Conservatives want to earn Saudi Arabia's ＂trust＂
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Summary
Andrew Lutton explains why the Tories are eager to restore trust with Saudi Arabia, and why Justin Trudeau's Liberals have done absolutely nothing to do so. He also explains why Canada should continue to speak out against human rights abuses committed by the Saudi regime.
Transcript
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We know that Justin Trudeau's Liberals have embarrassed Canada on the foreign
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stage, but any party putting itself forward as an alternative needs to be
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able to tell Canadians it will do better. We have a glimpse of what a
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Conservative government's foreign policy would look like. The Conservatives, if
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elected, would make restoring the trust of Saudi Arabia a top priority. Now
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that's making it so that Saudi Arabia trusts us. This came from Conservative MP
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and Foreign Affairs critic Aaron O'Toole, who says that if the Conservatives are
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forming the next government, they will work to fix Canada's relation with Riyadh
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and according to a CBC story, build back rapport with the Kingdom in areas that it
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considers of mutual interest. Now this came about over the last year because of the
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strained relationship that really was galvanized by the assassination by Saudi
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officials of Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey. But condemnation by Canada was entirely
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warranted. In fact, global condemnation was. I don't know why the Conservatives are
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eager to restore the trust of this regime that has not shown any willingness to
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meet human rights obligations. Now what Aaron O'Toole, who I like a great deal, said
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is that you need to have a relationship to deal with these human rights abuses.
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Once you have a relationship, you can then work on issues related to human rights
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concerns about the actions of Saudi Arabia vis-a-vis the Khashoggi incident,
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democratic reforms, all these sorts of things, said O'Toole. If you have zero
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relationship, we're basically just yelling into the wind. We're not having any impact
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on them. I'd say we weren't having any impact on them when we did have that
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relationship, however. I know it's not an easy solution. Justin Trudeau has done
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absolutely nothing on the Saudi file despite blustering about the
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conservative inked deal between the Saudi military and General Dynamics land
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systems. The Liberals did nothing about it. The Conservatives were the ones who inked
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the deal, which gives them a lot more of a difficult time in trying to establish
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themselves as being any moral authority on Canada's relations with Saudi Arabia.
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But here we are. They are a player in the Middle East. They are still, on paper at least,
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an ally of our biggest ally and trading partner, the United States. And more importantly,
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they're showing no willingness of dealing with the genuine and bona fide human rights abuses
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that exist there. Now, we see little glimmers of what I guess we can pretend is progress. For example,
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in Saudi Arabia, as of last week, women no longer need mail permission to travel. They can get a
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passport on their own. But these little stories that allow Saudi Arabia to pretend it's a progressive
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state that are, you know, dragging them, kicking and screaming into the 18th century are not real
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examples of progress. They're window dressing. They're an example of a regime that's picking
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and choosing its battles, knowing that it's finding itself on the receiving end of global
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condemnation. Canada should continue to condemn when condemnation is warranted. If we want to rebuild any
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relationship and rebuild trust, they have to earn it, not us. For True North, I'm Andrew Lutton.