United Nations panel of major human-rights violations for what its report called "widespread and systematic" air-strike attacks on civilian targets. Along the Saudi-Yemen border, constant skirmishes pit Houthi fighters against Saudi ground forces such as the Saudi Arabian National Guard.

...a retired Canadian general consulted by The Globe and Mail, who spoke on condition of anonymity, identified the LAVs being transported to Najran as fighting vehicles made by General Dynamics Land Systems. Stephen Priestley, a researcher with the Canadian American Strategic Review, a think tank that tracks defence spending, also identified the LAVs as Canadian-made.

Critics say having Canadian-made arms enmeshed in a conflict that has claimed more than 2,800 civilian lives should prompt Ottawa to rethink the recent $15-billion deal to sell hundreds or thousands more to the Saudis.

And last summer, a video emerged appearing

to show for the first time Canadian-made light armoured vehicles being deployed by Saudi security forces in an operation against militants in the Shia-populated eastern part of the kingdom.

EXCLUSIVE: New video purports to show Canadian LAVs being used in Saudi crackdownhttps://t.co/DEfZlfTGXG pic.twitter.com/4YuPPZWmSu

— Levon Sevunts (@LevonSevunts) August 8, 2017

Add to the above the fact that Saudi Arabia is a notorious abuser of human rights, so much so that a group of British lawyers has launched a campaign to remove the country from the UN's Human Rights Council.

None of this, however, has forked any lightning with the Trudeau government. The Toronto Star reports that an investigation by the Canadian government has concluded that there is "no conclusive evidence" that the above is true, and so the arms deal will continue.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told a Commons committee Thursday the “independent objective opinion” of her departmental officials [can there truly be independence in a government department?] did not determine that was the case. When the NDP asked for the report to be publicly released, the minister deferred to her department.

As frequently happens with Mr. Trudeau's regime, while they continue to give Saudi Arabia carte blanche in its abuses, they are vowing to toughen up the export permit process.

Governments should be required to deny permits where there is a “substantial risk” that an export on Canada’s control list “could be used to commit human rights violations,” Freeland said.

Freeland said the Liberal government will accept amendments to enshrine such an obligation in law, via a bill now before Parliament to allow Canada to accede to the international Arms Trade Treaty. At the same time, she said, pre-existing contracts would be honoured, meaning the Saudi contract would not be subject to review under new criteria.

That kind of fancy footwork may provide a measure of political cover for a government aiding and abetting the Saudis. However, one can't help but wonder how reassuring it will be to those domestic populations who will continue to be abused by the Saudis and quite possibly fall victim to the Light Armoured Vehicles that Canada will continue to ship to the repressive nation.

UPDATED: On Cheap Talk And Photo-Ops

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.
-George Orwell

Regarding the misuse by the Saudis of armoured vehicles Canada sold them, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says all the right words. She says

... she’s “deeply concerned” about recent videos that appear to show Canadian-made armoured vehicles being used by Saudi Arabia in a crackdown against its own citizens.

.... she has instructed her officials to “urgently” investigate the matter

She said the investigation must be done energetically but also “very carefully”.

And, for good measure, Freeland reassures us that she and her government

are absolutely committed to the defence of human rights and we condemn all violations of human rights,”.

All fine words, to be sure, but talk is cheap, and, as Orwell was fond of pointing out, can be used to defend the indefensible.

Notably absent in the Foreign Affairs Minster's rhetoric is what Canada plans to do about the situation, once it is verified, beyond this rather anodyne statement:

“[W]e will respond accordingly.”

Now, some may take me to task for intimating that except for some expressions of outrage, her Trudeau government will do nothing once the abuse has been verified. The reason I rush to judgement is that the Harper government that brokered the deal, and the Trudeau government that gave its stamp of approval to it, knew the deal with the devil they were getting into.

A piece recently written by Shannon Gormely sets such facts out in stark relief:

Representatives of not one but two Canadian governments – a previous Conservative government that in its steadfast avarice struck a $15-billion arms deal with the devil, and a current Liberal government that in its flippant cynicism signed off on it – are, with great conviction, taking turns promising and demanding the most rigorous of investigations into the alleged war criminal they have each aided and abetted.

They speak of Saudi Arabia, which apparently paused its targeting of schools, hospitals, marketplaces and weddings in Yemen to reload with some made-in-Canada ammo in its own Eastern Province. If video footage is to be believed, Canada, through yet another weapons deal (beyond that $15-billion one), has facilitated a multiple homicide by handing the murder weapons to a killer.

Gormley suggests that with full knowledge of the Saudi proclivity for using weapons against their own people, both the Conservative and Liberal governments should have followed one ironclad and very moral rule:

Don’t sell weapons to murderers.

It doesn’t matter if the murderer offers you a lot of money – lives are worth more than money. It doesn’t matter if the murderer could perhaps find another willing seller – better not, overall, to race to the bottom when the bottom is a mass grave. It doesn’t even matter if the murderer may, in theory, decide to use a weapon to defend your friends after using it to murder innocent people, or if they aren’t as bad as other murderers, or if they ask for the murder weapon really, really nicely. Don’t sell weapons to murderers.

Politicians' talk is cheap, and Trudeau's distracting propensity for peddling sunny selfies cannot conceal an ugly and indisputable fact:

The Liberals and Conservatives allowed Canadian companies to sell weapons to a murderer, and whether or not there is already blood on their hands, there is shame of the highest order.

UPDATE: From the pants-on-fire-department:

... rules call for restrictions on arms exports to countries with a “persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their citizens.” Shipments are supposed to be blocked unless there is “no reasonable risk” the buyer could turn arms against its own population.

A Canadian arms-export researcher, Ken Epps, says the Saudi arms sales reveal the contradictions with the department of Global Affairs, which is supposed to promote business with other countries but also police military and defence shipments.

Also, Mr. Epps said what’s unfolding now in Saudi Arabia exposes how Ottawa has long failed to meet the test set out in arms-control guidelines: The government is supposed to have “demonstrated there is no reasonable risk” that military goods may be used against the local population before it signs export permits.

In the case of the $15-billion deal, the Liberal government never met this threshold, said Mr. Epps, with Project Ploughshares, a disarmament group. It merely stated it was not aware of any abuse of citizens with Canadian-made goods.

“It appears that the Canadian government isn’t even using its own standards.”

You can read the full story here.

UPDATED: It Isn't Just About Jobs

Although we live in a time that seems to demand almost constant preoccupation with the economy and jobs, sometimes there are more important considerations, such as a country's moral standing. Right now, that moral standing is in jeopardy thanks to the apparent inflexibility of the Trudeau government on the Saudi Arabian armaments deal. While it is worth a tremendous amount of money ($15 billion), many are saying it's just not worth it.

A poll released today is instructive:

Nearly six out of 10 Canadians surveyed by Nanos Research for The Globe and Mail say they feel it is more important to ensure arms exports go only to countries “that respect human rights” than it is to support 3,000 jobs by selling weaponized armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.

Other countries are growing increasingly uneasy about dealing with the repressive Middle East kingdom that has little respect for human rights:

On Thursday, an all-party committee of U.K. MPs called for a suspension of British arms sales to Saudi Arabia pending a probe into Riyadh’s devastating military campaign in Yemen. A UN report last week said a Saudi-led Arab coalition has conducted “widespread and systematic” bombing of Yemeni civilians – killing more than 2,600.

Germany’s Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy Sigmar Gabriel recently signalled Berlin’s increasing unease over arms deals with Riyadh, saying in January the government needs to review future shipments. In the past 24 months, Berlin has denied key applications for arms exports to Saudi Arabia, including several hundred battle tanks and G36 rifles.

In Belgium, the head of the Flemish government, Minister President Geert Bourgeois, announced in January that he has refused an application for an export licence to ship weapons to Saudi Arabia and hinted he would continue to do so in the future.

While the Canadian government is adamant about the deal going ahead, pollster Nik Nanos believes the poll results provide an opportunity "... for the Liberals to cancel, stop, delay or modify the transaction”.

The question yet to be answered is whether Trudeau, especially in this case, is willing to put his money where his rhetoric about collaboration and transparency is.

UPDATE: Things are getting very interesting on this file:

Opponents of Canada’s $15-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia are taking Ottawa to court in an attempt to block shipments of the combat vehicles, a move that could force the governing Liberals to explain how they justify the sale to a human-rights pariah under weapon-export restrictions.

Daniel Turp, a professor of international and constitutional law at the University of Montreal, is leading the effort, supported by students and a Montreal law firm with a record of class-action work and anti-tobacco litigation.

Turpin gives voice to what many Canadians undoubtedly feel:

“The idea that military equipment made in Canada could contribute to human-rights violations against civilians in Saudi Arabia and neighbouring countries is immoral. But we also believe that the authorization to export armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia is illegal”.

One can only hope that at the very least, the government will be forced to lift the cloak of secrecy around whether an actual assessment of the deal was done as required by law, and if it was, what that assessment revealed.

UPDATED: Will It Be All Talk And No Action?

There will always be those who see Justin Trudeau only through the public image he has so assiduously cultivated. Others, however, refuse to suspend their critical faculties despite the Prime Minister's fine hair, sunny rhetoric and public earnestness. They demand that his 'sunny ways' be met with the kinds of actions a leader with character and integrity takes in difficult situations.

The latest test for Mr. Trudeau comes with the apparent proof that Saudi Arabia is using the Canadian-made armoured vehicles we sold them against their own citizens.

For the first time, video footage and photos have surfaced on social media allegedly showing the Islamic kingdom using Canadian weaponized equipment against Saudi civilians – a development that spurred calls Friday for the Liberal government to halt defence exports to the oil-rich nation.

The Canadian government is now investigating, but it is a move I take little reassurance in, given that allegations of misuse of the vehicles have been around for quite some time.

I am reproducing the editorial in today's Hamilton Spectator, as it addresses the implications of this issue well:

When Justin Trudeau's Liberals were elected, they inherited an odious legacy: a 2014 deal to sell armed military vehicles to Saudi Arabia. The deal, worth $15 billion, rankled many because it meant Canada would become a major arms supplier to a regime that has a record of brutalizing its own citizens in the name of quelling dissent.

Trudeau acknowledged he didn't like the deal, but he felt compelled to honour it for the sake of preserving Canada's reputation as a reliable business partner. That didn't satisfy the most strident critics, but many people could at least see the logic in his rationale.

However, all through that controversy, there was a hard stop. Reasonable people, and the government, could tolerate the deal-with-the-devil provided we could be guaranteed the Saudis wouldn't turn the armed might against their own citizens.

Now, credible media reports from the region claim Saudi Arabia has deployed Canadian combat hardware against civilians. There are photographs showing a vehicle that looks exactly like the Canadian product, called an 'Armoured Gurkha.' Military experts, including a retired and anonymous Canadian general, have verified the claim.

The company that makes the Gurkha says it can't comment. The government is aware and investigating. The Globe and Mail reported a statement from the office of Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland which says: "If it is found that Canadian exports have been used to commit serious violations of human rights, the minister will take action." It also says: "The end use and end user of exports, as well as regional stability and human rights, are essential considerations in the authorization of permits for the export of military goods from Canada."

If these reports are true, the worst fears of peace advocates and others critical of such deals will be realized. Canada will again be supplying lethal military equipment to be used against civilians.

Those advocates, as well as opposition parties, are already calling on the government to halt further exports. Obviously, the government won't act on media reports alone, so if a moratorium is necessary it won't happen overnight. But it shouldn't take months, either. And the government had better not rag the puck on this. If the reports are true, the government needs to stop further shipments, kill the deal and tell Canadians in no uncertain terms it has done so and will not support new deals that carry the same risk.

Justin Trudeau was elected on wave of optimism and idealism that looks naïve in hindsight. Trudeau can restore some bruised credibility by doing the right thing in this case. We may not be able to stop tyrannical foreign governments from slaughtering their own people, but we don't have to supply the bullets.

Howard Elliott

Photo-ops are fine, but it is time that Mr. Trudeau start acting with resolve and integrity in this urgent matter.

UPDATE: Former federal Liberal cabinet minister Irwin Cotler says,

... Saudi Arabia’s apparent deployment of Canadian-made combat vehicles against Saudi citizens demonstrates why Canada should end all arms sales to the Islamic kingdom.

“I am not saying we shouldn’t be trading with Saudi Arabia. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be engaging with Saudi Arabia. I’m just saying we shouldn’t be selling any more arms to Saudi Arabia”.

You can read the full story here.

UPDATED: The Limits Of Principles

Despite the widely-condemned mass executions recently perpetrated by Saudi Arabia, the Trudeau government is going ahead with its $15 billion arms sale with the Middle East kingdom.

Foreign Affairs Minster Stéphane Dion released a statement this week decrying the capital punishment meted out Jan. 2 and calling on the Saudis to respect peaceful dissent and respect human rights. Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, the Shia cleric, was executed along with 46 others convicted on terrorism charges.

But the biggest Saudi mass execution in decades – delivered by beheading and in a few cases firing squad – is not moving Ottawa to reconsider a massive deal to supply the Mideast country with armoured fighting vehicles. The transaction will support about 3,000 jobs in Canada for 14 years.

“A private company is delivering the goods according to a signed contract with the government of Saudi Arabia. The government of Canada has no intention of cancelling that contract,” Adam Barratt, director of communications for Mr. Dion, said on Monday.

The hypocrisy of the government's position on the deal is not escaping notice. Said Cesar Jaramillo, executive director of Project Ploughshares, an anti-war group that tracks arms sales,

Mr. Dion’s criticism of the mass executions carried out by Riyadh sounds unconvincing given Ottawa’s unwillingness to cancel the arms sale.

Critics including Project Ploughshares and Amnesty International have cited Riyadh’s abysmal human-rights record and said this transaction would appear to violate Canada’s export-control regime.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is required to screen requests to export military goods to countries “whose governments have a persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their citizens.” Among other things, it must obtain assurances that “there is no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population.”

This will not be the first time that Canadian arms have been used to suppress human rights:

Activists allege Saudi Arabia sent Canadian-made fighting vehicles into Bahrain in 2011 to help quell a democratic uprising. The Canadian government does not deny this happened.

Despite the fact that the lucrative deal will provide over 3000 jobs, is it expecting too much that the new government act with principle rather than expediency in this matter?

UPDATE: Alex Neve, Amnesty International’s secretary-general for Canada, is joining the chorus of criticism over this deal, saying

it is time Ottawa made public how it has determined that exporting $15-billion worth of armoured fighting vehicles to Saudi Arabia would not pose a risk to Saudi civilians.

He said such transparency would be “very much in keeping” with the “new values and principles” the Liberals have said they intend to promote in Canadian foreign policy.

“We still have no confidence that there has been a thorough and meaningful human-rights assessment of this deal, and if there has been, it is time for the results of that assessment to be shared with Canadians,” Mr. Neve said.

H/t trapdinawrpool

The Outrage Grows

I suspect that, if they had their druthers, both Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and her boss, Justin Trudeau, would much prefer that we trust their administration to always do the right thing and just go on enjoying the always-too-short days of summer. But the electorate can be fickle, even unpredictable, engaging in issues that always threaten to tatter to shreds the carefully-woven cloak of compassion and morality their 'leaders' dress in public with.

In other words, the immoral and disastrous Saudi arms deal is showing no signs of going away.

Now a new player has entered the mix, determined that the deal which so egregiously violates both national and international standards, is ended. Daniel Turp, a Montreal law school professor, says

he's ready to go all the way to the nation's top court to stop the sale of Canadian-made armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.
... Daniel Turp says he's ready to go all the way to the nation's top court to stop the sale of Canadian-made armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.

“I am ready to go to the Supreme Court of Canada because the issue at stake — the issue of the sale of weapons — is so fundamental, it’s worth it," Turp told National Observer. "(The government) is not done hearing about us and our fight."

The law would appear to be on Turp's side:

Saudi Arabia is widely denounced as one of the world's worst abusers of human rights and has been censured by the European Union and a number of western countries. Saudi Arabia's embassy in Ottawa didn't immediately respond to a request from National Observer for comment.

​Canadian export controls prohibit the sale of arms to countries with a "persistent record of serious violations" of their own citizens' human rights. Yet the Trudeau government issued export permits in 2015 for the sale of General Dynamics armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, a $15-billion deal that had been approved by the previous Conservative government.

September 5 is the deadline Turp has given to Freeland:

“We gave her this deadline which seems reasonable and we understood the minister wants to investigate (the matter)...but I hope it’s not just (for the government) to stall and to (claim) again that there’s no reasonable risk that Canadian armoured vehicles are being used (in Saudi Arabia),” he said.

Canadians are fortunate indeed to have a fellow citizen willing to stand in for the rest of us in the pursuit of legal and moral conduct, especially when the government they elected seems to have veered down a very, very mercenary and unprincipled path.

Will This Saudi 'Explanation' Give Freeland And Trudeau The Cover They Desperately Seek?

As I recently wrote, I am very doubtful that the Trudeau government will rescind its $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, damning evidence of the Saudi deployment of the weaponry against their own people notwithstanding. It is my suspicion that both Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland hope that their sanctimonious expressions of concern prompted by this evidence will be sufficient for the Canadian people.

Now Saudi Arabia has admitted using the armoured vehicles in their Eastern Province, but guess what? They claim it is to fight terrorism.

The Saudi Arabian government is defending the recent deployment of Canadian-made armoured vehicles against residents of the kingdom’s Eastern Province, saying security forces found it necessary to use “military equipment” to fight terrorists who threatened the safety of its population.

Interestingly, the vehicles have been unleashed in al-Qatif, which is predominantly Shia, a sect that finds no favour in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia. And while it is true that tensions abound in the area, the Saudis are not keen to talk about any of the reasons.

Consider the following event from June of this year:

A Saudi soldier has been killed and two others wounded when an explosive device went off during a patrol in the kingdom's restive Qatif province, the interior ministry said.

In a statement carried by Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the ministry said that the blast occurred late Sunday evening in the Masoura district in the village of Awamiya.

It described the explosion as a "terrorist incident".

What led to this 'terrorist incident'?

The oil-rich eastern province of Qatif is mostly Shia, a minority in the Sunni-majority kingdom.

The SPA has reported an increase in clashes between Shia fighters and security forces in Masoura in recent weeks after the Saudi government sent in workers to demolish a 400-year-old walled neighbourhood there.

UN rights experts have urged the Saudi government to halt the demolition, saying the planned commercial zone threatened the town's historical and cultural heritage and could result in the forced eviction of hundreds of people from their businesses and residences.

Nothing to see here, claim the Saudis:

“The terrorist groups in Awamiyah are equipped with military equipment and they are attacking civilians in the area,” the embassy said in a statement.

Cesar Jaramillo, the executive director of Project Ploughshares, a disarmament group that tracks military exports, said the Saudi explanation for what took place merits skepticism.

“The Saudi government’s depiction of military operations in civilian areas as being part of its war on terrorism has become routine, and increasingly suspect,” he said.

“The fact is that there are too many red flags. A country consistently found to be among the very worst human-rights violators on the planet is now categorically denying any human-rights violations in the siege of Awamiyah. The Canadian public needs to know how much credence Ottawa gives to this claim and whether it is consistent with its own findings.”

Ali Adubisi, director of the Berlin-based European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights, said the Saudi government criminalizes any form of dissent. Many civilians were targeted and killed in Awamiyah, he said, while the government is saying it’s fighting armed men. “Portraying themselves as the protectors of civilians in Awamiyah is a mockery.”

Human Rights Watch said in a statement this week that residents in Awamiyah told them Saudi security forces fired into populated areas from Al-Masora, killing residents, occupying a public school, closing clinics and pharmacies and preventing essential services such as ambulances from reaching the area. The group called for an investigation into whether Saudi authorities “used excessive force in Awamiyah.”

There has been long-standing evidence of the almost genocidal hatred the Sunnis have for the Shia. For Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Freeland to cherry-pick the evidence and stand behind the deal would not only be indefensible, but also yet another indication of an amoral government with contempt for principles and human rights.

Blood On Our Hands

As Canadians, we like to walk around feeling good about ourselves, convinced both of our good intentions and our innate rectitude. Ours is a generally peaceful society, the rule of law largely respected. We look to the violent domestic madness that is an undeniable part of the U.S., and we cannot help but feel smug. We fancy ourselves exemplars for the world, and nod knowingly when someone like Obama or Bono says that the world needs more Canada.

Sadly, there is a another, much darker truth about Canada that few acknowledge. We are merchants of death.



Our hypocrisy is not escaping notice:

When Global Affairs Canada announced another aid package to war-torn Yemen in January, it boasted that Ottawa had given a total of $65 million to help ease what the United Nations has called “the worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time.”

What Justin Trudeau’s government did not mention in its news release is that since 2015, Canada has also approved more than $284 million in exports of Canadian weapons and military goods to the countries bombing Yemen.

“It’s a bit like helping pay for somebody’s crutches after you’ve helped break their legs,” said Cesar Jaramillo, executive director of Project Ploughshares, a research and advocacy organization that studies Canada’s arms trade.

To whom is Canada selling these weapons? There is, of course, the much-publicized deal with Saudi Arabia, the leader in the coalition against Yemani insurgents.

The Star calculated Canada’s arms exports since 2015 to all of the countries in the Saudi coalition involved in Yemen’s war, as disclosed in Global Affairs’ annual report on Canadian exports of military goods. The bulk of the trade is with Saudi Arabia, to which Canada sold more than $240 million worth of weapons and other military goods in 2015 and 2016 — mostly combat vehicles, but also guns, training gear, bombs, rockets or missiles, drones and unspecified chemical or biological agents, which could include riot control agents.

The original deal with the Saudis, brokered by the Harper government and endorsed by Justin Trudeau's Liberals, is all about jobs, which the government clearly believes trumps the loss of innocent lives:

A $14.8-billion sale of Canadian-made armoured combat vehicles to Saudi Arabia — negotiated by the Conservative government in 2014 but given final approval by the Liberals — will reportedly provide work for about 3,000 people for 14 years in southern Ontario, where manufacturer General Dynamics Land Systems–Canada is a major employer.

While our government continues to express concerns about weapons misuse, they give no indication of how they are monitoring things, which of course suggests they aren't.

The United States and United Kingdom are also arming Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners, but they, and Canada, are increasingly isolated in their position. The European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution in 2016 calling on all member states to enforce an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia for its role in Yemen. The Netherlands was first to take up the call. Finland and Norway have since stopped selling weapons to the United Arab Emirates. Earlier this year, Germany declared an end to arms sales to all parties involved in Yemen’s war.

Trudeau’s government has suggested no such ban, despite expressing “deep concern” over reports of Saudi abuses. Ottawa’s official position is that it will stop the export of military goods if there is a “reasonable risk” of human rights abuses. What that has meant, in practice, is that even when a country has a demonstrably poor record on human rights, unless there is definitive evidence Canadian weapons were used to commit human rights abuses, Canada is open to their business.

There is a great deal more to this story, which I encourage you to read at The Star.

Canada is in the killing business. Unless and until Canadians come to understand that fact, expect much, much more blood to flow.

Canadians Speak Out About Saudi Arabia

While our new government would, I'm sure, dearly love to change the channel on the indefensible arms deal with Saudi Arabia that I have been recently writing about, it is clear that Canadians are not about to be easily diverted. A selection of letters from today's Star attests to that fact:

Would someone please explain why we are selling armoured cars to Saudi Arabia? Would we sell armoured cars to the Islamic State? Of course not. In that case, tell me the difference between those two entities.

Both ISIS and the House of Saud, in the name of their various twisted interpretations of Islam, turn their guns on innocent civilians and demonstrate a particular interest in decapitation. At least 4 of the 47 people beheaded by Saudi Arabia on Jan. 1 were guilty, it seems, of peacefully protesting against that country’s repressive regime. That’s all.

I therefore ask again, why are we sending war material to the likes of the Saudis? Ah, why am I so naive as to believe that money shouldn’t trump morality?

Richard Griffith, Ravenna

The minute I heard of the executions in Saudi Arabia I thought that the delivery of light armored vehicles to that country would be halted. I was shocked to hear that nothing was to be done. We have a moral obligation to prevent arms going to a country that will not hesitate to use them on its own people.

Even if contracts have been signed and money transacted, it does not mean that Canada must honour this agreement. If we have to compensate the company concerned, so be it. We are aiding, abetting and condoning the atrocious acts of last Saturday if we do not cancel this sale.

Carol Duffy, Richmond Hill

In its Jan. 6 editorial, the Star says that the sale of $15 billion worth of Canadian-made arms to Saudi Arabia “bears close watching.” What we will be watching is people being run down and otherwise scared into submission by ruthless Saudi rulers using our armoured vehicles.

This deal, begun under the abolished Harper regime, should be cancelled at once. Our new government’s talk about new ways should not be undermined by the same old greedy hypocrisy.

Jean Gower, Kingston

ISIS beheads people under their control who disagree with them. So do the Saudis. ISIS invades sovereign territories and kills civilians who dwell there. The Saudis do it by air in Yemen. ISIS practices an absolute dictatorship form of goverment. So do the Saudis.

Why is it that we vilify ISIS, but provide military hardware to the Saudis? Why are the Saudis our valiant allies in the soi-disant War on Terror?

Patrick McDonald, Toronto

Government Secrecy Returns

Having lived for almost 10 years under a cone of silence and secrecy, Canadians can be forgiven for expecting more openness from the Trudeau government. That expectation appears to be a forlorn hope, at least if this is any indication:

The Liberal government is refusing to make public a recently completed assessment of the state of human rights in Saudi Arabia even as it endures criticism for proceeding with a $15-billion deal to ship weaponized armoured vehicles to the Mideast country.

Saudi Arabia, notorious for its treatment of women, dissidents and offenders, became the focus of international condemnation this month over a mass execution of 47 people, including Shia Muslim cleric Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, an exceptionally vocal critic of the ruling Al Saud family.

A country’s human rights record is an important consideration in the arms export control process that determines whether Canadian-made weapons can be exported there. The Saudi deal was brokered by Ottawa, which also serves as the prime contractor in the transaction.

As pointed out yesterday, Canadians have every right to be wary of this deal, given that the armoured vehicles are destined for Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), charged with protecting the royal rulers against internal threats.

Hiding behind the usual bafflegab of government, Canadian officials had this to say about the how the deal meets the criterion that the vehicles not be used against the Saudi people:

“A report on Saudi Arabia has been prepared for 2015 as part of the department’s annual process of producing human rights reports on numerous countries. This document is intended for internal Government of Canada use only, and, as such, will not be made public,” said François Lasalle, a spokesman for Global Affairs Canada.

The Liberal government is also refusing to release any information on how Ottawa will justify the export of armoured vehicles under Canada’s export control regime.

“For reasons of commercial confidentiality, Global Affairs Canada does not comment on specific export permit applications,” Mr. Lasalle said.

Perhaps another reason that the government has chosen opacity over transparency in this matter is the realization that they are fooling few Canadians here, the majority realizing this deal is one of economic and political expedience over principle and law.

Not a good beginning for our 'new' government.

Trudeau Town Halls: Baubles Of Distraction, Not Questions Of Substance

Prime-Minister-For-A-Day Kim Campbell is probably best remembered for saying, “An election is no time to discuss serious issues.” She might just as well have been talking about town halls, particularly the kind our Prime Minister is currently in the midst of.

Justin Trudeau's meet-and-greet will undoubtedly constitute a public-relations success. That success, however, will be thanks to two things: Trudeau's ease in front of large crowds, and the profound colloquialism and ignorance of the people attending these sessions. It is the latter I wish to address today.

In theory, town halls, being somewhat unscripted, are an opportunity to put the convener on the hot seat. Unfortunately, the topics thus far brought up have been tritely predictable and easily defused, no doubt because they are exactly what the PMO has prepared Mr. Trudeau for. Consider, for example, what was asked at his Sackville gathering. While the questions may be important to the posers, they lack, shall I say, a certain concern for national and international issues that the government is, in my view, badly fumbling. Here are two examples:

Abdoul Abdi’s sister Fatouma Alyaan asked ‘Why are you deporting my brother?...My question to you is if it was your son, would you do anything to stop this?’

And this one:

Why do we have medical doctors who come here from different countries who are unable to integrate into the system?

To be sure, he was also asked about his visit to the Aga Khan's private island retreat, for which Trudeau has been rebuked by outgoing ethics watchdog Mary Dawson, but again, this was a predictable and easily-handled question for which I am sure the Prime Minster was well-prepared.

The questions at yesterday's session in Hamilton were similarly trite and predicable:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a woman heckling him about Omar Khadr during a town hall in Hamilton that he, too, is angry about the multimillion-dollar settlement the former Guantanamo Bay inmate received from the government.

“The anger that some people feel, and that a lot of people feel about the payment the government made to Omar Khadr is real and quite frankly — this might surprise you — but I share that anger and frustration,” he said.

Score another one for good preparation.

Yet I can't help but wonder how Mr. Trudeau would respond if truly important questions were asked of him. Questions like the following:

Why does your government insist on protecting the rights of multi-nationals to sue our government over legislation that might interfere with their profits?

Known as investor-state dispute settlement, it is a mainstay of NAFTA and eagerly sought for the TPP. So far, Canada has been sued five times under NAFTA provisions for trying to protect the environment.

Another question well-worth posing would pertain to the government's continuing support for the immoral Saudi arms deal, arms that have been shown, in contravention of the deal, to have been used against Saudi citizens.

In July, after The Globe and Mail's reporting of conflict in Awamiyah, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland issued a statement saying she was "deeply concerned" and announced a probe of the incident.

The Trudeau government has never released the results of this investigation nor has it explained to Canadians what happened.

These are the questions I would ask on this issue:

Why have you refused to release the report, and why is your government now trying to quash the most recent legal challenge to the deal, an attempt that a federal court judge has rejected?

Finally, I would ask about the Trudeau government' attitude toward tax cheats using offshore havens:

A dozen governments around the world say they've recovered a combined $500 million in unpaid taxes so far thanks to the Panama Papers leak of tax-haven financial records in 2016.

But not a penny of that is destined for Canadian government coffers. The Canada Revenue Agency maintains it will be at least another 2½ years before it will have an idea of how much it might recoup.

When other governments are enjoying considerable success in recovering tax money thanks to the Panama and Paradise papers, why is your government and the Canada Revenue Agency so reluctant to aggressively pursue them?

So those are some of the questions that will likely not be asked at the town halls. God forbid that this government should actually have to make an honest accounting of itself to the Canadian people.

UPDATED: It Has Come To This

I am prefacing this by reproducing a comment I made 0n kirbycairo's post, A Dark Hour Upon Us. Kirby, one of our top-shelf bloggers, always provides insightful analysis and commentary, and in yesterday's piece, he offered a rather gloomy assessment of the human condition.

I wrote back:

I find myself in agreement with your gloomy assessment of the human condition, Kirby. While we have certainly experienced social evolution in the past century, it always seem to take very little to rip away the veneer of civilization we encase ourselves in. As you well know, that is why demagogues are so dangerous.

We are part of the animal kingdom, something we are reminded of on a daily basis. However, like other animals we do have the capacity or potential to be good and philanthropic. Of that I have no doubt. But that capacity has to be carefully nurtured in order to express itself and grow. Today, we have no one in the political arena willing to do the hard lifting required of leadership that would bring out the best in us. And we, of course, are the enablers of that weak leadership that exploits and manipulatse our passions and our prejudices.

In my view, we all are to blame for our abject failures.

I have been avoiding political shows for the past week, for reasons of burnout that I wrote about recently. Yesterday, however, I tuned into the first part of Power and Politics, as they were discussing that morally repugnant $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, a followup to the justification that Stephen Harper gave yesterday for pursuing it:

At a campaign stop in Rivière-du-Loup, Que., Harper was asked whether he was putting Canadian jobs ahead of human rights concerns.

"As I've said in the debate, it's frankly all of our partners and allies who were pursuing that contract, not just Canada. So this is a deal frankly with a country, and notwithstanding its human rights violations, which are significant, this is a contract with a country that is an ally in the fighting against the Islamic State. A contract that any one of our allies would have signed," he said.

"We expressed our outrage, our disagreement from time to time with the government of Saudi Arabia for their treatment of human rights, but I don't think it makes any sense to pull a contract in a way that would only punish Canadian workers instead of actually expressing our outrage at some of these things in Saudi Arabia."

So, essentially it has come to this: jobs before morality. A greater indictment of the Harper regime I cannot think of. However, as you will see in the following video, despite the commendably tenacious efforts by P+P host Rosemary Barton, who never fails to impress, neither of the opposition party representative would answer her question of whether they would cancel the contract, although near the end, Paul Dewar does get pinned down.



A bankrupt nation, some would describe Canada as.

UPDATE: While Canada continues to parcel out its collective soul to the highest bidders, Germany, as it has with the refugee situation, is showing real leadership:

Germany has decided to stop arms exports to Saudi Arabia because of “instability in the region,” German daily Bild reported Sunday.

Weapons orders from Saudi Arabia have either been “rejected, pure and simple,” or deferred for further consideration, the newspaper said, adding that the information has not been officially confirmed.

We Can Do (And Be) Better Than This

While I continue to have a guarded optimism about our new government, there are troubling signs that suggest that it has some conspicuous blind spots. Not only are the Trudeau Liberals showing every sign of carrying through with the very contentious Saudi arms deal, but it appears now they are expanding their Middle East customer base.

The Canadian government is busy promoting Canada’s defence industry in Kuwait even as a United Nations report accuses a Saudi-led coalition, which includes Kuwait, of “widespread and systematic” bombing of civilians in Yemen.

Essentially embroiled in a civil war between the Houthi and the elected government, Yemen has become part of a regional power struggle between Shia-ruled Iran and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, which shares a long border with Yemen. Unfortunately, that power struggle is costing many, many civilian lives.

A leaked UN panel report last week attributed 60 per cent, or 2,682, civilian deaths and injuries in the Yemen conflict to air-launched explosive weapons and said the Saudi-led coalition’s actions are a “grave violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution” and violate international law.

Targets in Yemen, the UN report found, have included refugee camps; weddings; civilian vehicles, such as buses; homes; medical facilities; schools; mosques; factories and civilian infrastructure.

Like many countries in the Middle East, Kuwait has a sorry human-rights record:

According to Amnesty International, even peaceful criticism of Islam and the emir, the ruling head of state, remains criminalized. The rights watchdog says human-rights activists and political reformers are among those targeted for arrest, detention and prosecution. Authorities have prosecuted and imprisoned critics who express dissent through social media and they have curtailed the right to public assembly, Amnesty says.

Although sales to Kuwait at this point seem to be limited to a flight simulator, the problem is Canada's openness to other military sales to the country. The head of the business Council of Canada, John Manley,

cautioned that blocking trade with foreign countries is a decision that should not be made lightly.

“It’s grounds to have a conversation,” he said of the UN report, adding, however, that “you’re not going to get the next deal if you can’t be relied upon.”

For its part, the Trudeau government is pleading both ignorance (the Foreign Affairs depart claims not to have read the UN report) and a historical relationship with Kuwait:

... department of Global Affairs spokeswoman Rachna Mishra said, “Kuwait has been a strategic partner for Canada in the Middle East for over 50 years, and we value our close relationship with them.”

So there we have it: a bit of obfuscation, some corporate influence/pressure and a vague departmental justification - not exactly a recipe to inspire confidence in our new government.

How Will Dion Justify This?

Given the ongoing contention surrounding Canada's decision to sell $15 billion worth of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, one wonders what sort of dance moves Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion will engage in to explain his government's ongoing support for the Middle East kingdom in light of this:

Canadian-made armoured vehicles appear to be embroiled in Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemeni-based Houthi rebels – caught up in cross-border hostilities that critics say should force Ottawa to reconsider a $15-billion deal to sell Riyadh more of these weapons.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis – who are aligned with Iran – has already been accused by a United Nations panel of major human-rights violations for what its report called “widespread and systematic” air-strike attacks on civilian targets. Along the Saudi-Yemen border, constant skirmishes pit Houthi fighters against Saudi ground forces such as the Saudi Arabian National Guard.

The Saudi Arabian National Guard, a buyer of many Canadian-made light armoured vehicles (LAVs) in the past decade, has published photos on its official Twitter account showing how in late 2015 it moved columns of combat vehicles to Najran, a southwestern Saudi town near the border with Yemen that is in the thick of the conflict.

A significant number of vehicles in the photos have the triangular front corners, the eight wheels and the headlamps fixed above these triangles that are familiar features in earlier LAV models made in Canada.

It would appear that this government, like the last, places a high priority on corporate profits:

Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion’s department refused comment Monday when pressed on whether it is concerned about the armoured vehicle shipments, saying it’s bound to secrecy on anything to do with arms sales to the Saudis.

“In regards to your request, please see our response: For reasons of commercial confidentiality, specific contractual details cannot be shared,” Tania Assaly, a spokeswoman for Global Affairs said in a prepared statement.

Somehow I doubt that there is sufficient money in the world to clean the blood off of the Trudeau administration's hands in this matter.

Are The Changes Only Cosmetic?

Despite unpromising predictions, Justin Trudeau led his party to overwhelming victory close to a year ago. And like political prisoners held captive by a foul and reactionary regime, Canadians began immediately basking in the freedom they were so long denied. According to a Toronto Star article, that basking continues to this day.

“People are welcoming this more active, bolder form of federal government,” said Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates.

Graves said that the Liberals have been consistently polling above 40 per cent in popular support. His firm’s most recent survey had the Liberals at 46 per cent, the Conservatives at 26 per cent and the NDP at 15 per cent.

While I continue to feel much better than the years I chafed under the Harper cabal, it would be imprudent for any of us to simply turn our eyes away and merely trust Justin and his team to do the right thing. As many others have pointed out, there are some very troubling indicators that in many ways we are witnessing only a change in styles, not substance, from the previous regime. A cosmetic makevoer, if you will.

Thanks to Kev, who tweeted a link to this story, it would seem we have ample reason to worry, given the adamant refusal of Trudeau to reconsider the Saudi arms deal. Apparently his answer is to simply change the rules.

The Canadian government has quietly watered down its own mandate for screening the export of military goods, rewriting parts of the only substantive public statement available on Ottawa’s responsibilities for policing foreign sales.

The Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada, published by the department of Global Affairs, offers the best insight into Ottawa’s export-control policy when it comes to screening deals to sell defence products to foreign customers.

Both the 2014 and 2015 versions of the Report on Exports of Military Goods were released recently by the Trudeau government. Like previous reports, they include several pages of prefatory statements that articulate the rationale and guiding principles for screening weapons sales.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the details, and something akin to the diabolical is to be noted here:

It has removed a phrase about how export controls are intended to “regulate and impose certain restrictions on exports” in response to clear policy objectives.

Instead, it substitutes more anodyne language saying the goal of Canada’s export controls on military goods is, in fact, to “balance the economic and commercial interests of Canadian business” with this country’s “national interest.”

This edit removes the only reference in the entire document to restricting and regulating the export of military goods.

In 1987, Ronald Reagan made famous an old Russian adage while negotiating an arms control treat with Mikhail Gorbechev: "Trust, but verify." Clearly, with this latest development, that advice is as applicable today as it was then.

Some Disturbing Signs

I won't for a moment pretend that I am not glad to see Justin Trudeau's Liberals as our new government. But as happened with a vice-principal we teachers once welcomed with open arms as a relief from the previous administration, my early hopes for real change and integrity of purpose are being steadily eroded.

Let's start with Stephane Dion, our foreign affairs minister. As pointed out yesterday in a post by The Mound, he has quickly condemned the appointment of Canadian Michael Lynk as the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on human rights in Palestine following pressure brought to bear against him on apparently groundless accusations of being biased against Israel. So much for any hopes that Canada would take a more balanced, less reflexively supportive approach to Israel.

Then there is Dion's refusal to reconsider the Saudi arms deal, despite that country's abysmal human-rights record and terrible incursion in Yemen as it leads a coalition to stop the Shiite rebels known as Houthis. This has led to massive starvation resulting in the malnutrition and deaths of about 1.3 million children, including little Udai, who succumbed at the age of five months:



There are growing disappointments domestically as well. One of them, as The Star's Carol Goar points, is the failure to act expeditiously in ending the Harper-initiated CRA witch hunts against charities:

Trudeau pledged to “end the political harassment of charities” by the Canada Revenue Agency — not wind it down gradually, not keep hounding charities that ran afoul of the previous Conservative government to preserve the independence of the agency’s charities directorate.

Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier quietly changed the plan. She allowed the 24 ongoing audits to take their course in case “serious deficiencies” were found. When they were completed, she would end CRA’s political activities auditing program. The affected charities — which include Oxfam Canada, Environmental Defence and Canada Without Poverty — remain on tenterhooks.

As well, Tim Harper points out a reversal of a stance the Liberals took while in opposition:

When the former Conservative government agreed to hand over private banking information of Canadians to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the Liberals led the growing chorus of indignation.

Their opposition started meekly but built. They tried to amend the law, which they portrayed as a loss of sovereignty and an unnecessary bow to American pressure. They accused Conservatives of breaching Canadians’ charter rights and unconstitutionally discriminating against Canadians based on their country of origin.

Now that they are the government, however, the Liberals are singing from a different hymn book:

Then they went silent. Then they were elected and now they defend the agreement they once vilified.

The first 155,000 information slips on Canadians with U.S. roots were shipped to the IRS on schedule last Sept. 30, in the middle of the election campaign when Washington told the Canada Revenue Agency it was not eligible to ask for an extension of the order.

And Canada's much-vilified temporary foreign workers program is getting new life under our new administration. Thomas Walkom reports

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are tiptoeing back into the minefield that is Canada’s temporary foreign workers program.

They are doing so carefully. This month’s decision to relax the rules for seasonal industries wishing to hire cheap foreign labour was not publicly announced.

Instead, the information — that such industries will be able to hire unlimited numbers of temporary foreign workers for up to 180 days a year — seeped out through the media.

This move, of course, will simply facilitate and extend low-paying jobs that Canadians refuse to do instead of allowing pressure for better wages to mount on employers in fish-processing, child care (nannies in particular), and Canadian resorts.

There have been other disappointments as well, one of which I wrote about recently pertaining to Chrystia Freeland's thinly veiled enthusiasm for CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. Disingenuously, the International Trade Minister extolled its benefits while ignoring the severe challenges it will pose to both our sovereignty and our workforce.

There is much that the Liberals have thus far accomplished; perhaps our proudest moment in recent history has been our remarkable achievement of bringing over so many Syrian refugees in such a short period of time, an achievement that has won world-wide admiration. But doubtless there is more disillusionment in store for Canadians as they rediscover ours is a world that too often inflicts both political and personal disenchantment upon even the most optimistic.

When all is said and done, our final evaluation of this government's first term in office will have to revolve around whether its accomplishments outweigh those disappointments.

On Canadian Hypocrisy

While many (but not our strangely silent allies) have cheered Canada's tweet critical of Saudi Arabia's abuse of human rights' activists, it has not escaped others that the gesture has the stench of hypocrisy about it. The Star's Tony Burman reminds us:

that it was this Liberal government that approved the $15-billion deal to sell military vehicles to Saudi Arabia originally worked out by the previous Harper government. There is reason to believe that some of these vehicles have been used by the Saudis to crush the very internal dissent that Canada embraces.

If the Middle East has taught us anything, it is that talk is cheap.

Similarly, Star letter writers offer some critical thinking:

The Canadian admonition of the Saudi government is evidently hypocritical, and lacks moral integrity.

Hamid S. Atiyyah, Markham

So Canada will have to stop selling weapons of war to the Saudi Arabians for them to use against their own people and against civilians in Yemen.

Good.

Alan Craig, Brampton

A year ago it was reported that Canada was Saudi Arabia’s second largest arms supplier. While Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland expresses outrage at Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses, she conveniently turns a blind eye to scathing reports by UN officials and a long list of civil society groups over Canada’s lucrative weapons trade in defiance of international norms.

Joe Davidson, Toronto

My guess is, had Canada known the kind of overreaction its tweet would provoke from the Saudis, it would not have issued such a public castigation of the dictatorial state. On the other hand, I'm sure there is a bright side to the whole situation, as a government and a prime minister hoping for reelection can now once more assert to a largely uncritical world that Canada is back; it certainly worked wonders for Justin Trudeau's image when he declaimed thus after winning the last election.

Lord knows, given the massive disappointment he has been on so many fronts, a little prolonged diversion may be just what the spin doctor ordered.