Justin Trudeau can t seem to get his own story straight when it comes to the $15 billion worth of Canadian military vehicles being exported to Saudi Arabia. Andrew Lutton takes a look at the history of the deal, and how Trudeau has repeatedly changed his mind on the matter.
00:00:00.000Justin Trudeau can't even get his own story straight when it comes to the $15 billion worth of light armored vehicles that are being exported from Canada to Saudi Arabia.
00:00:09.940The deal between the Saudi military and General Dynamics land systems in London, Ontario was actually inked under the previous Conservative government,
00:00:18.860but Justin Trudeau has eschewed numerous opportunities along the way to slam the brakes on it.
00:00:23.280He has, by inaction, and in some cases by very specific action, ratified this deal along the way.
00:00:30.560But now he's finding himself at odds with, well, himself.
00:00:35.680Trudeau said in a recent interview his government is looking for a way out of the deal to block further export of the vehicles that Saudi Arabia, again, may be using against civilians.
00:00:46.600But wait, I thought Justin Trudeau said he couldn't do anything about it.
00:00:51.140That's been one of the recurring themes in the Liberal defense of this plan.
00:00:56.140Let's take a look at the history of this, shall we?
00:00:59.100When the deal was signed, Trudeau literally did not say a word about it in the House of Commons.
00:01:06.260In fact, my research shows that the first time anyone brought it up in the House was more than a year and several months after the deal was announced.
00:01:14.000Liberal Marc Garneau, who's now a minister in Trudeau's cabinet, spoke up and asked if Canada had received assurances that this was not going to be used against civilians.
00:01:24.520The Conservatives said they were assured that human rights obligations were being met and there was nary a follow-up from Marc Garneau or anyone else.
00:01:31.620Once the Liberals were in power, Stéphane Dion was the Foreign Affairs Minister, he was asked about this and said that it was not, in his view, his role to intervene in the affairs of a private company.
00:01:47.800And a day later, I think it was, he changed his tune and started to say, well, you know, he can't actually do anything about it because it was a conservative deal.
00:01:56.140So it was the typical liberal playbook, blame Stephen Harper and get rid of all personal responsibility.
00:02:03.020Either way, he personally signed the export permits.
00:02:06.280He personally put his signature on there to say, all right, well, I guess that we're going to send these pieces of equipment to Saudi Arabia.
00:02:14.040This is what the Globe and Mail had to say about Stéphane Dion's role.
00:02:18.660The Liberal government has taken full ownership of the decision, which they once said they were unable to stop.
00:02:26.540So Trudeau can't even get on the same page as himself here.
00:02:30.780This is something Justin Trudeau said about the deal earlier this year in March.
00:02:35.940Permits are only approved if the exports are consistent with our foreign and defense policies, including human rights.
00:02:42.880Our approach fully meets our national obligation and Canadian laws.
00:02:49.340Now in October, right after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a murder that we now know goes right up to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
00:02:58.980The contract signed by the previous government makes it very difficult to suspend or leave that contract.
00:03:05.720This is what he said to CBC going back to the previous playbook of blaming the conservatives.
00:03:11.580But then he said we could get out of it.
00:03:13.500We would just have to pay the $1 billion bill that goes along with that.
00:03:17.620And now Trudeau is singing yet another tune, saying he thinks we can get out of it and his government is going to find a way.
00:03:24.720They're looking at their options right now.
00:03:27.060I get dizzy trying to keep up with all of the different conflicting and contradictory positions that the liberals, the same party, are putting out on the same issue.
00:03:35.600Not just the same party, the same person.
00:03:37.860Justin Trudeau has continuously changed his mind on whether this is a good deal, a bad deal.
00:03:43.400Something he supports, something he opposes, something he can change, something he can't change.
00:03:47.960My goodness, the guy is two-face all in one.
00:03:50.860The left hand doesn't know what the far left hand is doing.
00:03:53.160And look, as I've said from the get-go here, nobody can be surprised at the Saudi Arabia human rights record.
00:04:00.000The conservatives never should have let this deal be inked in the first place, and the liberals never should have followed through on it.
00:04:05.840They doing so surrendered their moral high ground to criticize the deal, which is where we find ourselves here.
00:04:12.800The Saudi Arabia human rights record is abysmal, almost as bad as Justin Trudeau's consistency record.
00:04:18.660For the True North Initiative, I'm Andrew Lutton.