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This article was published 18/4/2016 (1614 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Did Justin Trudeau and Stéphane Dion misrepresent the supposed fait accompli of the Saudi arms deal? Absolutely.

Is Canada wrong to follow through with the $15-billion arms package to Saudi Arabia? Canadian public opinion is divided. While this is the single largest arms deal, Canada has a 26-year history of selling approximately 2,600 light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia. The deal is a short-term disgrace to human rights but pragmatically, the Liberals should honour the agreement.

Here’s the bigger picture:

Saudi Arabia's record on human rights is an outrage and amoral, and has been for decades. To change this situation, some may argue for a BDS (boycott, divest and sanctions) regime against Saudi Arabia until it changes its human rights situation, but the Gulf petrodollar nation is not South Africa and this is not the 1980s. Not delivering the LAVs will not automatically change the Saudi human rights calamity.

Dion rightly argued if Canada did not sell arms to Saudi Arabia some other country would. That begs the question: would it not be better for Canada to have closer political and socioeconomic ties with Saudi Arabia in order to influence it rather than sit on the sidelines with no leverage while some other country with a lesser human rights record takes the contract?

I am dismayed by the arms deal but one of the positive implications it has is closer Canada-Saudi relations.

The economics of human rights and policy carryover from the Harper government shed light on this deal as well. The General Dynamics Land Systems plant in London, Ont., where the LAVs will be produced, was under threat of closure when the Canadian Forces cancelled a substantial order of LAVs under Harper. Canadians were outraged and demanded the economy be the priority. When the Saudi Arabia deal was brokered and announced, it was met with fanfare as it saved 3,000 manufacturing jobs.

It is quite clear that when the economy is poor, we give ourselves licence to act amorally because we think we must. The opposite is true now. When the economy is good, Canadians can afford to express their moral outrage at an arms deal with a totalitarian theocratic regime. We can ironically in part thank the arms deal itself for our casual moral outrage capabilities. Things are more complex than they first seem.

It should be noted Canadian law mandates Canada cannot sell arms to countries which will use them to violate human rights against their own people. Beyond internal repression, the Saudis have violated human rights recently in other countries with attacks in Bahrain and Yemen, and LAVs were in their arsenal. While it is acknowledged the Saudi government has not used LAVs against Saudis themselves, they are part of the "harm apparatus" and Canada must be mindful of this.

This has been conveniently overlooked by both the Harper and Trudeau governments. Canada is also the only NATO member to have not signed the Arms Trade Treaty (2014), which regulates the international arms trade industry. We stand alongside human rights bastions North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Syria and Iran as a non-signatory. That should probably be changed, too.

So what then, is the responsible conviction of the federal Liberal party? If anything, it is a pragmatically principled foreign policy, similar to the "Obama Doctrine" of carefully selected intervention and shortchanging some principles in the short-term to achieve long-term principled victories. International politics requires politicians who are otherwise good moral people to make pragmatic decisions on which principles they will enforce and when.

Cancelling the arms deal to supposedly enforce human rights now could see Canada lose 3,000 manufacturing jobs in London, Ont. Which is more important to Canadians?

By completing the contract, Canada gains leverage to more profoundly influence the Saudi Arabian human rights catastrophe. Cancelling the deal means Canada loses any Saudi Arabian goodwill on oil production — of which the Saudis have demonstrated they are willing to crash oil prices. By honouring the contract, perhaps Canada can work with Saudi Arabia on this critical internationalized issue.

Cancelling the deal means Saudi Arabia is further strategically isolated by the West, and the anti-Islamic State coalition could lose the intelligence-gathering and anti-terrorist financing capabilities of the Saudis. If Canada honours the deal, Saudi Arabia continues as a necessary regional partner. Peace with Iran and Israel significantly play into this strategic picture.

Cancelling the deal signals Canada’s contracts can be cavalierly shredded with the change of government. Delivering on this contract demonstrates Canadian reliability. Simply because Canada signed this arms deal now does not mean it will seek these contracts in the future.

Given the circumstances, Canada, unfortunately, should honour its contractual obligations to Saudi Arabia and violate Canada’s human rights ideals in the short-term to gain a long-term victory.

Welcome to the new pragmatically principled Canadian foreign policy.

Andrew R. Basso is a PhD candidate in the political science department at the University of Calgary. His research focuses on atrocity crimes, human rights, security and the ethics of war, and international relations. He specifically studies the use of displacement to perpetrate human rights violations.