magnumpi

Shard

I think that's about right. Nevertheless, Saudi does seem to be over reacting somewhat.

neilcumming

I heard on the news Sweden went down this road a couple of years ago and got burnt. The CBC asked the Swedes to comment and none was forthcoming! The silence from other countries is deafening. If you are going to take on the Saudis, a oil rich arms buying power on human rights you need more than one voice, otherwise leave well alone. As Canadians say, just gonna have to suck it up!

MarkG

I'm guessing in a week or two Trudeau will be putting on a Lawrence of Arabia costume and playing make up with the Saudis.

caretaker

Canada's policy on human rights violations is what it is, and it won't be changed because Salman had a tantrum. The only countries siding with him are his tame Arab states and they can't change it either. We protested to Iran when their secret police tortured a Canadian journalist to death, we protested China's treatment of Tibetan activists, but somehow failed to protest Israeli snipers shooting protesters in Gaza or several sieges involving bombing civillian neighbourhoods, even after the UN warned they were bordering on committing war crimes. Too bad for the Saudi citizens living here whose travel is disrupted and the students and patients being punished, but that's Salman's doing. Even if the LAV deal falls through Trudeau has made and will probably continue to make political points for this, and if need be the government can buy the vehicles and add them to our NATO expenditures.

MarkG

With whom?

Who's going to change their vote because Trudeau says bad things about Saudi Arabia?

Oakvillian

Unhelpfully silly and juvenile vocabulary from Magnum aside, there are some interesting ramifications of the Canada-KSA spat.

First of all, of course, it wasn't "PM selfie" who kicked it all off, but foreign minister Chrystia Freeland. What she actually said in her tweet really wasn't all that inflammatory, and I'm quite certain the same sentiments would already have been expressed to the Saudi government through regular diplomatic channels. Her tweet reads, in full: "Very alarmed to learn that Samar Badawi, Raif Badawi’s sister, has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. Canada stands together with the Badawi family in this difficult time, and we continue to strongly call for the release of both Raif and Samar Badawi."

In response to what is a pretty mild rebuke ("we... strongly call" is hardly in the lexicon of undiplomatic language), the Saudi Crown Prince has thrown all his toys out of the pram - a massive overreaction in the expectation that Canada would back down in the same way that the German, US and British governments have done in the past when the Saudis take umbrage at some public comment. Frankly, I'm impressed that the Canadian government has taken a strong stand in refusing to withdraw the criticism, despite the ridiculousness of the Saudi response.

It is, of course, almost completely for the domestic audience that Mohammad bin Salman put on such a show of retaliation. For all that he has been the figurehead of liberalization when facing the West, internally there is still a regime of complete intolerance towards opposition or protest of any kind, under the Crown Prince's leadership.

The situation will hurt Saudi Arabia much more than it will hurt Canada. For example, two thirds of all medical doctors in KSA received their training in Canada. There are around 1,000 residents and fellows in Canadian teaching hospitals today who will probably have to start again somewhere else in order to qualify, and in whom their government has invested rather a lot of money. While that will create a short-term shift coverage problem for some Canadian hospitals, it will also open additional residency placements for some of those (many foreign-trained and looking to re-qualify) queuing up to take them.

Equally, the instruction to divest from Canadian businesses is a little bit of an empty threat. The Saudis will take a loss, other investors will pick up a bargain, and everything will likely be back where it was in terms of stock markets etc in a couple of days. The Saudi government jointly owns the holding company that bought up what was the Wheat Board, but even selling that is unlikely to make much of a difference for Canadian prairie farmers. Not as much as the previous Federal government's dismantling/selling off the Wheat Board in the first place, anyway.

magnumpi

neilcumming

Not just Justin but some of the other Libs love dressing up, looking forward to seeing that lol

Oakvillian

Ah. So we're in Martin Niemoeller territory again.

First they came for the human rights activists, but I did not speak out, because I am not a human rights activist....

That's a remarkably selfish, if not nihilistic, view to take of world affairs. I disagree completely and wholeheartedly with your approach; I'm happy that the current (and, for that matter, previous) Canadian government is closer to my perspective than yours.

magnumpi

Oakvillian

I strongly suspect (confidence up well in to the 90s percent) that diplomatic representations were made, and only when they were rebuffed did Global Affairs and Chrystia Freeland put their tweets out.

Almost Canadian

I don't doubt that that was the case but one has to question why they believed that, if the "official channels" had not worked, how using social media would.

BristolUK

I thought that was the sort of thing you liked about Trump

Shard

Perhaps Freelander was (by using Twitter) playing to the domestic crowd?

I think if Canada or the UK really wanted to put their money where there mouth is they would halt military equipment sales to Saudi.