Should we really care that Saudi Arabia has taken umbrage against Canada for its criticism of the repressive monarchy's human rights record? Probably not.
The Saudi reaction is to a tweet last week by Foreign Affairs Minister Christia Freeland in support of Canadian-Saudi citizen Ensaf Haidar and her husband civil rights activist Raif Badawi and sister-in-law Samar Badawi, who are under arrest in Riyadh for criticizing the Saudi regime, along with several other women's rights activists who have been recently arrested without due process. The offending tweet reads: "Very alarmed to learn that Samar Badawi, Raif Badawi’s sister, has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. Canada stands together with the Badawi family in this difficult time, and we continue to strongly call for the release of both Raif and Samar Badawi."
Almost immediately the Saudi government issues a strongly-worded statement (on Twitter of course), chastising Canada for its "overt and blatamt interference the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" (I am unsure how such criticism in the form of a tweet constitutes internal interference). They summarily ejected Canada's Saudi ambassador and withdrew their own ambassador to Canada, and vowed to close down trade between the two countries. Most recently, they have cancelled all flights between the countries and signalled their intention to pull out all Saudi students studying in Canadian universities and place them elsewhere in more pliant countries (although that might not be quite as easy as they think).
To her credit, Ms. Freeland has doubled down on the Canadian position, and not just crumpled in the face of this attempted intimidation, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has publicly backed her up, with no sign of the public apology Saudi Arabia is insisting on.
Despite a few recent examples of liberalization like allowing women to drive (oooh!), the kingdom is still considered one of the most repressive countries in the world. It is also engaged in a nasty war with neighbouring Yemen that has attracted a lot of international criticism. Canada has made no secret of its criticism of the regime's human rights attitudes - indeed, the Canadian parliament unanimously called for the release of Raid Badawi over three years ago - even if the Liberals did still see fit to go ahead with a controversial sale of armoured vehicles to the country that was originally brokered by the previous Harper government.
Some Middle East commentators have posited that this outraged response to some pretty tame criticism by Canada is essentially a bit of posturing on the part of Saudi Arabia, which wants to send a message to other western countries that it will not tolerate any criticism of its civil rights record, choosing Canada specifically because the two countries do not have a large trading relationship, so that closing down trade would not cause too great a disruption for itself, but would still send a message to others. It is certainly an easier option than taking issue with Britain, which has also criticized the regime, but which has large numbers of very well-heeled and influential Saudi citizens living there.
Trade between the two countries amounted to about $4 billion last year, which might sound like a lot, but in the world of multinational finances is paltry. A good portion of Canada's exports to the kingdom is "tanks and tank parts", much of it due to the abovementioned controversial combat vehicle deal, which a good proportion of Canafians would happily see recinded. Most of what Canada imports from Saudi Arabia is, inexplicably, oil: apparently we buy some 75,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil each year from Riyadh, which seems kind of ridiculous for a major oil-producing nation, although experts argue that this could easily be replaced if necessary. In international trade terms, though, Canada's commerce with the kingdom is small potatoes, and neither of the countries is actually reliant on trade with the other. Indeed, there has been more than one article in the business press recently bemoaning the poor trade between the two countries. The withdrawal of Saudi students in Canada is expected to affect about 15,000 (up to 20,000 including accompanying family members), and might have a financial impact on Canada of some hundreds of millions of dollars).
One has to wonder whether the whole thing has not been deliberately concocted by the Canadian government in order to allow them a get-out from the unpalatable armoured vehicle contract, which has left a very bad taste in the Liberal government's mouth, but which they feel obliged to honour for political / public relations / local employment reasons, even if there are many reasons why they would actually prefer to abandon it (I too would happily see that particular contract cancelled, and what better opportunity will we ever have). Maybe I am reading too much into it, but this would certainly be an ideal time for Canada to distance itself from an odious regime, and probably without offending (and possibly even extending) its voting base.
Either way, the Saudi overreaction to a bit of criticism of its human rights record (nothing new), has blown the whole issue up and highlighted for the world what Saudi Arabia would almost certainly prefer to keep hidden.
UPDATE
The limits of Saudi Arabia's outrage were made very clear just a few days later. Their Energy Minister made a pretty unequivocal statement that Riyadh's oil sales to Canada will not be affected by the ongoing political row: "the Kingdom's petroleum supplies to countries around the world are not to be impacted by political considerations" - i.e. if it's going to cost them money, they are not that interested. It doesn't get much clearer than that.
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