Sale of arms to Saudi Arabia costs Canada moral high ground
The murder of Jamal Khashoggi has emboldened those criticizing Ottawa’s decision to sell arms to Saudi Arabia.
They ask how Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government can claim to embrace a foreign policy defined by Canadian values if it is willing to sell weapons to a regime that so casually assassinates its critics.
It’s a reasonable question. But it leads quickly to another one: How can a country that claims to occupy the moral high ground sell weapons of war to anyone?
Khashoggi’s murder has been denounced around the world. In part, that’s because it was unusually gruesome (Turkish officials say the dissident’s body was chopped into bits inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul).
In part, it’s because the Saudis have changed their story so many times — first denying that the murder took place, then insisting it was an accident and only now admitting that it was premeditated.
Here in Canada, attention quickly focused on the 2014 deal, brokered by Ottawa, to have the General Dynamics factory in London, Ont., manufacture $15 billion worth of light armored vehicles for the Saudis.
Canada is not the world’s top merchant of death. That honour belongs to the U.S., with Russia following close behind. Both of these former Cold War adversaries make billions selling weaponry around the world.
But Canada is no piker. Under the 1956 Defence Production Sharing Agreement, it sells an unknown amount of armaments to the U.S. On top of that, it sells about $1 billion in arms to other countries.
Some are liberal democracies such as Britain and Germany. Others are autocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Still others, including Algeria, Egypt, Turkey and Thailand, have dubious human rights records.
Exactly where Canada stands in the global hierarchy of arms merchants is unclear. In 2016, the publication IHS Jane’s ranked Canada as the sixth biggest arms exporter in the world and second biggest (after the U.S.) in the Middle East.
Using figures from the 2013 to 2017 period, however, the Stockholm International Peace Institute ranked Canada as the 16th biggest arms exporter in the world, putting it on a par with Turkey.
After the U.S., Saudi Arabia represents the second biggest market for Canadian arms merchants. According to federal government figures, the Saudis bought $497.5 million worth of Canadian weaponry in 2017.
Ottawa has insisted as a condition of sale that the Saudis not use Canadianbuilt armored vehicles against domestic dissenters. It’s not clear whether that demand has been honoured.
The Saudis did use Canadian-built vehicles during their 2011 incursion into neighbouring Bahrain to stifle dissenters there. As well, according to press reports, they deployed them as part of their war effort in Yemen.
But then what else would we expect them to do? Once a weapon is purchased, the buyers will do with it as they wish — with or without Canadian approval.
Ottawa is looking for a painless way to express its distaste for Khashoggi’s murder. It could temporarily suspend export permits for weaponry destined for Saudi Arabia and then quietly reinstate them once the furor has died down. It has done that before.
It could cancel what’s left of the $15billion light armored vehicle contract. But that would put 3,000 Canadian jobs at risk and leave Canada open to cancellation penalties that Trudeau says could cost $1 billion.
Or it could conclude, correctly, that over the long run, the arms industry is a mug’s game.
In the end, countries buy weapons because they expect to use them. Canadian-made weaponry was employed by the U.S. during its imperial adventures in Vietnam and Iraq, even though most Canadians disapproved of those wars. Canadian-made weaponry will be used by the Saudis (or the Egyptians, or the Thais) in whatever conflicts they choose to wage, regardless of what Ottawa thinks.
Evil needs tools to flourish. If you don’t want to be held complicit, don’t provide them.
Evil needs tools to flourish. If you don’t want to be held complicit, don’t provide them