Noplans to retaliate
CANADIAN GOVERNMENT NOT CONSIDERING ACTION AGAINST SAUDIS, SAYS MORNEAU
The federal government has no plans to launch retaliatory economic measures against Saudi Arabia, FinanceMinister BillMorneau said Thursday in the wake of a series of actions taken by theMiddle Eastern kingdom as it seeks to punish Canada in a still-unfolding diplomatic feud.
In recent days, Riyadh suspended diplomatic ties with Canada, expelled the Canadian ambassador and recalled its own envoy to Ottawa after Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and her department criticized the regime on Twitter for its arrest of social activists, demanding their immediate release.
Angered by the condemnation, Saudi Arabia has also tried to sting Canada’s economy by halting future trade and investment deals and by cancelling lucrative scholarships that would have seen 15,000 of its citizens study in Canada. One media report said Saudi banks and pension funds were ordered to sell off their Canadian assets, although that report remains unconfirmed.
Morneau said his department has been closely watching the situation, though he acknowledged it has been evolving by the day.
“We’re paying close attention to this situation, of course, because we wanted to understand the impacts,” he said in Ottawa after being asked if the government intended to hit back at Saudi Arabia with economic reprisals of its own.
“We’re not considering any responses.”
Morneau later said he “can’t yet fully quantify” the impacts in Canada of the Saudi actions, since Ottawa is still trying to collect information on their full scope.
He called the challenges created by the dispute “unprecedented” and “a bit surprising,” but he stressed that Canada’s in a very good economic situation. On the possible sale of assets by major Saudi investors, Morneau said he couldn’t confirmthat any such thing is underway.
“We have not seen significant changes in our markets, so whatevermay or may not be happening is clearly not a big impact on our markets,” Morneau said. “It’s a situation that we have to watch— but there isn’t a big economic challenge.”
The Saudi Press Agency said Thursday that the “diplomatic crisis” wouldn’t affect the kingdom’s petroleum supplies to Canada. But uncertainty over the state of affairs between the two countries continued to hang over Ottawa.
One senior official said Freeland’s phone conversation earlier in the week with her Saudi counterpart took place partly in hopes of getting more information about the reported sale of Canadian assets, as well as any other plans that might be in the works.