Almost 5,000 miles from the city in which his corpse was secretly buried – in one piece or in bits – by his Saudi killers, Jamal Khashoggi’s murder now rattles the scruples and the purse-strings of yet another country. For Canada, land of the free and liberal conscience – especially under Justin Trudeau – is suddenly confronted by the fruits of the bright young prime minister’s Conservative predecessors and a simple question of conscience for cash: should Trudeau tear up a 2014 military deal with Saudi Arabia worth $12bn?

When Ottawa decided to sell its spanking new light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to the Saudi kingdom, the Saudis already had a well-earned reputation for chopping off heads and supporting raving and well-armed Islamists. But Mohammed bin Salman had not yet ascended the crown princedom of this pious state. The Saudis had not yet invaded Yemen, chopped off the heads of its Shia leaders, imprisoned its own princes, kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister and dismembered Khashoggi.

So the Conservative Canadian government of Stephen Harper had no scruples about flogging off its LAVs – as these little armoured monsters are called – to Riyadh, specifically for the “transport and protection” of government officials.

Now you can hardly accuse Trudeau of being a supporter of the Saudi regime. Back in August, Mohammed bin Salman’s lads ordered the expulsion of the Canadian ambassador to Riyadh and closed down trade agreements with Canada after Trudeau’s foreign minister had complained about the arrest of women’s rights campaigners in the kingdom. The Canadians had made “false statements”, claimed the Saudis – whose own reputation for false statements would soon achieve proportions worthy of a Hollywood horror epic. Trudeau was in the Saudi doghouse as well as Washington’s because, only two months earlier, Trump had called him “dishonest and weak”.

Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Show all 7 1 /7 Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi Washington Post journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime and the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he was murdered on 2 October in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul AFP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder, with US officials claiming that he must have known of the plot AFP/Getty Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures 15 man hit squad Turkish police suspect these 15 men of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, issued 10 October, 8 days after the journalist disappeared EPA Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saud al-Qahtani Aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani is claimed to have ordered Khashoggi's murder Saud Al-Qahtani/Twitter Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb A former diplomat who often travelled with the Crown Prince, Mutreb was initially claimed to be the leader of the hit squad and is pictured here entering the Saudi consulate on the day of the murder AP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Mustafa al-Madani First implicated in the 15 CCTV photos released by the Turkish police, al-Madani was later found to have been used as a body double for Khashoggi, leaving the Saudi consulate dressed in his clothes on the day the journalist was killed CNN Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi (L) Son of the murdered journalist met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on 23 October EPA

So, of course, no sooner had Khashoggi been dispatched in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul than Canada’s liberal conscience bestirred itself. Surely now Trudeau must tear up the 2014 agreement for all those shiny light armoured vehicles which Harper flogged to the Saudis in 2014. Alas, it turned out a few days ago, the deal included what Trudeau’s government has described as a prohibitive cancellation agreement which would – if the armoured vehicle transaction was completed – cost the Canadians billions of dollars. It made economic sense, up to a point, but as with all things involving the Saudis these days, there was a “whoops!” factor.

For it turned out – alas, oh alas – that those harmless Canadian LAVs had been videotaped in the Saudi eastern province in 2017, putting down a Shia civilian rebellion. The Canadian foreign ministry – now, in a masterpiece of satire, renamed “Global Affairs Canada” – suspended arms exports and opened a “full and thorough investigation”. Nowadays, we are all familiar with “full and thorough investigations” – like the one the Saudis are enthusiastically conducting into the demise of the secretly buried Khashoggi – and the Canadian version of an enquiry subsequently concluded that the vehicles from Canada had undergone post-export “modifications”.

Mohammed bin Salman was by this time running the show in Riyadh, and Trudeau was running the show in Ottawa. But now arrived, yet again, the Saudi “whoops!” factor.

The LAVs, it transpired, had been secretly kitted up with turrets and machine guns, and these vehicles were used in the 2017 operation in which 20 civilians had been killed. But – and here was a deus ex machina to beat them all – the Global Affairs report added (with even further unconscious satire) that no human rights violations had occurred; that Saudi forces had made “efforts to minimise civilian casualties”; and that the use of force – readers, you guessed it – was “proportionate and appropriate”.

Thank heavens the Saudis were firing machine guns from those Canadian vehicles and not attacking their enemies with knives and bonesaws.

But now – and here the tired metaphor is oddly appropriate – the knife was twisted in Trudeau’s back. Step forth one Ed Fast, an opposition Canadian Conservative MP who, as the former international trade minister in Ottawa, helped to shepherd through the original lucrative arms deal with the Saudis. The contractual arrangements had nothing to do with him. The penalties were inserted by General Dynamics Land Systems, which assembled these wretched machines in Ontario.

Besides, Fast added last weekend, the deal should be upheld; Canada should instead censure the Saudis by targeting the property of Saudi human rights offenders and end imports of Saudi oil. And increase the transshipment of Canadian oil from Alberta, which neighbours British Columbia where – whoops! – Fast happens to be an MP.

No one could have been enjoying this as much as the Saudis. For Ed Fast also relapsed into the mind-boggling diminution of Khashoggi’s murder. He described the chopping-up of the Saudi journalist in Istanbul and his secret burial by the Saudis as an “issue” and a “situation”. “Issue” as in “problem”, I suppose. As for the Fast view of arms cancellation, it wouldn’t really “punish” the Saudis, and anyway – here we go again – Riyadh would only buy its armoured vehicles from other countries.

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Dennis Horak, a former Canadian ambassador to Saudi Arabia – it’s odd how former western ambassadors to Riyadh have a habit of beating the drum for the Saudis – announced that cancellation would now “only serve to punish the 3,000-plus Canadian workers... who will see their high-skilled, middle class jobs disappear for a gesture with no consequences in Saudi Arabia”. Such a message would be “lost on the Saudi leadership”. Selling armoured vehicles was not a favour but “a commercial transaction”. What we should do, announced Horak in the Toronto Star, is to “speak directly” to them: “Engage, rather than disengage”.

Who would believe that this was the same ambassador Horak whom the Saudis booted out of Riyadh only last August after the Canadian foreign affairs minister complained about the arrest of women activists in the kingdom? Does he want to go back, for heaven’s sakes?