"Jeeps"

October 2015 election campaign : Justin Trudeau defends the Conservative government's $15B armoured combat vehicle deal with Saudi Arabia as being just about "jeeps".

Photo at right November 16 2015 : Saudi National Guard moving combat vehicles to Yemen border in November.

Are those our LAVs? Yes they are.

G&M Feb. 22 2016 : Saudis appear to be using Canadian-made combat vehicles against Yemeni rebels

"... a retired Canadian general consulted by The Globe and Mail, who spoke on condition of anonymity, identified the LAVs being transported to Najran as fighting vehicles made by General Dynamics Land Systems. 

Critics say having Canadian-made arms enmeshed in a conflict that has claimed more than 2,800 civilian lives should prompt Ottawa to rethink the recent $15-billion deal to sell hundreds or thousands more to the Saudis."

Doctors Without Borders MSF reports a third MSF hospital in Yemen bombed by Saudi coalition forces. 

G&M April 12 2016 : Dion quietly approved arms sale to Saudi Arabia in April

From March 21 documents  "...the department of Global Affairs recommended approval of the Saudi export permits because it could help Saudi Arabia wage war in neighbouring Yemen." 

CBC April 12 2016 Stéphane Dion approves export permits for $11B in LAVs to be sent to Saudi Arabia
Documents say past sales have not been linked to violations of civil or political rights in the kingdom

[Global Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion] said he can't block exports unless the armoured vehicles are being used against innocent civilians.
So far, he said, there is no evidence of that.
"Should I become aware of credible information of violations related to this equipment, I will suspend or revoke the permits," he said.

So Global Affairs' "key partner for Canada""using Canadian-made combat vehicles against Yemeni rebels" five months ago isn't sufficient reason not to forge ahead with the deal Dion lied to Canadians about as long as we don't 'become aware' the new LAVs are similarly used in the future. Got it.

CBC April 13 2016 : Justin Trudeau says jobs in southern Ontario are dependent on the Saudi arms deal

And in what will come as a surprise to absolutely no one : 

Reuters April 8 2016 : How Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen has made al Qaeda stronger – and richer

Sunni ways indeed.
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Saturday Update from Mound of Sound : One More Thing About that Saudi Death Wagon Deal
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Sunni Ways

G&M : Saudis defend human rights record over $15-billion arms deal with Canada  

“The kingdom of Saudi Arabia believes that call[s] for universality of human rights does not mean imposition of principles and values that go against our Islamic values and religion.”

Here in Canada, we don't believe calls for universality of human rights means imposition of principles and values that go against our corporate values and profits religion.


Unreported in Canadian media was last week's "eleventh session of the Canada - Saudi Joint Committee" - see photo above - where the "importance of the private sector in the two countries" was agreed upon.  It's a yearly thing. 

A representative from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Development of Canada discussed challenges and difficult times in the region, requiring "the two countries to work together to explore further opportunities for cooperation and economic partnership."

In another Riyadh report on "the importance of this meeting being the first under the new Government of Canada", Trudeau was described as "more open" leading to "hopes for the Saudi business sector and Canadian senior government support in terms of the development of economic cooperation and business partnerships between the two countries."

As Global Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion explained to the Senate a month ago, if we were to cancel the Saudi arms deal : 

"what would surely happen is that the equipment in question would be sold to Saudi Arabia by a less scrupulous country, and the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia would not change one iota."

Meanwhile Steven Chase at the G&M reports on the difficulty of getting any info from Global Affairs on Saudi contracts with three more Canadian *defence* companies.

Plus ça Real Change,  plus c'est la même chose...

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A Canadian coalition

Good going, you guys.

A couple of years ago I was listening to a member of a Mexican opposition party talk about his experience of being part of forming a left to centre-left coalition. It took 20 years, he said.

Various leaders had agreed to present a united front on the issues they needed each other's support for while still maintaining each party's independence. A good idea but it didn't take.

It wasn't until enough of their grassroots supporters became involved in both arguing their differences and defending the coalition at the same time that it began to work.

I hope we're up to it.

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April Reign made a great "Supporting the Coalition for Change" button on a transparent background which you can find over on the sidebar. Here's the code if you would like to display it too - just enclose it in these brackets < >

img src="http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o184/bloggingchange/coalitionbutton.png" alt="Support the Coalition" border="0" /

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April's design is based on the original Coalition Bloggers badge which you can download here, for those who would prefer not to include party logos.