{"id":12649,"date":"2015-09-26T09:37:36","date_gmt":"2015-09-26T14:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12649"},"modified":"2015-09-26T09:37:36","modified_gmt":"2015-09-26T14:37:36","slug":"how-saudi-arabia-and-a-15b-armoured-vehicle-deal-became-an-election-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12649","title":{"rendered":"How Saudi Arabia, and a $15B armoured vehicle deal, became an election issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"story-headline\">\n<h3 class=\"story-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/saudi-arabia-armoured-vehicle-deal-canada-stephen-harper-1.3244290\" target=\"_blank\">How Saudi Arabia, and a $15B armoured vehicle deal, became an election issue<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"story-deck\"><strong>Government says contract will create and sustain 3,000 jobs<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Niqabs, the economy, national unity\u00a0\u2014 all issues that predictably came up in Thursday night&#8217;s French-language debate.<\/p>\n<p>But few had forecast\u00a0that\u00a0Canada&#8217;s relations with Saudi Arabia, and specifically, a multibillion-dollar contract to sell armoured vehicles to the country,\u00a0would\u00a0erupt as an issue. It made for one of the more interesting exchanges of the night, and a reprieve for debate watchers tiring of the party leaders covering the same old ground.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/french-language-debate-five-party-leaders-1.3242417\">French-language debate triggers hot exchanges on niqab, economy, national unity<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/montreal\/raif-badawi-prison-sentence-lashes-upheld-by-saudi-court-1.3103717\">Raif Badawi prison sentence, lashes upheld by Saudi court<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/raif-badawi-case-what-he-has-in-common-with-jason-kenney-1.2980113\">Raif Badawi: What he has in common with Jason Kenney<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/general-dynamics-canada-wins-10b-deal-with-saudi-arabia-1.2537934\">\u200bGeneral Dynamics Canada wins $10B deal with Saudi Arabia<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/radio\/day6\/episode-218-gordie-howe-s-stem-cell-miracle-dennis-rodman-in-north-korea-and-more-1.2947718\/why-canada-stays-friends-with-saudi-arabia-1.2947809\">Why Canada stays friends with Saudi Arabia<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The issue\u00a0of whether Canada should be involved in such a deal with a country with\u00a0a poor human rights record\u00a0carried forward Friday.\u00a0Conservative Leader Stephen\u00a0Harper, as he did the night before, defended the\u00a0$15-billion deal that Canada helped secure\u00a0last year, under which\u00a0the London, Ont.-based\u00a0manufacturer General Dynamics Land Systems will sell armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p>At a campaign stop in\u00a0Rivi\u00e8re-du-Loup, Que., Harper was asked whether\u00a0he was putting Canadian\u00a0jobs ahead of human rights\u00a0concerns.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As I&#8217;ve said in the debate, it&#8217;s\u00a0frankly all of our partners and allies who were pursuing that contract, not just Canada. So this is\u00a0a deal frankly with a country, and notwithstanding its human rights violations, which are significant, this is\u00a0a contract with\u00a0a country that is an ally in the\u00a0fighting against the Islamic State. A\u00a0contract\u00a0that\u00a0any one\u00a0of our allies would have signed,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How Saudi Arabia, and a $15B armoured vehicle deal, became an election issue Government says contract will create and sustain 3,000 jobs Niqabs, the economy, national unity\u00a0\u2014 all issues that predictably came up in Thursday night&#8217;s French-language debate. But few had forecast\u00a0that\u00a0Canada&#8217;s relations with Saudi Arabia, and specifically, a multibillion-dollar contract to sell armoured vehicles [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[9287,103,7902,3544,3000,9288,525,701,749],"class_list":["post-12649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","tag-armoured-vehicles","tag-canada","tag-canadian-federal-election","tag-cbc","tag-cbc-news","tag-general-dynamics-land-systems","tag-military","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-stephen-harper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12650,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12649\/revisions\/12650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}