UPDATED: On Cheap Talk And Photo-Ops

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.
-George Orwell

Regarding the misuse by the Saudis of armoured vehicles Canada sold them, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says all the right words. She says

... she’s “deeply concerned” about recent videos that appear to show Canadian-made armoured vehicles being used by Saudi Arabia in a crackdown against its own citizens.

.... she has instructed her officials to “urgently” investigate the matter

She said the investigation must be done energetically but also “very carefully”.

And, for good measure, Freeland reassures us that she and her government

are absolutely committed to the defence of human rights and we condemn all violations of human rights,”.

All fine words, to be sure, but talk is cheap, and, as Orwell was fond of pointing out, can be used to defend the indefensible.

Notably absent in the Foreign Affairs Minster's rhetoric is what Canada plans to do about the situation, once it is verified, beyond this rather anodyne statement:

“[W]e will respond accordingly.”

Now, some may take me to task for intimating that except for some expressions of outrage, her Trudeau government will do nothing once the abuse has been verified. The reason I rush to judgement is that the Harper government that brokered the deal, and the Trudeau government that gave its stamp of approval to it, knew the deal with the devil they were getting into.

A piece recently written by Shannon Gormely sets such facts out in stark relief:

Representatives of not one but two Canadian governments – a previous Conservative government that in its steadfast avarice struck a $15-billion arms deal with the devil, and a current Liberal government that in its flippant cynicism signed off on it – are, with great conviction, taking turns promising and demanding the most rigorous of investigations into the alleged war criminal they have each aided and abetted.

They speak of Saudi Arabia, which apparently paused its targeting of schools, hospitals, marketplaces and weddings in Yemen to reload with some made-in-Canada ammo in its own Eastern Province. If video footage is to be believed, Canada, through yet another weapons deal (beyond that $15-billion one), has facilitated a multiple homicide by handing the murder weapons to a killer.

Gormley suggests that with full knowledge of the Saudi proclivity for using weapons against their own people, both the Conservative and Liberal governments should have followed one ironclad and very moral rule:

Don’t sell weapons to murderers.

It doesn’t matter if the murderer offers you a lot of money – lives are worth more than money. It doesn’t matter if the murderer could perhaps find another willing seller – better not, overall, to race to the bottom when the bottom is a mass grave. It doesn’t even matter if the murderer may, in theory, decide to use a weapon to defend your friends after using it to murder innocent people, or if they aren’t as bad as other murderers, or if they ask for the murder weapon really, really nicely. Don’t sell weapons to murderers.

Politicians' talk is cheap, and Trudeau's distracting propensity for peddling sunny selfies cannot conceal an ugly and indisputable fact:

The Liberals and Conservatives allowed Canadian companies to sell weapons to a murderer, and whether or not there is already blood on their hands, there is shame of the highest order.

UPDATE: From the pants-on-fire-department:

... 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.

A Canadian arms-export researcher, Ken Epps, says the Saudi arms sales reveal the contradictions with the department of Global Affairs, which is supposed to promote business with other countries but also police military and defence shipments.

Also, Mr. Epps said what’s unfolding now in Saudi Arabia exposes how Ottawa has long failed to meet the test set out in arms-control guidelines: The government is supposed to have “demonstrated there is no reasonable risk” that military goods may be used against the local population before it signs export permits.

In the case of the $15-billion deal, the Liberal government never met this threshold, said Mr. Epps, with Project Ploughshares, a disarmament group. It merely stated it was not aware of any abuse of citizens with Canadian-made goods.

“It appears that the Canadian government isn’t even using its own standards.”

You can read the full story here.

What Would You Be Willing To Sacrifice?

Ed Finn has a blog entry at rabble.ca that I highly recommend. His thesis can roughly be summarized in this excerpt:

The glue that holds any society together is faith in its governments, courts, churches, unions and non-profits -- faith that these organizations, no matter how flawed, will always be committed to serving their basic needs, to protecting them from the worst effects of poverty, unemployment, and sickness.

That glue comes unstuck when governments put private interests ahead of the public interest; when corporations put the uncontrolled pursuit of profits ahead of the well-being of workers and their communities; when unions are stripped of much of their capacity to help their members.

No wonder, then, that so many people have concluded that they can no longer depend collectively on these institutions -- that they are now on their own as individuals, each locked in a struggle for survival, with little or no help from any quarter.

The disastrous result, Finn suggests, is that we increasingly adopt a very selfish outlook on life, moving, if you will forgive a bit of hyperbole, into a stark survival-of-the-fittest lifestyle, a reversion to an almost Hobbesian state of nature.

There can really be no doubt that Western governments, including our 'new' one under Justin Trudeau, are neoliberal in nature. And the kinds of selfishness those governments foster are, without any hyperbole, facilitating the destruction of our world. The notion of sacrificing anything in service of the collective good is being steadily eroded, replaced by a widespread self-indulgence that has been transformed into a virtue.

My immediate concern here is the ever-accelerating rate of climate change, the greatest peril our planet has ever faced. While acknowledging that there are still some very good people today, I cannot escape the notion that the majority would obdurately refuse to make even the smallest sacrifice or lifestyle change that could, if done in sufficient numbers, slow down that rate. And quite significantly, our governments, beyond some paltry carbon taxes, are requiring nothing from us. That vacuum in leadership, in turn, gives licence to the very self-indulgent lifestyles that neoliberalism demands.

The kinds of sacrifices I am talking about are small ones we all could take: not idling our car while waiting for our spouse in the grocery store; combining errands to reduce GHG emissions; walking to the store instead of driving; eating one less meal of beef or pork per week; turning the air-conditioning temperature up one degree and heating temperature down one degree; buying energy-efficient products upon replacement; buying energy-efficient cars; air-drying clothes instead of using the dryer, etc.

All of the above require conscious choices, but none of them is onerous. I shall leave you with some video that highlights the peril we face, as well as this question: What small sacrifices are you willing to make or have made to reduce your carbon footprint?





If you go to approximately the five-minute mark on the following Global National newscast, you will see the impact climate change is having on Vancouver:

Are There Cracks In The Liberal Fortress?

Justin Trudeau and his band of sunny men and women have had, up to this point at least, a pretty easy ride with the Canadian electorate. After years of darkness under the Harper regime, the liberating promise of an open government bent upon truly representing citizens had an allure and cachet too strong to resist. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly apparent that the swap we made at the last election was more cosmetic than substantive, as I have observed many times in this blog.

No fortress is truly impermeable, and cracks are beginning to form in the Liberal one, thanks to some solid journalism and critical thinking. The latest breach in the walls comes via a story on the CBC website.

The Prime Minister's Office received a flood of emails opposing the government's bill to implement new pre-clearance measures at Canadian airports and other departure points following a CBC News story on concerns about the powers the bill grants to U.S. border agents, documents show.

It's been eight months since the U.S. Congress passed its version of a law to implement the latest cross-border agreement with Canada.

The U.S. law authorizes its Customs and Border Protection officials to set up pre-clearance locations at more Canadian locations, allowing Canadian travellers to bypass immigration and customs procedures on arrival at their U.S. destination.

Despite the convenience such a law would seem to promise, there is also something quite disquieting about the Canadian version that was passed by the House but is being held up by the Senate, and Canadians are making known their displeasure:

CBC News has obtained a trove of public communications, mostly emails, sent over a 10-day period following the a CBC News story on controversial aspects of C-23, particularly the new powers it would grant to U.S. border agents working on Canadian soil.
Most of the letter writers express concern about parts of the bill that grant new powers to U.S. border agents working in Canada. Those include the right to bear arms and, most controversially, the discretionary power to detain Canadians for further questioning if the U.S. agent is unhappy with their answers.

Until now, Canadians passing through U.S. Customs pre-clearance in a Canadian airport have had the right to simply withdraw their request to enter the U.S. if the encounter goes badly, and leave the pre-clearance area.

Section 31 of Canada's legislation takes away that right.

Government insiders say the volume of mail received was "unprecedented" and took officials at Public Safety by surprise.

And it is not just the usual suspects who are expressing their discontent:

The documents show the negative feedback included many missives from people who described themselves as Liberal supporters.

"I have been a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal, but you lose my support if you pass this bill," wrote one person from Burlington, Ont., on Feb. 12.

The same morning, a Coquitlam, B.C., resident warned that after reading about the bill, they now "regretted any financial or political support I've ever given the federal Liberal Party in the past, and have resolved, until I see this one modified to prevent detentions of Canadians or permanent residents, never to support your party again."

"I have voted Liberal all my life but will do evering (sic) to bring this government down if this bill is passed or any version of it," wrote another.

You can read some of the specific comments made about the bill by clicking on the first link above, but the one of the strongest objections seems to be that the bill entails an infringement upon our rights as Canadian citizens "by allowing a U.S. authority to detain Canadians while on Canadian soil."

Mr. Trudeau has said that we live in a post-national age. Clearly, there are many Canadians who refuse to accept his facile assessment.

The Fast-Approaching Abyss

While North American politicians give us either sunny platitudes or outright denials, the reality of the climate-change abyss we are quickly approaching should now be becoming apparent to even the most benighted among us:

Today's History Lesson

Danger Everywhere

There are far too many perils facing the world today, both natural and unnatural.

UPDATED: Will It Be All Talk And No Action?

There will always be those who see Justin Trudeau only through the public image he has so assiduously cultivated. Others, however, refuse to suspend their critical faculties despite the Prime Minister's fine hair, sunny rhetoric and public earnestness. They demand that his 'sunny ways' be met with the kinds of actions a leader with character and integrity takes in difficult situations.

The latest test for Mr. Trudeau comes with the apparent proof that Saudi Arabia is using the Canadian-made armoured vehicles we sold them against their own citizens.

For the first time, video footage and photos have surfaced on social media allegedly showing the Islamic kingdom using Canadian weaponized equipment against Saudi civilians – a development that spurred calls Friday for the Liberal government to halt defence exports to the oil-rich nation.

The Canadian government is now investigating, but it is a move I take little reassurance in, given that allegations of misuse of the vehicles have been around for quite some time.

I am reproducing the editorial in today's Hamilton Spectator, as it addresses the implications of this issue well:

When Justin Trudeau's Liberals were elected, they inherited an odious legacy: a 2014 deal to sell armed military vehicles to Saudi Arabia. The deal, worth $15 billion, rankled many because it meant Canada would become a major arms supplier to a regime that has a record of brutalizing its own citizens in the name of quelling dissent.

Trudeau acknowledged he didn't like the deal, but he felt compelled to honour it for the sake of preserving Canada's reputation as a reliable business partner. That didn't satisfy the most strident critics, but many people could at least see the logic in his rationale.

However, all through that controversy, there was a hard stop. Reasonable people, and the government, could tolerate the deal-with-the-devil provided we could be guaranteed the Saudis wouldn't turn the armed might against their own citizens.

Now, credible media reports from the region claim Saudi Arabia has deployed Canadian combat hardware against civilians. There are photographs showing a vehicle that looks exactly like the Canadian product, called an 'Armoured Gurkha.' Military experts, including a retired and anonymous Canadian general, have verified the claim.

The company that makes the Gurkha says it can't comment. The government is aware and investigating. The Globe and Mail reported a statement from the office of Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland which says: "If it is found that Canadian exports have been used to commit serious violations of human rights, the minister will take action." It also says: "The end use and end user of exports, as well as regional stability and human rights, are essential considerations in the authorization of permits for the export of military goods from Canada."

If these reports are true, the worst fears of peace advocates and others critical of such deals will be realized. Canada will again be supplying lethal military equipment to be used against civilians.

Those advocates, as well as opposition parties, are already calling on the government to halt further exports. Obviously, the government won't act on media reports alone, so if a moratorium is necessary it won't happen overnight. But it shouldn't take months, either. And the government had better not rag the puck on this. If the reports are true, the government needs to stop further shipments, kill the deal and tell Canadians in no uncertain terms it has done so and will not support new deals that carry the same risk.

Justin Trudeau was elected on wave of optimism and idealism that looks naïve in hindsight. Trudeau can restore some bruised credibility by doing the right thing in this case. We may not be able to stop tyrannical foreign governments from slaughtering their own people, but we don't have to supply the bullets.

Howard Elliott

Photo-ops are fine, but it is time that Mr. Trudeau start acting with resolve and integrity in this urgent matter.

UPDATE: Former federal Liberal cabinet minister Irwin Cotler says,

... Saudi Arabia’s apparent deployment of Canadian-made combat vehicles against Saudi citizens demonstrates why Canada should end all arms sales to the Islamic kingdom.

“I am not saying we shouldn’t be trading with Saudi Arabia. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be engaging with Saudi Arabia. I’m just saying we shouldn’t be selling any more arms to Saudi Arabia”.

You can read the full story here.