Juno News - Saudi Arabia is “just a country we do business with”

00:00:00.000 So an odd thing happened this week when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was on Meet the Press

00:00:09.380 with Chuck Todd. He was asked directly whether or not he would consider Saudi Arabia an ally

00:00:14.960 of Canada. And he said bluntly, nope, I wouldn't say that. They're simply a country we do business

00:00:19.440 with. Is Saudi Arabia an ally to Canada? No, I wouldn't say it. They're a country we do business

00:00:28.360 with. They're a country that we continually advocate for greater transparency, greater human

00:00:34.340 rights, protection of women, of activists. Now, it's pretty odd for the Prime Minister to give such

00:00:40.980 a blunt and strong answer, to be honest, to really any question. And really any politician is usually

00:00:47.340 not the type to give such strong and blunt answers. Now, he said, you know, they're a country we do

00:00:52.100 business with and we advocate for greater transparency, protection of human rights and that type of thing.

00:00:56.400 So that was his quote. But I thought I would explore with everybody here, what was the

00:01:01.040 business that he was talking about? So what business do we have with Saudi Arabia? And why

00:01:04.180 have things gotten so bad? They would say they're not an ally. And, you know, you can think of it as

00:01:08.400 maybe colloquially an ally. So like a friendly country. I don't know if a lot of people would

00:01:12.700 say an ally as in having an actual alliance or some, you know, formal alliance, maybe like NATO or

00:01:17.980 something like this. But where did we get to? And, you know, how did we get to this to this place

00:01:22.900 where we are at? So really it started, the main thing started in probably 2018 when the Saudis

00:01:30.600 arrested two bloggers, Raif Badawi and her sister, Samara Badawi. They are human rights activists.

00:01:35.960 And so they had been advocating in Saudi Arabia and they were arrested. Now, Canada called for

00:01:41.480 their release and the Saudis basically said, you're interfering in our domestic affairs. And they

00:01:45.360 took great offense. Now, normally a lot of times a country will, you know, protest on other

00:01:49.520 countries actions, you know, issue a statement, maybe condemning them. But the Saudis went pretty 1.00

00:01:53.300 far on this one. They actually pulled their ambassador from Ottawa and they are ambassador

00:01:59.060 to Saudi Arabia persona non grata. So they gave him 48 hours to leave the country. They also suspended

00:02:03.980 all trade except for oil. And they froze all flights from the Saudi national airline to Toronto

00:02:11.420 and canceled scholarships for thousands of Saudi students. Now, that's sort of on the Saudi end. But 0.85

00:02:15.720 the other business that is going on, the main business, aside from some trade, you know, there's

00:02:20.080 some, some agricultural trade that goes on, but the main business that it seems the prime minister

00:02:24.220 was referring to was the sale of LAV3s. This is a wheeled military vehicle. They're used in Afghanistan

00:02:30.560 by the Canadian military. And so we're selling these LAV3s to Saudi Arabia. And the idea is that

00:02:39.840 a number of human rights organizations have accused Canada of enabling Saudi Arabia to conduct

00:02:45.640 a war in Yemen. Now, the war in Yemen is a really underreported story. I think there's not that much

00:02:51.560 with regard to it in the Canadian media. It's something maybe for another video, but long story

00:02:57.060 short, in a nutshell, you can think of it in many ways as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran

00:03:02.120 being conducted in Yemen. So that is sort of where we're at and the business that he's talking about.

00:03:07.500 But I think another sort of unusual thing, and I guess this really speaks to where we have come to

00:03:12.900 in our dispute with Saudi Arabia, is that to say it so bluntly, and you know, the prime minister

00:03:17.020 really is not the type, you know, you just listen to his statements, he's really not the type to give

00:03:20.860 these strong, blunt answers. He might, you know, elaborate on something or say, well, it's complicated.

00:03:26.580 You can, for example, take his, his, the way he was speaking about China when they asked him whether

00:03:33.020 or not that's a genocide in China. He, you know, did not give the strongest answer. He spoke around,

00:03:38.800 well, you know, kind of this and that. So this is quite unusual, but Saudi Arabia has an interesting

00:03:46.180 place in the current international order. Now they're one of the world's largest oil exporters.

00:03:51.580 In terms of oil producers, America was largest in 2020, followed by Saudi Arabia. Canada was actually

00:03:56.540 fourth. So we were pretty high up there, but they had basically double our oil output. So they're an

00:04:02.120 important country economically, but they're also an important country in terms of, again, the global

00:04:08.180 order, because the way that our systems are structured, we still rely on oil and being a large

00:04:13.900 oil exporter that gives them a lot of sway politically, internationally. They're a very large

00:04:19.600 member in the Arab League, in OPEC, and so they have a lot of sway in international organizations.

00:04:26.260 And again, it's quite interesting that he would say that. Now, I'm not sure whether or not Canada is

00:04:32.000 going to ultimately prevent the arms sales from going through. So preventing those LAVs from going

00:04:37.240 through, it looks like we're just going to sell them because according to the government, they say

00:04:40.560 that we have no choice because the Saudis could sue for all that money. Now, you know, again, it really

00:04:46.340 depends on what you think. The Omar Khadr issue maybe sounded the same. Well, we got to give him all

00:04:51.140 this money or else he could sue for the same or more money. So it's hard to tell what is really true

00:04:56.980 and what's not. A lot of the details of that deal are secret. But that's sort of where we are at.

00:05:02.360 And I think it's really interesting to follow what this story is going to bring. Again, we have the

00:05:07.280 Jamal Khashoggi thing overhanging. You know, he was murdered in a Saudi embassy in Turkey. And right

00:05:15.100 now there's a report in the United States basically implicating the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. So

00:05:19.100 everything is really active in the Middle East. And I know that it doesn't necessarily always seem

00:05:24.800 like there's much for Canada to be involved with in the Middle East. But there's actually quite a lot

00:05:29.200 going on and a lot that does affect Canada. And I hope that you'll stay with us and with me as I

00:05:34.160 try and explore and unpack some of these issues with you. So for TrueNorth, I am Sam Ashkenazi.

00:05:39.320 Hopefully you enjoyed this video and thank you so, so much for watching. Have a great day.

Juno News - March 05, 2021

Saudi Arabia is “just a country we do business with”

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