Stephan Dion Admits Military Exports are More Important Than Human Rights.

Jinentonix

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It's pretty sad when Super Dupe's picks for cabinet are about as useless and stupid as he is.

In an effort to justify the Liberals position to continue the sale of military hardware to Saudi Arabia, Stephan Dion came up with this little gem:
The government doesn’t approve this contract. The government simply refuses to terminate a contract that has already been approved by the former government. … This is an important difference.
Bullshit. Govts cancel contracts set up by former govts all the time. For a domestic example see the EH-101 contract.
But Mr. Dion doesn't tell the whole truth. The “done deal” argument came into question on April 12, when a secret Global Affairs Canada memo – released as part of a legal challenge to the Saudi arms deal – showed the Conservatives had only approved minor-level export permits for the LAVs, and that Mr. Dion had quietly approved the remaining permits for an unspecified number of vehicles on April 8. April 8 is AFTER Amnesty International called for countries to stop their exports of military hardware to Saudi Arabia after it was conclusively proven they are using the equipment against civilians. It's quite clear that Mr Dion certainly approved of this deal in spite of the bullshit he spewed.

Mr. Dion defended his decision to sign the permits. Days later, in an interview with The Globe’s editorial board, he said he alone made the call, in consultation with International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, who said she was “comfortable” with Mr. Dion’s decision. Mr. Dion said refusing to sign would have provoked a major economic backlash from Saudi Arabia. What backlash? So far the only investment in Canada from that shithole is hundreds of millions to build and expand private islamic schools to spread their hateful religion. Not really what one would call a smart trade.

The Saudis largely stayed quiet amid the debate in Canada over the arms deal – until March 2016, when the Saudi embassy in Ottawa issued a statement saying it would not accept outside criticism of the kingdom’s human-rights record. The embassy statement also pointed out that Riyadh could have easily purchased the LAVs elsewhere. Mr. Dion used the same rationale weeks later when he argued cancelling the deal would be a futile gesture that “would not have an effect on human rights in Saudi Arabia.”So he decided Canada should be complicit in human rights abuses and profit from them instead.
How progressive. It seems under the current regime in Canada that terrorism and profits come before basic human rights and dignity.
 

WLDB

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Jun 24, 2011
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Was there ever really any doubt? The major parties all agree with this in practice though not with their words. Jobs and money have always trumped human rights, particularly the ones of people on the other side of the world. Out of sight, out of mind,
 

tay

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Dion, Freeland the others aren't stupid per se. They know damn well what they are doing but the bigger question is why are they doing it? Who is pulling the strings behind the scenes?

Can it all be for just personal financial gain for them in same far away bank after they have left the stage or shadow 'no work' jobs where they get paycheques for life or are they threatened behind the scenes to do as the string pullers say of face or face ruination?

They are operating just like the mob......


Just what in hell did the Liberal government think Saudi Arabia was going to do when the upheld a multi-billion dollar sale of lethal weaponry to the radical Sunni state?

Word is that Ottawa is having second thoughts after reports that the Saudis are turning the weaponry on their Shiite population. Well, who'da thunk it? Who? Hell, anybody, it's the Saudis, jeebus. You knew that Saudi Arabia is the real state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East and yet you kissed their ass and patted their bums when you were done.

Ottawa, yes Justin Trudeau's government, supported the Saudis while they created a humanitarian crisis in Yemen by destroying Houthi villages. No, it wasn't just supporting the Saudis. We, along with the Americans and the Brits, collaborated with the Saudis. I guess women and children in Yemen are fair game but women and children inside Saudi Arabia are off limits.

Media reports and social media posts from the town of Awamiya, which has been under siege by Saudi security forces since May, show government forces using what appear to be armoured personnel carriers (APCs) produced and exported to the oil-rich kingdom by Terradyne Armored Vehicles Inc., a privately owned company based in Newmarket, Ont.

Global Affairs spokesperson John Babcock says Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland is "deeply concerned about this situation and has asked officials to review it immediately."

"If it is found that Canadian exports have been used to commit serious violations of human rights, the minister will take action."



And while you're checking into that, how about finding out what the Saudis have been doing with those made-in-Canada LAV armoured fighting vehicles? Maybe they're over in Yemen - out of sight, out of mind.
 
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Cliffy

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Nov 19, 2008
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The military/industrial complex (which includes their bankster buddies) owns Canada just as much as they own the US. The puppets in Ottawa, both liberals and Conservatives, are bought and paid for. They are there to keep your attention from the real controllers of this corporation call Canada Inc.
 

Johnnny

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It's like you ****ing retards that are gone crazy for TRUbeau or the Harper Renaissance.

We only care about human rights if the paper trail comes back to government
 

Cliffy

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Dion was only admitting to the obvious. It has taken some people a lifetime to realize that money is all that matters.Humans are being farmed by every government on the planet. Get back to me when you realize that.
 

tay

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Ontario seats, or Saudi lives? In Ottawa, there’s no contest.


About a week before the 2015 federal election, Justin Trudeau waltzed onto the dais of Tout le mode en parle, Quebec’s weekly talk show. About 1.2 million sets of eyeballs take in TLMEP every week, making an appearance a necessity for most (though certainly not all) federal politicians. Suitably, Trudeau was at his Trudeaupian best, interspersing well-meaning Liberal boilerplate with soupçons of his now-familiar smarm.

At one point, host Guy A. Lepage asked Trudeau about the federal government’s decision to allow the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia, “a country harshly criticized for its disrespect of human rights.”

Trudeau quickly corrected the host. “First of all, they aren’t weapons, they’re Jeeps,” he tut-tutted.

His ensuing explanation of why the Liberals were OK with the Conservative government’s approval of the sale — contortions of logic that would turn your average human being into a pretzel — was predicated on this very conceit: those aren’t weapons, silly. They’re little trucks. Canada — or at least a Canadian company — was basically selling the Saudis a bunch of Wranglers.

Always flimsy, this conceit collapsed entirely over the last week when images of Canadian-made armoured vehicles involved a military campaign against the country’s Shia minority showed up on social media (and in the Globe and Mail’s excellent reporting). Five civilians died at the hands of the Saudi National Guard over the course of two days, according to Reuters — the latest eruption of sectarian bloodshed in one of the most violent and repressive countries on earth.

There is a caveat, of course. The vehicles in question aren’t part of the export deal approved by the former Conservative government in 2014 and rubber-stamped by Trudeau’s Liberals a year later. That deal, worth an estimated $15 billion, was for LAV-25s, manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems. The armoured vehicles being used by the Saudis against civilians in their Eastern Province, according to the Globe, appear to be Gurkha RPVs, built by Terradyne Armored Vehicles of Newmarket, Ont.

Yet the facts remain stubbornly hard to evade: The Canadian government, regardless of stripe, has been willing to permit arms sales to a country with an altogether dodgy human rights record, as well as an documented propensity to attack, murder and otherwise snuff out the democratic expressions of its Shia minority. And to understand exactly why the government would do such business with a psychopathic world actor, one need look only as far as London, Ontario, the key political district where General Dynamics builds the LAV-25.

Politically, London is catnip to politicians. A vote-rich region long beset by social ailments and higher-than-average unemployment rates, it is an ideal place for a politician to park his or her promises. And London’s four federal ridings are also the stuff of horse races — traditionally Liberal bastions that have gone overwhelmingly Conservative blue over the last decade or so.

In the General Dynamics plant, the Conservatives saw a military manufacturing behemoth aching for a lifeline as it struggled with post-Afghanistan doldrums, located in the sole London riding held by the NDP. What followed was a rather textbook case in how electoral brinkmanship blinded this country’s three major political parties.

Harper lobbied hard for the project with Saudi Arabia, and defended it to the hilt once General Dynamics won it. The NDP, Canada’s traditional home for peaceniks, itself caved to a more important constituency: the union movement, which bellowed loudly for the deal if only because the 3,000-strong General Dynamics workforce is by and large unionized. Thomas Mulcair criticized the deal when it was signed, only to become conspicuously silent when it became an election issue. Ditto Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s main political adviser.

The Liberals, meanwhile, didn’t just provide political cover for the deal during the campaign. Once ensconced in office, the party finalized its approval by way of then-Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion.

Squaring the Liberal’s ‘Real Change’ and Sunny Ways with a deal that delivers rolling, Canadian-made weapons to the streets of Riyadh is a difficult endeavour. One need only a Wikipedia-level knowledge of foreign affairs to get a sense of Saudi’s resolutely bloody history. It’s why the “deep concern” professed by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland over the Saudi crackdown sounds feigned and superficial — as though she reached out to a rabid dog and wanted us to believe she was genuinely surprised when it bit her.

It would be easy and tempting to place this whole debacle on the shoulders of the Liberal government. In a proper world, Justin Trudeau’s “they aren’t weapons, they’re Jeeps” excuse would be the hook for the mother of all campaign attack ads. In a proper world, the government would suffer for its hypocrisy.

But it won’t. The Saudi deal is gross both in content and by dint of the all-party support it secured. This isn’t just the government’s fault. Everyone’s hands are dirty. And perhaps bloody as well.

Ontario seats, or Saudi lives? In Ottawa, there’s no contest.
 

Danbones

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Sep 23, 2015
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...except for the muslims the americans arm
(like isis alCIAduh and the taliban)
who might kill canadians
( the heroin you fulks are now guarding and shipping in and selling sure does)
 

Jinentonix

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Re: Stephane Dion Admits Military Exports are More Important Than Human Rights.

Those weapons will be used to kill Muslims.

Kinda weird to hear the Canadian right bitching about that.
Except I'm not a right-winger. Isn't it odd how this works though? Don't like Muslims? You're racist, nazi bastard. Don't like Christians? You're a sensible, forward thinking progressive. Well guess what? It's all the same shit. I despise the three Abrahamic religions because they are extremely toxic to humanity. Although all in all I have more respect for the Jews than I do for the other two because they're the only ones NOT trying to cram their nonsensical beliefs and dogma down my throat.
 

Tecumsehsbones

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Re: Stephane Dion Admits Military Exports are More Important Than Human Rights.

Except I'm not a right-winger. Isn't it odd how this works though?
You do one hell of an impression of one.

Isn't it odd how this works though? Don't like Muslims? You're racist, nazi bastard. Don't like Christians? You're a sensible, forward thinking progressive.
Who is saying this? Is this more crap like "the government requires you to take gender snowflakes seriously?" I'm forced to note that I never got an answer to my question of what form this "requirement" takes.

And, very serious question: if the people saying this (the dreaded but unspecified "they") do not have the power to coerce your behaviour, why do you give a damn what they say?

Well guess what? It's all the same shit. I despise the three Abrahamic religions because they are extremely toxic to humanity.
Never said you were stupid.

Although all in all I have more respect for the Jews than I do for the other two because they're the only ones NOT trying to cram their nonsensical beliefs and dogma down my throat.
I have more respect for the Jews because they're the only one of the three that isn't playing an absurdly childish carrot-and-stick game.
 

Cliffy

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