Approval of Saudi arms deal was illegal, lawyers argue
Federal Court asked to rule on export permits OK’d by Liberals
OTTAWA— The recent Liberal-approved export permits to allow the shipment of light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia should be declared illegal, according to a new submission to the Federal Court.
A group of lawyers are arguing that Global Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion should not have approved the permits on human rights grounds, and they should be declared illegal based on the federal government’s export rules.
Daniel Turp, the Quebec-based constitutional lawyer who filed the application for a judicial review, said the export of military technology to Saudi Arabia should be prohibited because of the kingdom’s human rights record.
Canadian law puts limits on the export of military technology to countries with a record of human rights violations against their citizens.
Despite Dion’s approval of the export permits earlier this month — after an initial application was filed with the court — Turp is not abandoning his challenge. The first application argued the permits should not be issued. This latest application argues they should be cancelled.
“(The court should) declare that on April 8, 2016, (Dion) delivered a decision that was not founded on evidence, based not on a demonstration that there was no reasonable risk that the light armoured vehicles would be used against a civilian population, but rather on a simple belief, without considering the pertinent elements that he had or that were available to him,” reads the document, emailed to a Montreal court Thursday afternoon.
The $15-billion deal to sell light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia was announced by the previous Conservative government in 2014. Touted as supporting 3,000 jobs in southwestern Ontario, the deal was brokered by Canada Commercial Corp. a Crown corporation, for General Dynamics Land Systems.
The Liberals did not campaign on cancelling the agreement, but suggested it was a “done deal” after taking office. But after Turp filed his initial application late last month, it was revealed that Dion had signed off on the export permits on April 8.
“It’s quite unusual that a government, knowing that there’s a case brought before the court, goes ahead and delivers permits when it has the knowledge that the legality of this issue was before a court,” Turp said in an interview Thursday. When asked for comment on the application, a spokeswoman for Dion said the government believes the deal complies with Canadian law.
“The government is satisfied that Canada’s approach remains consistent with our international obligation and Canadian law,” wrote Chantal Gagnon, Dion’s press secretary.
Gagnon also pointed to a Feb. 19 speech by Dion indicating that he had reviewed the issue with “the utmost rigour” and will continue to do so over the life of the 14-year deal.
Turp’s application hinges on provi- sions adopted by the federal cabinet in 1986 requiring the export of military technology to countries with “persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their citizens” to be “closely controlled.”
Sending military hardware to those countries is allowable only if the government can demonstrate that there is no reasonable risk it will be used on civilians.
Saudi Arabia is routinely called one of the world’s worst human rights violators by advocacy groups and rights watchdogs.
Human Rights Watch’s 2015 report on the Gulf state found Saudi Arabia continues to jail rights activists, systematically repress women and religious minorities, and 2014 terrorism laws criminalize “almost any form of peaceful criticism of the authorities.”
Amnesty International has opposed the sale because of the kingdom’s troubling human rights record and its military intervention in the conflict in neighbouring Yemen.
“The sale should not be going ahead. We think the human rights concerns are very clear and very troubling and there is simply no basis on which Canada should be going forward with this at this time,” Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, said Thursday.
“The light armoured vehicles almost certainly will be used both internally in Saudi Arabia and very likely in the ongoing and spreading intervention in neighbouring Yemen. For that reason we simply should not be involved.”
The deal has run into political opposition as well as NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair this week accused the Liberals of being naive and said the government had discounted the concerns about human rights in Saudi Arabia. “The human rights situation in Saudi Arabia has only gotten worse since this discussion began.”
But the government has shown no inclination it intends to halt the sale, despite the criticism.
“We will continue to respect contracts signed because people around the world need to know that when Canada signs a deal it is respected,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week.