GoC: No evidence Canadian Made LAVs Used in Saudi Civil Conflict

By: Melanie Marquis, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- The federal government has not been able to determine with any certainty that Canadian-made light-armoured vehicles sold to Saudi Arabia were used by that country to suppress the Shiite minority in the eastern part of the country.

A Canadian Army LAV III deployed in Afghanistan in 2010. 

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland confirmed Thursday that officials from her department did not find conclusive evidence that the Canadian-made vehicles have been used in human rights abuses.

That independent opinion from public servants was communicated to her after a "rigorous investigation" launched last August at her request.

"Officials at Global Affairs Canada found no conclusive evidence that Canadian-made vehicles were used in human rights violations," Freeland told members of the Commons foreign affairs committee.

"That was the independent, objective opinion of our public service and the advice given to me as minister."

At the time, Freeland said she was deeply concerned by reports last summer in the Globe and Mail that Saudi Arabia had used Gurkha armoured personnel carriers, made by Newmarket, Ont., based Terradyne Armoured Vehicles Inc., against its own people.

She vowed to "respond accordingly" if that was the case, but wanted to ensure a through investigation so as to act on credible, trustworthy information.

According to a report in Montreal's Le Devoir last month, since opening the probe, a Global Affairs spokesman said Ottawa suspended all arms exports to the Saudi kingdom last summer.

That included a contract for armoured vehicles designed by General Dynamics Land Systems, which won a $15 billion contract in 2015 that the Liberal government honoured by issuing export permits a year later.

Freeland's office did not respond to a query about whether Thursday's finding meant the shipments have already resumed or would begin anew.

The government is being questioned about the issue of exporting arms to nations with spotty human rights records after another deal concluded between Bell Helicopter and the Philippines has raised concerns.

Freeland is expected to announce during testimony at the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development later Thursday that the government is proposing two amendments to Bill C47 on export and import acts when it comes to licensing weapons.

The toughest of the measures is the legal requirement for the Canadian government to consider human rights, peace and security risks in any pre-export licensing assessment.

In the future, if the government finds there is a "substantial risk" the conditions could be violated, the law will require that export be refused.

The proposed amendments, approved Tuesday in cabinet, are not retroactive and won't apply to General Dynamics Land Systems, based in London, Ont.

On Wednesday, the government ordered a review of a 2012 deal between Bell Helicopter and the Philippine government after similar concerns surfaced.

The government is concerned about the use of the choppers by the government of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been accused of extrajudicial executions in connection with a war on drug traffickers and terrorists.

The helicopters are manufactured in Mirabel, Que.

A senior member of the Philippine military said the aircraft would also be used in "internal security operations," prompting a review.

On Thursday, the Philippine defence said Thursday that the military would not use 16 helicopters being bought from Canada to attack insurgents, as had been feared by Canadian officials.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the Philippine government could buy elsewhere if Canada decides to scuttle the sale of the Bell helicopters, which he said would be used to ferry supplies and troops, including those wounded in combat, and to respond to disasters.

The office of International Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said those comments do not change the government's plan to order an assessment of the deal with Canadian Commercial Corp.

-- with files from The Associated Press.

Saudi Arabia Defends use of Canadian-made armoured vehicles against civilians

By: Steven Chase, The Globe and Mail 
OTTAWA
AUGUST 17, 2017

The Saudi Arabian government is defending the recent deployment of Canadian-made armoured vehicles against residents of the kingdom's Eastern Province, saying security forces found it necessary to use "military equipment" to fight terrorists who threatened the safety of its population.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland recently launched an investigation into this Saudi conflict, which escalated in late July, saying she was "deeply concerned" over videos and photos showing Canadian-made Terradyne Gurkha armoured vehicles taking part in a clash in al-Qatif, a predominately Shia region of Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi embassy in Canada, however, is trying to explain to Canadians what happened in terms it hopes this country will understand.

In a statement provided to The Globe and Mail, the embassy likened Riyadh's use of force in this case to the October, 2014, incident in Ottawa where Canadian authorities killed a lone gunman who stormed Parliament Hill after fatally shooting a soldier at the National War Memorial.

"It is the right of the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to use its military equipment to fight the terrorist groups of Awamiyah to protect the civilians," the Saudi embassy said.

The embassy reminded Canadians that on October 22, 2014: "Canadian authorities did fight the attacker and killed him on the spot to protect Canadian civilians. Fighting terrorism and protecting innocent civilians are not human-rights violations."

The House of Saud's use of combat machines against its Shia population goes to the very heart of the controversy over whether the Trudeau government is violating Canada's weapons export control rules by allowing arms exports to Saudi Arabia – in particular a $15-billion General Dynamics sale of weaponized armoured vehicles it just authorized last year.

These rules call for restrictions on arms exports to countries with a "persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their citizens." Shipments are supposed to be blocked unless there is "no reasonable risk" the buyer could turn arms against its own population.

In late July, even before Ms. Freeland announced she would probe the matter, the Canadian government issued a statement criticizing Saudi Arabia's handling of what it called "escalating violence in eastern Saudi Arabia" and cautioning that while Ottawa recognizes Riyadh has "security challenges," these "must be addressed in a manner that abides by international human-rights law."

The Globe and Mail asked the Saudi embassy recently whether the kingdom had in fact made any promises to Canada about not using Canadian-made military equipment against Saudi civilians.

In reply, the embassy argued that Saudi Arabia was fully justified in deploying its military equipment in Eastern Province.

"The terrorist groups in Awamiyah are equipped with military equipment and they are attacking civilians in the area," the embassy said in a statement.

Cesar Jaramillo, the executive director of Project Ploughshares, a disarmament group that tracks military exports, said the Saudi explanation for what took place merits skepticism.

"The Saudi government's depiction of military operations in civilian areas as being part of its war on terrorism has become routine, and increasingly suspect," he said.

"The fact is that there are too many red flags. A country consistently found to be among the very worst human-rights violators on the planet is now categorically denying any human-rights violations in the siege of Awamiyah. The Canadian public needs to know how much credence Ottawa gives to this claim and whether it is consistent with its own findings."

Al-Qatif has long been described by experts as an area under lockdown. It's a hotbed of opposition to the reigning House of Saud and the Saudis frequently cite terror threats when they go after the area's militants. The best-known resident from the area may be Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, the populist dissident Shia cleric whom the Saudi government killed in January, 2016, during a wave of mass executions.

Some Shia dissidents have become militant in recent years, wielding guns or Molotov cocktails, after facing a harsh crackdown by the Saudis during protests that coincided with Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East in 2011.

The most recent conflict in Eastern Province began to flare up in early 2017, when Saudi Arabia began to raze a minority Shia Muslim neighbourhood in al-Qatif. Riyadh said it wanted to redevelop the ancient neighbourhood of Al-Masora for health and safety reasons. Shia activists, however, said the Saudis wanted to eliminate a hideout for militants.

The Saudi embassy told The Globe that the latest clash began when workers preparing the area for redevelopment came under heavy fire and attacks by "explosive devices" – incidents they blamed on "terrorist groups from within the neighbourhood."

The embassy said these attacks killed two Saudis and injured 10 civilians, including one woman and two children.

Shia activists, for their part, have told Human Rights Watch that the recent violence took the lives of more than a dozen people, in addition to five armed militants who clashed with the Saudi authorities.

The Saudi embassy said Riyadh is determined to fight terrorism regardless of whether the threat comes from the Islamic State, the radical Sunni Islamist militant group or Shia terrorists that Riyadh alleges are funded by Iran.

Ali Adubisi, director of the Berlin-based European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights, said the Saudi government criminalizes any form of dissent. Many civilians were targeted and killed in Awamiyah, he said, while the government is saying it's fighting armed men. "Portraying themselves as the protectors of civilians in Awamiyah is a mockery."

Human Rights Watch said in a statement this week that residents in Awamiyah told them Saudi security forces fired into populated areas from Al-Masora, killing residents, occupying a public school, closing clinics and pharmacies and preventing essential services such as ambulances from reaching the area. The group called for an investigation into whether Saudi authorities "used excessive force in Awamiyah."

Dion: Canada still has leverage in Saudi LAV deal

By: TONDA MACCHARLES, Ottawa Bureau reporter The Toronto Star 

OTTAWA—Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion insists Canada still has leverage over the controversial contract to sell light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia despite the Star’s revelation that the federal government could be on the hook for a multibillion cancellation penalty.

“Each time you break a contract, there is always the danger of penalties,” Dion said Monday. “I always said that, but this is not the issue, because we’re not — we’ll respect the contract.”

At the same time, Dion insisted Canada’s hands are not tied when it comes to ensuring “that the military equipment that any Canadian company is selling abroad is not used against human rights and the interests of Canada and our allies.”

Dion said the arms “export permits allow Canada to be sure that military equipment . . . sold by Canadian companies is not misused by the country that received them.”

The Star on Saturday reported the cancellation penalty is in the multibillion-dollar range, under the contract signed by the previous Conservative government.

Cesar Jaramillo, executive director of Project Ploughshares, said his greater concern is Dion has made up his mind that the contract will continue despite valid questions about the human rights implications of proceeding with the deal.

In signing export permits for the vehicles, said Jaramillo, Canada has already given up “leverage.”

“They speak of evidence, but the threshold (for export approval) is neither certainty nor evidence, it is reasonable risk” the weaponized vehicles might be used against unarmed populations, he said. “The practical difference is if you use ‘evidence’ — this is something that takes place after the exports have taken place and after the human rights violations have occurred.”

Project Ploughshares joined Amnesty International and other groups in writing an open letter to the Liberal government asking it to halt the sale on the grounds that there is “reasonable risk — the threshold for Canadian export controls — that Canadian-made goods will be used against civilians by Saudi Arabia.”

The sale of an unspecified number of weaponized vehicles, to be built by General Dynamic Land Systems in London, Ont., was signed between Saudi Arabia and the Canada Commercial Corporation, a Crown corporation.

A briefing note for Finance Minister Bill Morneau, released under Access to Information and shared with the Star on condition the source not be identified, states clearly there is a question of liability for the government.

While the international trade minister has direct responsibility to Parliament for the Crown corporation that is the contracting party for Canadian suppliers, the document flags to the finance minister that it is he who approves the corporation’s borrowing plan and also has a direct role in approving CCC’s involvement in large capital projects.

The document, which contains redactions, identifies CCC’s signing of “a record $14.3-billion contact with Saudi Arabia for the sale of light armoured vehicles produced by General Dynamics Land Systems, and says “fees from transactions like this help maintain CCC’s financial viability.”

Liberal MP John McKay, the parliamentary secretary to the defence minister, said in an interview that if there were any move to stop the Saudi contract it would have to involve “very, very serious consideration.”

“There’s reputational damage, there’s financial damage, there’s employment damage and at the end of the day what did you actually accomplish? It’s not if the Saudis wouldn’t be able to buy LAVs. They can buy LAVs. So in an ideal world you wouldn’t have to be discussing this but this is not an ideal world.”

Members of the former Conservative government adamantly defended the contract in interviews with the Star last week. On Monday, Conservative foreign affairs critic Tony Clement clarified previous statements he’d made questioning whether the Saudi regime’s cross-border military efforts in Yemen should result in the contract’s cancellation.

Clement said “if the situation on the ground is the same as when we signed the contract, ie., that the LAVs are going to be used against terrorists, I’m in favour of implementing the contract. If there’s something different on the ground that indicates that the LAVs would be used to crush legitimate internal dissent that’s a different story.”

He now says the issue in Yemen is more complicated than when he suggested the contract should be shelved.

Ottawa Watching Saudi Arabia-Yemen Arms Transfer

By: Steven Chase, Globe and Mail 

The Trudeau government says it’s watching “very closely” what is unfolding in Yemen, the site of a Saudi-led war where Riyadh is handing over military equipment to Yemeni forces.

Ottawa won’t say, however, precisely what measures are in place, if any, to stop Saudi Arabia from transferring its Canadian-made combat vehicles to Yemeni allies.

A leading human-rights researcher warned a Senate committee in Ottawa this week that the Saudis are training, funding and equipping Yemeni forces under the control of General Ali Mohsen, a military commander from Yemen who’s been repeatedly accused of laws-of-war violations.

Were Saudi Arabia, a long-time customer of Canadian light-armoured vehicles, to be lending or giving these machines to Yemeni allies, it could jeopardize Ottawa’s ability to proceed with a $15-billion arms sale to Riyadh. Typical end-user certificates in arm sales prohibit the transfer of arms to a third party.

Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, parliamentary secretary to the Foreign Minister, said Thursday that Canada is “very concerned” about Yemen. A shaky ceasefire in the region has been regularly violated and the aerial bombing has yielded to an increasing ground campaign backed by Saudi Arabia.

Her comments come one day after Belkis Wille, with international rights watchdog Human Rights Watch, alerted Canadian senators to the possibility that this country may inadvertently be dragged into the conflict.

Ms. Wille, who lived in Yemen for 3 1/2 years, urged Ottawa Wednesday to suspend a $15-billion sale of combat vehicles to Saudi Arabia if Ottawa fails to obtain guarantees that Canadian-made combat vehicles are not among assets being handed over to Gen. Mohsen’s army.

Canada has sold Saudi Arabia hundreds of light-armoured vehicles over the past 25 years and videos and photos appearing on social media since 2015 show Canadian-made machines being deployed in the conflict with Houthi rebels in Yemen.

It’s not clear whether the Saudis, or Yemenis, are driving them.

Human Rights Watch has for years chronicled laws-of-war violations under Gen. Mohsen.

Ms. Wille said during earlier wars against Houthi rebels from 2004 to 2009, Human Rights Watch documented numerous violations under his watch “including indiscriminate attacks, killing civilians, as well as arbitrary detention and forced disappearances,” she said, referring to abductions. “The idea that this man is leading a force armed by the Saudis and crossing into Yemen is of extreme concern to any country that is arming the Saudis given the fact this force will be needing more and more equipment,” she said.

Ms. Goldsmith-Jones said Ottawa is monitoring the conflict, when asked whether Canada is worried about Canadian-made fighting vehicles being handed over to Yemeni forces and what measures are in place to stop this.

She said the sale deal with Saudi Arabia states that the vehicles cannot be used against non-combatants.

“The agreement stipulates … the goods must not be turned, as you know, against civilians.”

“We’re concerned about the Yemeni situation, of course, and human rights there, yes,” she said. “We’re very concerned about the human-rights record of Saudi Arabia and we’re following the situation with regard to Yemen very closely,” the MP said.

The department of Global Affairs declined to say whether it has any evidence that combat vehicles produced by Canada have already been used in this manner.

“Canada … calls on all parties to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law,” Global Affairs spokeswoman Rachna Mishra said, adding that Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion “raised relevant issues” when he visited Saudi Arabia last week.

Cesar Jaramillo, executive director of Project Ploughshares, a disarmament group that tracks arms shipments, said raising concerns with Saudi Arabia is an inadequate response, particularly given recent reports chronicling eroding human-rights conditions in the Mideast country.

He said Canada must obtain, or demonstrate that it’s obtained, assurances from Saudi Arabia that place limits on how the armoured vehicles are being used.

“The likelihood of further human-rights abuses does not simply call for issues to be raised, but for specific assurances concerning the end use of Canadian-made goods to be sought and received.”

Black: Sell the Arms to the Saudi's

By: Conrad Black

National Post, May 14, 2016

The controversy over the sale of light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia illustrates the fact that Canada can now decide whether it wants to be one of the world’s important powers or not. This does not mean a super power, which is not and will not be on offer for a country of 35 million people. It means a G7 country with the ability to extend its status to be one of world’s influential countries beyond economics and including the full range of factors that create a country’s stature in the world. This is not the last chance for Canada to make that choice, but is one of the first of such opportunities.

Those who most strenuously oppose the sale to Saudi Arabia include practically all audible elements of the NDP. They rightly see Saudi Arabia as a primitive absolute monarchy that has no respect for human liberty, especially women’s rights, is religiously intolerant, and foments militant Wahhabi Islam throughout the Muslim world. This past week, opponents of the sale to Saudi Arabia have been jubilantly circulating news film footage of the Saudis deploying similar equipment, though not supplied by Canada, to break up Shiite demonstrations in Saudi Arabia, and claiming that it could be reasonably inferred that Canadian-supplied LAVs would be similarly deployed.

The opponents of the deal focus especially on the fish-tailing of the federal government as it cites Saudi Arabia as an ally in the fight against Iranian expansion and anti-Western terrorism. The government has assured that this equipment would not be used on Saudi civilians. Tepid supporters of the deal make the point that thousands of Canadian jobs are at stake, and that Canada must not gain a reputation as a fickle and unreliable trading partner.

Of course, the Saudi regime is a nauseating affront to Western values. It has been for decades a joint venture between the House of Saud and the Wahhabi hierarchy, which has long been the principal propagator of militant Islam among Sunni Muslims. Financed by the Saudi royal family, the Wahhabis leave the Saudi regime untroubled, even as they try to destabilize many other governments. Of course, Saudi hypocrisy is distasteful, although it has moderated its support for extremism, under pressure from the United States, and as it has been pushed into the Islamic centre by al-Qaida and ISIL.

Bill Graveland / Canadian PressA Canadian LAV (light armoured vehicle) in Afghanistan on Nov.26, 2006.

Now is the time for Canada to end the role of foreign affairs as a substitute for theology and psychiatry, and to see it as it should be: the means of projecting this country’s interests and influence as a benign policy force in the world. Those who strongly favour the LAV contract, including me, emphasize that the manufacturer is a branch-plant of an American company which would decamp elsewhere if this deal is revoked, creating thousands of skilled, durably unemployed Canadians. The Saudis would buy similar vehicles from other suppliers. Canada would then be mocked in the world as a flaky, inconstant, self-righteous, and light-weight country with no vocation to measure the balance between its interests and moral influence in the world. Further, we would be seen, correctly, as subordinating our economic and strategic interest to a moralistic encouragement of a more liberal Saudi state, something we cannot achieve. This view exaggerates and misjudges our moral interest at the expense of the practical interests of Canada and the West.

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Saudi Arabia is a powerful regional and sectarian ally against Hezbollah (Lebanon), Hamas (Palestinian territories and Israel), and the Houthi (Yemen), and formidable associate in the struggle against ISIL, which dismisses the Iranian theocrats (and their above-mentioned proxies), and Saudi royals together as pallid infidels. What we have now in the Middle East is a stranger association of powers than was the West with Stalin’s Soviet Union during the Second World War (which Stalin helped start with his Nazi-Soviet Pact with Hitler). But that alliance worked very well, and the West gained or retrieved Germany, France, Italy, and Japan, four of the world’s greatest nations, back into the West as prosperous and democratic allies, while Stalin gained only expensive and temporary and brutal occupation of Eastern Europe, having taken over 90 per cent of the casualties in subduing Nazi Germany. This parallel can be overworked, but as I have written here and elsewhere before, Saudi Arabia, in trying to put a rod on the back of Iran by tanking the world oil price, was also so instrumental in afflicting the Russian national treasury that Russian leader Putin almost certainly moderated the pressure he had planned to assert on Ukraine and the Baltic states. Whatever their shortcomings, the Saudis have been the greatest pillar the crumbling Western alliance has had in the last two years.

Photo: Caporal-chef Dan Pop, AffaireThe Department of National Defence receives the first modernized LAV III from General Dynamics Land Systems Canada in London, Ontario on January 24, 2013.

In applying standards of acceptable moral conduct on other countries, all mature Western nations are compelled to be governed by two factors: whether the co-contracting regime is morally abhorrent and inferior to its local, or sectarian or ideological rivals; and if refusing to treat with such an odious regime would actually lead to its downfall, and would a replacement regime be preferable. Of course, the answer in this case, of Saudi Arabia, is no on both counts. The Saudis are less dangerous and hostile to the West than their Iranian rivals, and the Saudis are effectively combatting Iranian surrogates mentioned above (even allowing for President Obama’s spongiform-brained appeasement of Tehran). Any replacement of the Saudi government, mired in infelicities as it is, would be a hideous cocktail of al-Qaida and ISIL. These would make the relatively house-trained Wahhabi grandees seem like the pious elders of the United Church of Canada (who can be very tiresome and self-serving, but persist in the murky cause of Protestant rights in the People’s Republic and aren’t trying to kill anyone).

Capt Dave MuraltA LAV-III light armoured vehicle of Company Headquarters, C Company, 1st Battalion the Royal 22nd Regiment, the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team's Force Protection Company, secures the village of Zangabad during the ceremonies marking the return of the residents to their homes.

Two examples in living memory of those who have imposed trade embargoes on strategic exports are Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ending the shipments of oil and iron exports to Japan in 1941, and prime minister Lester Pearson’s refusal to sell uranium to France in 1965. Regarding Japan, Roosevelt was correct, morally and practically, and Japan had to attack the United States treacherously, as it did in 1941, or retreat with its tail between its legs from China and Indochina, which it had brutally invaded. Pearson’s moral sanctimony opposite France caused General de Gaulle to seek uranium from France’s former African colonies, and he responded to Pearson’s shabby breach of trust with a call to French Canadians to secede from the Canadian state, wherever they might be. This contributed to decades of turmoil in Quebec-federal relations.

We must start by outgrowing the national mythos expressed by Michael Byers in the Globe and Mail on May 12, and accept that most members of the United Nations pay no attention to the UN Charter or the Universal Declaration on Human Rights; that nobody applies the Geneva Conventions or UN Convention Against Torture to terrorism or counter-terrorism, and that Lester Pearson “won the Nobel prize for peace because he devised a new mechanism — UN peacekeeping — for preventing death and suffering.” the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the State Department, devised it as a face-saving measure for the British and French after the dreadful fiasco at Suez in 1956 and asked Pearson to move it because if the U.S. did, the Soviet Union, which was then busily engaged in suppressing the Hungarian revolution, would veto it. It is time we had a real foreign policy tailored to our potential capabilities, and emerged from our long-spun cocoon as the pure Snow Maiden of the north raising a light to the nations. Our duty and interest in this case is to pursue our economic interest while assisting the least bad of the Middle East blocs against the worse Iranian bloc and the unspeakable theo-terrorists.

LAV Export Deal Challenged in Court

Published by Defense News, David Pugliese 

VICTORIA, British Columbia — A lawsuit that could potentially derail the largest weapons export deal in Canadian history will be heard in court as early as next month.

Daniel Turp, a law professor and former member of parliament, has filed the legal challenge in the Federal Court of Canada to prevent the export of CAN $14.8 billion (US $11 billion) of light armored vehicles by Canada to Saudi Arabia.

A Canadian LAV-III (Photo: Canadian Army)

Turp argues that the sale of the vehicles, to be built by General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada of London, Ontario, violates Canadian law which prevents the export of military goods to a nation that abuses human rights or is engaged in an active conflict.

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In his submission to the Federal Court, Turp noted that light armored vehicles previously built by General Dynamics Canada are being used by Saudi forces in fighting in Yemen. He has also wrote that Saudi Arabia “consistently, severely and systematically violates its citizens’ human rights.”

He has asked the Federal Court to cancel the export permits issued for the vehicles.

Doug Wilson-Hodge

, manager of corporate affairs for 
General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, declined to comment on Turp’s legal action. Production of the vehicles has not yet begun.

Canada’s Liberal Party Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has refused to cancel the contract, which is financially guaranteed by the government. “Fundamentally, this issue is a matter of principle,” Trudeau told journalists. “The principle at play here is that Canada’s word needs to mean something in the international community. It is important that people know when they sign a deal with Canada, when they sign a commercial agreement, a change in government isn’t going to lead to that contract being ripped up.”

The Saudi deal was announced in February 2015 by Canada’s previous Conservative Party government.

The Canadian government has filed its rebuttal with the Federal Court; it acknowledged Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights record but pointed out that the country is supportive of international efforts to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as well as “countering instability in Yemen.”

"The acquisition of state-of-the-art armoured vehicles will assist Saudi Arabia in these goals, which are consistent with Canada's defence interests in the Middle East," the Canadian government argued in its response.

The case will be heard by the court in Montreal in late May or early June.

The contract has largely been shrouded in secrecy with the Saudis not even acknowledging they are purchasing the Canadian-built light armoured vehicles. Numbers of vehicles to be purchased has not been released. But analysts say Turp’s legal action may force Canada to reveal some of those details in court.

Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper also acknowledged human rights violations in Saudi Arabia but said that any of Canada’s allies would have signed a similar defense export deal with that country.

General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada has sold more than 1,400 LAVs to the Saudis over the last 20 years. The vehicles have been equipped with a variety of weapon systems, ranging from 25mm cannons to 90mm guns.

Human rights observers point out that some of those vehicles were sent in 2011 to help Bahrain’s rulers suppress a pro-democracy uprising.

Email: dpugliese@defensenews.com

Manley: We can’t always sell weapons to people we like

By: John Manley, originally published on iPolitics 

It saddens me to watch my successor as minister of Foreign Affairs, Stéphane Dion, attacked and criticized over the sale to Saudi Arabia of light armoured vehicles manufactured in London, Ontario.

A Canadian LAV-III on patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan. 

The minister and his colleagues are, of course, right to say that the sale was negotiated and approved before they assumed office. The fact that the minister’s signature was required on the final export permits in no way contradicts the reality that to have refused to sign those permits would have breached a contract previously entered into by the Government of Canada.

If I sign an agreement to sell my house, the transaction is not completed until the day I sign the papers transferring ownership of the property to the buyer. But if I refuse to do the latter, I am clearly in breach of my prior agreement.

Beyond the contractual obligation, there are plenty of reasons to support the sale of these light armoured vehicles.

First, the defence industry is a key driver of economic activity and an important source of high-value employment. The sector encompasses more than 650 firms, supports more than 65,000 full-time jobs across the country and contributes an estimated $6 billion a year to our country’s GDP. Exports account for half of Canada’s total defence industry revenues.

Some people would prefer that we not be in the arms business at all. But not only does this industry supply some of our own defence and security requirements, it supplies our allies as well.

Should we adopt a policy of refusing to trade with people whose values are out of line with our own? Regrettably, that might leave us with a rather limited number of potential customers.

Whether one believes that Canada should offer its forces only in support of peacekeeping (a view I don’t happen to share), or should play a more robust role in global affairs, our armed forces plainly need vehicles, uniforms and ordinance to carry out their duties.

Given that requirement, it stands to reason that Canadians should want to design and manufacture this equipment — and if we’re doing so, the economics of scale dictate exporting those same products.

Second, Canada has long had interests in the region. Our armed forces have served there. Some 23 fallen Canadian soldiers and peacekeepers are buried in the Commonwealth Gaza War Cemetery near Gaza City.

It’s often said that countries don’t have friends — they have interests. Canada has an obvious interest in stability in a region in which regime change has, to say the least, not gone well in recent years. A strong Saudi Arabia, balancing Iran and its regional allies, is not a bad thing. Conversely, if you dislike the current government of Saudi Arabia (and there are good reasons to do so), you had better ask yourself who and what might replace it.

Third, as a mature country, we have to be able to deal with governments and regimes with which we do not always agree. The world is full of countries that do not share our values and beliefs. Should we adopt a policy of refusing to trade with people whose values are out of line with our own? Regrettably, that might leave us with a rather limited number of potential customers.

Canada, it should be pointed out, is not supplying the Saudis with equipment that can be used in torture or persecution of women. We are selling military vehicles — basically fancy trucks — of the sort that are required by any country’s armed forces, and which we happen to be good at making.

Finally, I find myself wondering whether the people who are now loudly proclaiming that we should block the sale of military vehicles to the Saudis are being equally vigorous in their support of a pipeline from Alberta to the East Coast — a pipeline that would reduce and perhaps end our dependence on oil imports from that same country. Somehow, I doubt it.

In my judgement, selling light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia is good for Canada and Canadian workers, and fully justifiable on moral grounds.

----

John Manley is president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2000 to 2002.

Think LAVs are thorny? Wait for the missile debate

By: KONRAD YAKABUSKI, The Globe and Mail

If you think the decision to sell arms to Saudi Arabia has inflamed old animosities between Liberal hawks and doves, realists and idealists, continentalists and anti-Americans, just wait until the debate about Canada joining the U.S. ballistic missile defence system gets fired up.

It is a debate Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would prefer to do without. But a lot has changed since the last Liberal government said “no” to signing on to BMD in 2005. Now Canada is increasingly out of sync with its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, seen as a free-riding non-participant in its own defence.

Harjit Sajjan can’t avoid this elephant in the room as he launches a review of Canadian defence policy. On Monday, the Defence Minister acknowledged that any consultation that omitted reopening the discussion on missile defence could not be considered an “open” defence review.

As his own department’s discussion paper unpinning the review explains: “Given the increase in the number of countries with access to ballistic missile technology and their potential to reach North America, this threat is expected to endure and grow more sophisticated in coming decades. In response to this change in the security environment, many of Canada’s partners and allies are working closely [on BMD] capabilities.”

But just how “open” is Mr. Trudeau to reconsidering a policy that tore apart his party the last time it crept onto the agenda? Not participating in BMD dovetails with the peace-seeker image he likes to project.

One of former prime minister Paul Martin’s first moves after taking over from Jean Chrétien was to ask the Americans, miffed about Canada’s decision to stay out of the war in Iraq, about joining then-U.S. president George W. Bush’s nascent BMD program. Mr. Martin’s defence minister David Pratt wrote in an early 2004 letter to his U.S. counterpart: “We believe this should provide a mutually beneficial framework to ensure the closest possible involvement and insight for Canada, both industry and government, in the U.S. missile defence program.”

Both Mr. Pratt and his successor at National Defence, Bill Graham, supported joining the U.S. initiative. But much of the Liberal brain trust was outraged.Lloyd Axworthy lashed out against Martin government ministers seeking to “appease Washington power brokers by signing on to an unnecessary missile defence system.” A who’s who of Canadian celebrities, including Alexandre Trudeau (then the activist Trudeau scion considered most likely to succeed in politics), formed “Stars Against Star Wars” to campaign against Canada joining BMD.

The issue became moot after Mr. Martin was reduced to a minority government in a mid-2004 election and was forced to rely on New Democratic Party votes in the House of Commons. (BMD was and remains a non-starter for the New Democrats.) Mr. Martin’s early 2005 decision to officially reject Canada’s participation in BMD was denounced as “delusional” by the Conservative opposition. But during his almost 10 years in power, former prime minister Stephen Harper never reversed the policy.

Whether it was public opinion or a shrinking (in real terms) defence budget that led to Mr. Harper’s non-action, it ran counter to NATO’s move to make BMD part of its “core task of collective defence.” As Mr. Pratt told a 2014 Senate committee: “We have 28 NATO nations saying that they endorse the need to protect their populations against rogue missiles, and Canada has been saying all the right things at NATO but not doing anything when it comes to our own situation here in North America.”

Since 2005, Iran and North Korea have continued to perfect their missiles – “to the point a threat has become a practical reality,” as the Senate defence committee’s final report put it two years ago. Russia and China are developing new weapons capable of striking North America, partly in reaction to a $1-trillion plan to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal that is championed by Barack Obama, the same U.S. president who won a Nobel Peace Prize for promoting nuclear non-proliferation.

The four-member panel appointed by Mr. Sajjan to review Canada’s defence policy includes Mr. Graham and former chief of the defence staff Ray Henault, both of whom are believed to have pressed Mr. Martin to join the U.S. program in 2005. Margaret Purdy, a former associate deputy minister of defence, may be similarly inclined. The same cannot be said for former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour.

Ultimately, it will be Mr. Trudeau’s call. Either way, it will divide his part

Montreal Law Professor Sues Liberal Government Over Conservative Vehicle Sale to Saudi Arabia

Written by: Steven Chase, The Globe and Mail 

Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion is acting illegally by issuing permits to allow the export of combat vehicles to Saudi Arabia, a lawsuit filed in Federal Court on Monday alleges.

Opponents of Canada’s $15-billion arms deal with the Saudis are taking the Trudeau government to court in an attempt to block shipments of the fighting vehicles to Riyadh.

A group led by Daniel Turp, a professor of international and constitutional law at the University of Montreal, filed a notice of application for judicial review on Monday.

The Liberals have repeatedly refused to cancel the contract, but Dr. Turp argues this isn’t about whether a deal should be abrogated. According to Dr. Turp, the question at hand is whether the Liberals are fulfilling their legal obligations to properly implement Canadian restrictions on weapons exports – both under Canadian export rules and the Geneva Conventions Act.

He says Mr. Dion’s responsibility to carefully police exports of arms to countries with poor human-rights records isn’t extinguished simply because Ottawa doesn’t want to cancel a business deal.

The legal action may force the Liberals to explain how they justify these exports to a human-rights pariah despite Canadian rules that place restrictions on weapons shipments to countries where civilians are abused or where conflict is taking place.

“Saudi Arabia is a country ruled by a dictatorship supported by a powerful army,” the Turp application says. “Saudi Arabia is … a state which consistently, severely and systematically violates its citizens’ human rights.”

Dr. Turp has taken Ottawa to court before, including in 2012, when he challenged the Harper government’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol.

The Canadian government is the prime contractor in a deal to supply the Saudi monarchy with $15-billion of armoured vehicles that will be equipped with machine guns or anti-tank weapons. The manufacturer, supporting 3,000 jobs in Canada, is General Dynamics Land Systems Canada in London, Ont.

“The armoured vehicles to be delivered by General Dynamics Land Systems Canada to Saudi Arabia may be used against the civilian population and therefore, the issuance of export permits … would not respect the guidelines Canada imposed on itself and would be contrary to the Geneva Conventions Act,” Dr. Turp’s application says. “For those reasons, issuing those permits would be illegal.”

The Trudeau government did not immediately respond when asked for comment. A spokesman for Mr. Dion left it to bureaucrats at Global Affairs Canada to answer the media query.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has stood by the massive contract, which was signed by the former Harper government, saying Canada’s reputation as a fair dealer would be injured if Ottawa walked away from a signed deal. Mr. Dion has also warned that abrogating the deal could incur big financial penalties for Ottawa – however, he refuses to elaborate on the size of the liability Canada would face.

Dr. Turp, supported by students at the University of Montreal and Montreal law firm Trudel Johnston & Lespérance, argues Mr. Dion’s responsibility to properly police arms exports is unaffected by who signed the deal or what legal consequences might follow from blocked shipments.

The former Bloc Québécois MP, who later served as a Parti Québécois MNA, said he finds it hard to believe Mr. Dion, once a professor at the University of Montreal himself, really believes the Saudi deal is appropriate.

Mr. Dion, as Foreign Minister, is responsible for signing export permits to allow the light-armoured vehicles (LAVs) to leave Canada for Saudi Arabia. Dr. Turp said the guidelines followed by cabinet stipulate that “Canada will not allow the export of military equipment to countries whose governments have a persistent record of serious violations of human rights of their citizens – unless it can be demonstrated that there is no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population.”

Dr. Turp’s legal action argues it is impossible for the Saudis to guarantee they won’t use armoured vehicles against civilians.

The war Saudi Arabia is currently waging in neighbouring Yemen has already drawn serious accusations of human-rights violations from a United Nations panel. A UN report earlier this year blamed the Saudi-led coalition of Arab states fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen for “widespread and systematic” air-strike attacks on civilian targets.

The Globe and Mail reported last month that Canadian-made armoured vehicles manufactured by General Dynamics appear to be embroiled in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen– caught up in cross-border hostilities.

The Saudi Arabian National Guard, a buyer of many Canadian-made LAVs in the past decade, has published photos on its official Twitter account showing how, in late 2015, it moved columns of combat vehicles to Najran, a southwestern Saudi town near the border with Yemen that is in the thick of the conflict.

A significant number of vehicles in these photos have the triangular front corners, the eight wheels and the headlamps fixed above these triangles that are familiar features in earlier LAV models made in Canada.