Freedom Philosophy: Canada and the House of Saud

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Canada, Saudi Arabia, Plane
Photo Credit: @Inforgraphic_KSA

For the last three years, I have been blogging tirelessly about Canada’s $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. They are currently using our weapons to literally starve 17 million people to death in Yemen; it struck me as odd that more Canadians didn’t speak out against the deal so I set out to make it an issue in the national discourse.

Low and behold, the Saudis may have solved the problem for me by suspending economic ties with Canada.

Saudi students are being withdrawn from our universities. Our prairie wheat is no longer being exported to the Saudis. Our ambassador has been expelled from the Kingdom. All of this was in response to Liberal complaints about the Saudis imprisoning the husband of a Canadian citizen who blogged about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia; human rights abuses such as it being a crime to be sexually assaulted in Saudi Arabia.

Tensions are high. A governmental twitter account posted a photo of an airplane flying into the CN Tower. Given that the 9-11 terrorists attacks were orchestrated by Saudis, financed by Saudis, and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, this raised concerns from Canadians. Their government’s inability to perform basic banking audits to prevent terrorist financing has this Canadian wondering why we were allies with them in the first place.

The issue is a result of talking points. Trudeau’s performance in the Canadian Parliament has always left much to be desired. He painfully sticks to a script to an extent that even Marco Rubio would be envious.

When Conservatives inquire on whether or not the Liberals have collected data concerning how much his carbon taxes will cost the average family, Trudeau’s response is uniform in that he never gives specific numbers but he never fails to enlighten us that, “The economy and the environment go hand in hand.”

Any questions put to him about pipelines don’t receive answers about pipelines, they receive, “Protecting the economy and the environment go hand in hand.” A sentiment that sounds nice; but Liberal rhetoric is high, while their substance is low.

It was for this reason that our trade negotiations with the Americans fell through last June.

Trump argued that Canada’s subsidies were a security threat to the American economy. Trudeau had speech writers come up with an eloquent talking point – the notion that Canada is a security threat is insulting because Canadians and Americans died together in the mountains of Afghanistan for America’s national security.

Unfortunately, when Trump came to Canada he offered us everything we could want in NAFTA, no subsidies and no tariffs, to which Trudeau responded in a Rubio-like fashion that the Americans were being insulting because Canadians and Americans died together in the mountains of Afghanistan.

He sticks to his rhetoric in the most senseless cases.

Liberals will accuse Saudi Arabia of human rights violations but their actual substance is to deal $15 billion in weapons to them.

In Canada, Liberal rhetoric and total lack of substance appeals to 35% of Canadians and this is enough to win a majority election but on an international stage, all rhetoric and no substance, sticking to talking points even when they don’t make sense, has been shown to be a disaster.

I won’t mourn the loss of the Saudis as a trading partner. I’ve been demanding the loss of the Saudis as a trading partner. This was the collision of a Liberal government that has little to offer beyond talking points and the House of Saud who contradicts every one of those talking points.

Canada wishes to sell the Saudis a premade noose and cry foul when they use it to hang someone – predictably the Saudis have begun to look for other trading partners.

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Brandon Kirby

Brandon Kirby has a philosophy degree from the University of New Brunswick and is a current MBA candidate finishing his thesis. He is an AML officer specializing in hedge funds in the Cayman Islands, owns a real estate company in Canada, and has been in the financial industry since 2004. He is the director of Being Libertarian - Canada and the president of the Libertarian Party of Canada.

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