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New Canadian Politics Thread

https://nationalpost.com/news/canad...nada-and-aims-to-move-patients-from-hospitals

Saudi Arabia stops medical treatment programs in Canada, aiming to move patients from hospitals - 8 Aug 18
The kingdom has also suspended educational exchange programs with Canada while state airline Saudi said it was suspending flights to and from Toronto

https://business.financialpost.com/...s-off-canadian-assets-as-dispute-escalates-ft

Saudi Arabia is disposing of Canadian assets ‘no matter the cost’, FT reports - 8 Aug 18
Saudi Central bank and state pension selling Canadian equities, bonds and cash holdings

And:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/saudi-arabia-canada-economic-impact-1.4777407

Saudi Arabia to sell off Canadian assets and stop buying Canadian wheat and barley - 8 Aug 18

Extract: Canada sold 66,000 tonnes of wheat to Saudi Arabia last year, and slightly more the year before that, Statistics Canada data shows. In the first five months of the year, Canada has yet to book any wheat sales this year. But Canada sold 66,000 tonnes of barley to Saudi Arabia in 2016, and twice that last year. In 2015, Saudia Arabia-based Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company was part of a consortium that bought a controlling interest in the Canadian Wheat Board for $250 million.


https://business.financialpost.com/...urce=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles

Saudi Arabia spat with Canada hits home at armoured vehicle plant in Ontario with 2,000 jobs on the line - 7 Aug 18
Fears grow a $15-billion contract at a London, Ont., plant to make armoured vehicles for Saudi Arabia may be at risk

Extract: The 14-year arms deal, which directly employs 2,000 people, was described at the time by the previous federal Conservative government as the largest advanced manufacturing export contract in Canadian history.


https://business.financialpost.com/...ntic-canadian-refineries-to-replace-saudi-oil

Why it won't be easy for Quebec and Atlantic Canadian refineries to replace Saudi oil - & Aug 18
'We are in a world where 100,000 bpd is significant' — only a few producing countries, including Saudi Arabia, have spare capacity

Extract: Saudi Arabian oil imports in Canada have been steadily increasing for years. National Energy Board data show the kingdom shipped an average of 102,000 barrels of oil per day to Canada last year, which was also up 17 per cent from an average of close to 87,000 bpd in 2016. It has consistently been among the five largest sources of foreign oil for Eastern Canadian refineries in recent years and an important feedstock for refineries in Quebec, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. If the Saudi government’s threat includes oil market transactions with private-sector companies in Canada, the effects would be damaging for the country’s refining sector, ARC Energy Research Institute executive director Peter Tertzakian said. “We are in a world where 100,000 barrels per day is significant,” Tertzakian said, adding that oil markets are currently tight and only a few producing countries – including Saudi Arabia – have spare capacity. As a result, he said that Canadian refineries would be challenged to replace 100,000 bpd of oil supply without incurring significant additional costs.




This. Over a tweet.
 
Altair said:
Anyone have a handle on why canada is taking a diplomatic shit kicking from Saudi Arabia?

Honestly just over a tweet?
Click to expand...
I mean, that's the opening that Saudi Arabia took. But that tweet & statement from Freeland is the same type of criticism Western democracies have levelled towards authoritarian countries for decades, and it's always amounted to pretty much nothing in the past. I'd guess that part of the reason the Saudis blew up on this one is that authoritarian leaders are feeling pretty emboldened these days.

The man in the White House openly admires repressive dictators and treats the leaders of liberal democracies like something he wiped off the bottom of his shoe. The UK is rudderless and leaderless. Putin is holding strong in Russia, Erdogan has killed democracy in Turkey, Duterte is in the process of doing the same thing in the Philippines, the "Arab spring" petered out without ushering in any new democracies, and Xi has essentially declared himself China's dictator-for-life while increasingly clamping down on human rights and trying to position China as a leader on the world stage.

So in that environment, perhaps the new Saudi crown prince sees this as the perfect opportunity to heavily push back against the kinds of human rights criticism the Saudi regime's endured for decades, to send a message both to other countries and to any Saudi citizens that might be thinking about social activism.

And if they were going to make an example of someone, Canada's a great choice. They're currently led by pretty much the poster-boy for the kind of progressive politics authoritarians and right-wing populists despise, and on top of that, the foreign affairs minister making the criticism is a woman. They know that Canada's closest traditional allies (USA, UK) won't stand up for them in this spat. And it's a low-cost move for Saudi Arabia, considering the small amount of business the two countries do with each other in the grand scheme of things.

Part of me also wonders if this wasn't coordinated with Trump as well. The new Saudi prince has been pretty chummy with the Trump administration, and it serves Trump's interests if other countries start putting financial pressure on Canada when the US is currently involved in a trade war with them and looking to extract heavy concessions in NAFTA negotiations.
 
Altair said:
Anyone have a handle on why canada is taking a diplomatic shit kicking from Saudi Arabia?

Honestly just over a tweet?
Click to expand...

lol some guys were beaking me last night about it in Overwatch
it was funny

(canada is in my user name so that is how they knew)
 
LeafGm said:
I mean, that's the opening that Saudi Arabia took. But that tweet & statement from Freeland is the same type of criticism Western democracies have levelled towards authoritarian countries for decades, and it's always amounted to pretty much nothing in the past. I'd guess that part of the reason the Saudis blew up on this one is that authoritarian leaders are feeling pretty emboldened these days.

The man in the White House openly admires repressive dictators and treats the leaders of liberal democracies like something he wiped off the bottom of his shoe. The UK is rudderless and leaderless. Putin is holding strong in Russia, Erdogan has killed democracy in Turkey, Duterte is in the process of doing the same thing in the Philippines, the "Arab spring" petered out without ushering in any new democracies, and Xi has essentially declared himself China's dictator-for-life while increasingly clamping down on human rights and trying to position China as a leader on the world stage.

So in that environment, perhaps the new Saudi crown prince sees this as the perfect opportunity to heavily push back against the kinds of human rights criticism the Saudi regime's endured for decades, to send a message both to other countries and to any Saudi citizens that might be thinking about social activism.

And if they were going to make an example of someone, Canada's a great choice. They're currently led by pretty much the poster-boy for the kind of progressive politics authoritarians and right-wing populists despise, and on top of that, the foreign affairs minister making the criticism is a woman. They know that Canada's closest traditional allies (USA, UK) won't stand up for them in this spat. And it's a low-cost move for Saudi Arabia, considering the small amount of business the two countries do with each other in the grand scheme of things.

Part of me also wonders if this wasn't coordinated with Trump as well. The new Saudi prince has been pretty chummy with the Trump administration, and it serves Trump's interests if other countries start putting financial pressure on Canada when the US is currently involved in a trade war with them and looking to extract heavy concessions in NAFTA negotiations.
Click to expand...

trump is not that smart
 
LeafGm said:
I mean, that's the opening that Saudi Arabia took. But that tweet & statement from Freeland is the same type of criticism Western democracies have levelled towards authoritarian countries for decades, and it's always amounted to pretty much nothing in the past. I'd guess that part of the reason the Saudis blew up on this one is that authoritarian leaders are feeling pretty emboldened these days.

The man in the White House openly admires repressive dictators and treats the leaders of liberal democracies like something he wiped off the bottom of his shoe. The UK is rudderless and leaderless. Putin is holding strong in Russia, Erdogan has killed democracy in Turkey, Duterte is in the process of doing the same thing in the Philippines, the "Arab spring" petered out without ushering in any new democracies, and Xi has essentially declared himself China's dictator-for-life while increasingly clamping down on human rights and trying to position China as a leader on the world stage.

So in that environment, perhaps the new Saudi crown prince sees this as the perfect opportunity to heavily push back against the kinds of human rights criticism the Saudi regime's endured for decades, to send a message both to other countries and to any Saudi citizens that might be thinking about social activism.

And if they were going to make an example of someone, Canada's a great choice. They're currently led by pretty much the poster-boy for the kind of progressive politics authoritarians and right-wing populists despise, and on top of that, the foreign affairs minister making the criticism is a woman. They know that Canada's closest traditional allies (USA, UK) won't stand up for them in this spat. And it's a low-cost move for Saudi Arabia, considering the small amount of business the two countries do with each other in the grand scheme of things.

Part of me also wonders if this wasn't coordinated with Trump as well. The new Saudi prince has been pretty chummy with the Trump administration, and it serves Trump's interests if other countries start putting financial pressure on Canada when the US is currently involved in a trade war with them and looking to extract heavy concessions in NAFTA negotiations.
Click to expand...

Ya, Canada is a pretty easy target in that regard, and I suppose we are being made an example of.

I doubt Trump had anything to do with beyond that "who will rid me of that meddling canucks PM" kind of sense.
 
GM, on top of that, I believe Freeland is a member of the hebrew faith so having a jewish woman comment, OMAllah.

The US has stated it will not take sides in this dispute.

We apparently have asked UK to act as an intermediary
 
Altair said:
Ya, Canada is a pretty easy target in that regard, and I suppose we are being made an example of.

I doubt Trump had anything to do with beyond that "who will rid me of that meddling canucks PM" kind of sense.
Click to expand...

The Saudis obviously talked to the US to make sure they wouldn't side with Canada in the dispute.
 
worm said:
trump is not that smart
Click to expand...
Maybe not.

But Saudi Arabia's crown prince may have been smart enough to see this as a way to ingratiate himself to Trump, and almost certainly talked to people in the Trump admin about this move ahead of time. After all, there was a three to four day delay between Freeland's original tweet and the Saudi reaction to it.
 
There are a lot of crazy Saudi domestic politics involved here as well. Bin Salman is a bit of a ****ing lunatic.

At the end of the day though, this is a country with the GDP of Switzerland that we should have been making moves to separate ourselves from years ago and didn't. Let this be the same type of warning (though way, way lesser) that Trump's nonsense is giving us regarding our dealings with the US. Diversify our international trade and work towards not being in business with repressive shit shows like the Saudis, who are probably the biggest pit of poison on the planet. There are more than enough reliable and semi reasonable trade partners to work with. TLeave the Saudis to their own devices as they decline over the coming decades with passing importance of their one export product. ****'em.
 
zeke said:
I mean, Trump likely told them to do this.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't put it past him, but tbh, Bin Salman is a nutter who likely saw this as an opportunity to "warn" the rest of the world from doing something like this in the future. We just happened to be a pretty good target for it. A member of "the west", minimal economic links to sever, unlikely to retaliate in any sort of real way. Bin Salman might have put in a courtesy call to the white house to get the green light, but he's also enough of a dick to go it alone imo.
 
It is shit like this though that should remind everyone how important it is to move on from the oil age. Divorcing the importance of semi random places on maps from international energy security is the biggest step towards world peace available to us. Let the technologically innovative nations of the world control the direction of world events and not repressive monarchies, oligarchies, etc. How would the world look right now if Russia had no customers to export O&G to? If the Saudis were getting 5 dollars a barrel from their fields and were a beggar nation just trying to get rid of the stuff?

These are shitty nations without a functioning non oil economy that have an outsized influence on world events simply because of oil deposits within their borders. That point alone should galvanize all western nations towards balls deep investing in renewables.
 
MindzEye said:
There are a lot of crazy Saudi domestic politics involved here as well. Bin Salman is a bit of a ****ing lunatic.

At the end of the day though, this is a country with the GDP of Switzerland that we should have been making moves to separate ourselves from years ago and didn't. Let this be the same type of warning (though way, way lesser) that Trump's nonsense is giving us regarding our dealings with the US. Diversify our international trade and work towards not being in business with repressive shit shows like the Saudis, who are probably the biggest pit of poison on the planet. There are more than enough reliable and semi reasonable trade partners to work with. TLeave the Saudis to their own devices as they decline over the coming decades with passing importance of their one export product. ****'em.
Click to expand...

This is another case where I'm sure the Libs are almost happy to fight this "battle". Especially if the Conservatives take the Saudi side in this.
 
UWHabs said:
This is another case where I'm sure the Libs are almost happy to fight this "battle". Especially if the Conservatives take the Saudi side in this.
Click to expand...

If my alberta facebook feed is any indication, the biggest complaint the west has is that we're doing business with Saudi Arabia at all by buying their oil. If the Conservatives take the Saudi's side, right after kind of sort of taking the American's side, its not going to be a good look. They should probably be hammering on energy independence, Trudeau's handling of pipelines, etc.
 
MindzEye said:
I wouldn't put it past him, but tbh, Bin Salman is a nutter who likely saw this as an opportunity to "warn" the rest of the world from doing something like this in the future. We just happened to be a pretty good target for it. A member of "the west", minimal economic links to sever, unlikely to retaliate in any sort of real way. Bin Salman might have put in a courtesy call to the white house to get the green light, but he's also enough of a dick to go it alone imo.
Click to expand...

the instant US hands-off reaction tells me trump was obviously involved.
 
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