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The Liberal government is refusing to make
public a recently completed assessment of the state of human rights in
Saudi Arabia even as it endures criticism for proceeding with a
$15-billion deal to ship weaponized armoured vehicles to the Mideast
country.
Saudi Arabia, notorious for
its treatment of women, dissidents and offenders, became the focus of
international condemnation this month over a mass execution of 47
people, including Shia Muslim cleric Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, an
exceptionally vocal critic of the ruling Al Saud family.
A country’s human rights record is an
important consideration in the arms export control process that
determines whether Canadian-made weapons can be exported there. The
Saudi deal was brokered by Ottawa, which also serves as the prime
contractor in the transaction.
The
buyer is the Saudi Arabian National Guard, which protects the kingdom
against internal threats. A major source of domestic unrest in the
country is the eastern provinces and the Shia minority there that Sheik
al-Nimr represented.
Federal arms
export controls oblige Ottawa, in the case of export destinations with a
“persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their
citizens,” to obtain assurances that the Saudis will not turn these
light armoured vehicles (LAVs) against their own people. The rules say
shipments cannot proceed “unless it can be demonstrated there is no
reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian
population.”
Amnesty International has
called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new government to be
transparent with Canadians and explain how this deal passes the arms
export regime test. The manufacturer, General Dynamics Land Systems, of
London, Ont., is in the “material procurement” phase of the contract
rather than production.
But the
government told The Globe and Mail that its latest analysis of the
Saudis’ recent human rights record is confidential. This study is the
first assessment the department of Global Affairs has drawn up on Saudi
Arabia in a number of years.
“A report
on Saudi Arabia has been prepared for 2015 as part of the department’s
annual process of producing human rights reports on numerous countries.
This document is intended for internal Government of Canada use only,
and, as such, will not be made public,” said François Lasalle, a
spokesman for Global Affairs Canada.
The
Globe and Mail reported on Thursday that, far from being “jeeps,” as
Mr. Trudeau described them during the election campaign, the armoured
LAVs will be equipped with medium-calibre weapons and big-barrel guns
capable of firing anti-tank missiles.
The
Liberal government is also refusing to release any information on how
Ottawa will justify the export of armoured vehicles under Canada’s
export control regime.
“For reasons of
commercial confidentiality, Global Affairs Canada does not comment on
specific export permit applications,” Mr. Lasalle said.
Alex
Neve, Amnesty International’s secretary-general for Canada, said
Ottawa’s silence is troubling. “We’re not looking for access to
commercially sensitive information here. We want a human rights
assessment: What is … the likelihood these weapons might directly or
indirectly be used in a way that contributes to human rights
violations?”
He said the U.S. State Department annually makes public its reports on all countries’ human rights practices.
Amnesty,
meanwhile, released a report on Thursday that says the human rights
situation in Saudi Arabia “has steadily deteriorated” over the past
year.
The advocacy group said Riyadh
stepped up executions in 2015, killing at least 151 people that year
alone – the highest annual toll in two decades.
“Despite
the much-hailed participation of women in municipal elections last
month, Saudi Arabia continued its sweeping crackdown on human rights
activists,” the organization said. “More and more human rights defenders
are being sentenced to years in prison under Saudi Arabia’s 2014
counter-terror law.”
Foreign Affairs
Minister Stéphane Dion this week rejected calls to cancel or block the
LAV deal, saying Canada’s reputation would be hurt. The transaction will
support 3,000 jobs in Canada for nearly 15 years – many of them in the
London area.
In opposition, the
Liberals were frequent critics of the secrecy surrounding this deal and
Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. In particular, Mr. Trudeau’s top
adviser, Gerald Butts, frequently used his Twitter account to attack
Stephen Harper’s Conservatives for their close ties to the Saudis,
especially in the context of the $15-billion contract.
“Remind
me, did Harper ever disclose the terms of his arms deal with Saudi
Arabia?” Mr. Butts wrote during the 2015 election campaign.
Mr.
Butts, currently the Prime Minister’s principle secretary, at one point
used his Twitter account to draw comparisons between the justice system
in Saudi Arabia and under the Islamic State – and blaming the Saudis
for the birth of the extremist group.
He
criticized the Tories for trumpeting what they called their “principled
foreign policy” but counting the Saudis among Canada’s top allies.
“Don’t
make me remind you that Saudi Arabia is crucifying a boy for writing a
blog,” Mr. Butts wrote on Twitter last October in response to Andrew
MacDougall, a former director of communications to Mr. Harper.
In
March, 2015, Mr. Butts applauded the Swedish government for denouncing
human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. He posted a link to a story that
included an account of how Sweden announced it would not renew a
military co-operation deal with the Saudis worth hundreds of millions of
dollars.
