Canada can confront Saudi abuses
It’s been almost three months since Canada called for the release of a prominent human-rights activist in Saudi Arabia, igniting a contretemps. Our protest seemed harmless enough, we thought, just a pair of ministerial tweets.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was furious. He took note, took umbrage and took aim. He expelled our ambassador in Riyadh, recalled his ambassador in Ottawa, froze trade and investment, and ordered Saudi students to leave Canada, among other punishments.
It was a childish tantrum, a warning to anyone of the risks of challenging the kingdom. It was also an instructive example of the distemper of power — exposing the crown prince’s volatility, immaturity and catastrophic misjudgment, which foreshadowed the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Our quarrel hasn’t gone away. At the end of September, days before Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul, the Saudis were still angry with Canada. They continued to demand an apology.
“What are we, a banana republic?” asked Adel AlJubeir, the Saudi foreign minister. “Would any country accept it?” He attacked Canada’s treatment of Quebecers and “Indians,” creating a moral equivalency between that and a regime that jails, flogs, tortures and kills its critics.
It was a galling display from this sultan of sanctimony. It shows how detached the Saudi hierarchy is from reality, how much its members operate outside civilized norms. It explains how they could assume they could assassinate a prominent Saudi expatriate in another country — on Tuesday, Turkey provided more damning details — and get away with it.
Perhaps they will. There is talk here in Washington that the United States is under pressure from Israel to preserve its relationship with Saudi Arabia at all costs, because the Saudis are pivotal regional allies who oppose the Iranians. “The Saudis will get a slap on the wrist,” predicts one observer. “The Americans will say it’s a rough neighbourhood, and bad things happen.”
If Donald Trump does nothing, it gives Canada an opportunity. If we are seen as the first to have the backbone to challenge the Saudis — an early responder to its savagery, so to speak — why not capitalize on that?
Forget, for a moment, that we were not bothered by Saudi Arabia before we learned that it was bothered by us. Human rights did not stop our government from approving the sale of some 900 light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, which Chrystia Freeland defended this year when critics said they were being used in unpleasant ways, as arms usually are.
Forget, as well, that human rights matter to us more in some places than others. Where our economic interests are limited, like Saudi Arabia, we have more latitude to be principled. Accept, then, that we have been hypocrites regarding the Saudis, to whom we sell weapons. Our morality is selective.
Still, we have an opening built on the perception that we have claimed the moral high ground this time on Saudi Arabia. If so, we can lead an effort to isolate it. Here’s how:
Cancel arms sales, as Justin Trudeau says he is considering, and urge other countries to reconsider theirs (Germany has suspended sales). Close our embassy in Riyadh and close theirs in Ottawa. If and when they return, tell them to find a new home; they are unwelcome at their prestigious address on Sussex Drive, almost next door to Global Affairs Canada.
Stop buying their oil and selling them our wheat. Offer Saudi students who want to remain in Canada political asylum, as some have requested.
Freeze the assets of the Saudi elite in Canada. Impose a travel ban on the royal family and others.
All of this will not give us clean hands, but it would give us a clear conscience. We talk about rights and trumpet our “progressive, feminist foreign policy,” but with Saudi Arabia and other regimes we don’t practiseit.
In standing up to the Saudis, Canada would actually do something more than talk. Will we?