Harper's 'principled' foreign policy is empty rhetoric for profit
Both Swedish and Canadian foreign policy approaches were recently criticized for their stance on selling arms to Saudi Arabia, with the Canadian government defending its decision to supply Light Armored Vehicles (LAVs) to a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world, at the same time as Sweden decided to cancel its arms deal with the gulf state.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper describes Canada's foreign policy as 'principled', though he is less clear about what these principles are. In contrast, Sweden -- a country often compared to Canada as reflecting similar social and political values -- defines its foreign policy as explicitly feminist.
In 2014, the Canadian government signed its largest ever arms export deal, worth $14.8 billion, to supply LAVs to Saudi Arabia. Canada has supplied LAVs to Saudi Arabia since 1993, with exports increasing over the last few years.
The Canadian government says the new deal will generate 3,000 advanced manufacturing jobs for 14 years, as well as thousands of other jobs for suppliers. Saudi Arabia is currently Canada's second largest export market in the Middle East, and will now be the largest recipient of crown-corporation brokered military export contracts, surpassing the U.S. for the first time.
However, Canada has laws (if not principles) regarding to whom it can export weapons. Under the Canadian Export and Import Permits Act the government can only provide export permits for arms to "governments have a persistent record of serious violations of the 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."
READ MORE: http://rabble.ca/news/2015/04/harpers-principled-foreign-policy-empty-rhetoric-profit
No comments:
Post a Comment