Saudi Arabia expels Canadian ambassador, freezes all trade + investment in Canada

[Violator]

1 hour ago, CBH1926 said:

Saudi Arabia and Canada verbal sparring  part deux.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/saudi-runaway-woman-1.4976076

She will get her $10,000 check in about a year.Tell the saudis to go stick it in there ear.

[Ryan Strome]

3 hours ago, RUPERTKBD said:

At this point I don't GAF what the Saudis like, or dislike. In fact, I fully support Trudeau and Freeland telling them to pound sand at every opportunity.

I have never GAF what that ruthless, terrible, terrorist regime liked or disliked.

[Ryan Strome]

3 hours ago, aeromotacanucks said:

Canada should let the Saudis speak until they get tired and stop...

 

This was a clear retaliation from that Asylum conceded to that girl, it exposed the real internal situation inside their country...

 

100% sure Trump will do nothing about it since he's too busy with the wall issue and I'm pretty sure this entire thing will be used on the Canadian elections this year...

 

Saudis have being talking a lot since Brazil announced the change of our embassy to Jerusalem...

 

We just let them talk...

 

Canada should do the same...

We are. In no way what so ever does Canada need Saudi Arabia.

[lesterz]

1 hour ago, Ryan Strome said:

We are. In no way what so ever does Canada need Saudi Arabia.

No. We need them to keep Quebec safe from dirty oil pipelines to the Atlantic coast refining.

[King Heffy]

4 hours ago, RUPERTKBD said:

At this point I don't GAF what the Saudis like, or dislike. In fact, I fully support Trudeau and Freeland telling them to pound sand at every opportunity.

Freeland's done a hell of a job.  Pretty happy we're the ones stepping up and doing what needed to be done.   Canada used to be a leader in these kind of international situations and I'm hopeful we can be again going forward.

[RUPERTKBD]

This article could have gone in any number of threads, but this one seemed most appropriate. Nicholas Kristof of the NYT with some kind words about Canada:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/thank-god-for-canada/ar-BBThRO7?li=AAggNb9

Quote

 

After the Canadian foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, tweeted concern about Saudi Arabia’s imprisoning of a women’s rights activist, the crown prince there seemed to go nuts.

Saudi Arabia announced that it was expelling Canada’s ambassador, halting flights to Canada, ending purchases of Canadian wheat, recalling students from Canada and selling off Canadian assets. Did the United States or other Western countries stand up for an old friend and ally, Canada?

Not a bit.

“The United States doesn’t have to get involved,” Heather Nauert, then the State Department spokeswoman, told reporters.

Yet Canada stuck to its principles. When a young Saudi woman, Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, fled to Bangkok last month and warned that she would be murdered by her family if she was forced home, it was Canada that again braved Saudi fury by accepting her.

Freeland was at the airport to welcome Alqunun as a “very brave new Canadian.” And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn’t mince words, saying, “We’ll stand up for human rights and women’s rights around the world.”

Canada may be one of the world’s more boring countries, as yawn-inspiring as sensible shoes — wake up, reader, I know you’re snoozing!— but it’s also emerging as a moral leader of the free world.

There’s no one else. The United States under President Trump is on a nationalist tear. Britain’s leaders seem determined to drag their people over a Brexit precipice. France is distracted by protests. Germany is preparing for succession.

So Canada is stepping up.

During the worst of the Syrian refugee crisis, President Barack Obama admitted just 12,000 Syrians and provoked a furious backlash, including Trump’s Muslim ban. Canada accepted 40,000 Syrians, with Trudeau appearing at the airport to hand out winter coats to these new Canadians.

All around the world, doors to refugees were clanging shut. But Canadians were so eager to sponsor Syrians that organizations were clamoring for more of them. Canadian politicians are mostly rewarded for showing compassion.

Trump gets headlines with his periodic threats to invade Venezuela to topple President Nicolás Maduro, but Canada has been quietly working since 2017 to help organize the Lima Group of 14 nations pushing for democracy in Venezuela. When Canada recognized the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president, he won credibility because nobody sees Ottawa as an imperialist conspirator.

Canada has spoken up about the mass detention of about one million Muslims in the Xinjiang region of China even as Muslim countries have mostly kept mum, and it detained a Chinese executive at the request of the American government. China retaliated by arresting Canadians and sentencing one to death, but Canada is sticking to its guns — even as Trump undercut Canada by suggesting that the case against the executive might be dropped for political reasons.

For aid programs in the developing world, countries usually try to finance big, glamorous projects that will get lots of attention. Instead, Canada champions programs that are extremely cost-effective but so deathly boring that they will never be discussed on TV — initiatives like iodizing salt to prevent mental impairment.

Reader! Wake up!

Still, Canadians can be devious. A couple of years ago I sought an interview with Trudeau for a piece about Canada’s successes — and he kept stalling. Aides explained that praise from an American might damage his relations with Trump. That may have been the first time I’ve had a leader resist laudatory coverage.

Whenever I say something nice about Canada, I get indignant emails from Canadian friends pointing out the country’s shortcomings (which are real). Fortunately, Canadians don’t seem capable of mean emails. Not even of mean tweets. One study found that Americans’ tweets are loaded with curses and words like “hate”: Canadians’ tweets are larded with “awesome,” “amazing” and “great.”

(Note: Ignore all the bits about Canadians being nice when playing hockey with them. In the rink, they’re brutes.)

Off the ice, Canadians pursue policies that are preternaturally sensible. Canadians regulate guns, oversee the banking sector so as to avoid financial crashes, and nurture entrepreneurship and economic growth without enormous inequality.

Typically, more Canadians use mass transit, and the country has better traffic safety laws, so that the vehicle fatality rate there is half that of the United States’. If the United States had Canada’s traffic death rate, we would save more than 20,000 American lives a year.

Today there’s a vacuum of constructive global leadership. Canada may be incapable of a mean tweet, but it’s tough when necessary — and it may be the leader the world needs.

 

I know this article likely won't play well with the resident Trudeau bashers, but Kristof is the holder of two Pulitzers and is a Harvard and Oxford grad. His journalistic focus is human rights abuses and social injustices. I think he knows the subject matter as well as anyone....

 

 

[Tortorella's Rant]

Except for when and where Canada has not stuck to its principles. And when I say Canada I mean the federal government as the federal government does not represent me or many of us on many issues. The federal government selectively chooses when laws and human rights in this country and abroad are relevant and when they are not. They may have brought Alqnun to Canada which is a noble deed, but they also expedited her process and move her to the front of the line at the expense of everyone else who has been legally waiting to enter this country. Does the law suddenly not apply because she was briefly an international story? Laws have never applied when convenient. Secondly, the federal government is indirectly somewhat responsible for the genocide occurring in Yemen by continuing to provide weapons and vehicles to the Saudis. They will cite "money and jobs," but that's all 15 million Yemenis are worth: 10 billion dollars in weapons contracts. Again, human rights are selective.

I can go on. Compared to Trump, he looks like the greatest leader in the history of the universe, which is what the article is getting at to some extent. But that bar is so pathetically low..

[PhillipBlunt]

7 minutes ago, Tortorella's Rant said:

Except for when and where Canada has not stuck to its principles. And when I say Canada I mean the federal government as the federal government does not represent me or many of us on many issues. The federal government selectively chooses when laws and human rights in this country and abroad are relevant and when they are not. They may have brought Alqnun to Canada which is a noble deed, but they also expedited her process and move her to the front of the line at the expense of everyone else who has been legally waiting to enter this country. Does the law suddenly not apply because she was briefly an international story? Laws have never applied when convenient. Secondly, the federal government is indirectly somewhat responsible for the genocide occurring in Yemen by continuing to provide weapons and vehicles to the Saudis. They will cite "money and jobs," but that's all 15 million Yemenis are worth: 10 billion dollars in weapons contracts. Again, human rights are selective.

I can go on. Compared to Trump, he looks like the greatest leader in the history of the universe, which is what the article is getting at to some extent. But that bar is so pathetically low..

Very salient point, Rant. Freeland and the Liberals used this person's "plight" as a chance to virtue signal to the country and the rest of the world. Why aren't they travelling to Yemen and saving people who are dying of starvation? I guess when you have an internet connection and some social media savvy, you get noticed more.

 

They've done business with Saudi Arabia without conscience, directly helping them to slaughter thousands of Yemenis, but heaven forfend one poor Saudi teenager suffer under the regime!  

[Lancaster]

11 hours ago, RUPERTKBD said:

This article could have gone in any number of threads, but this one seemed most appropriate. Nicholas Kristof of the NYT with some kind words about Canada:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/thank-god-for-canada/ar-BBThRO7?li=AAggNb9

I know this article likely won't play well with the resident Trudeau bashers, but Kristof is the holder of two Pulitzers and is a Harvard and Oxford grad. His journalistic focus is human rights abuses and social injustices. I think he knows the subject matter as well as anyone....

 

 

I'm not a fan of JT.  I'll be voting against his party this coming election too.  

That being said, I am pleased that he's telling the Chinese and the Saudi to stick it up their collective posterior.  

I wish that he will stand up and tell Eastern Canada that they will no longer be supporting the Saudi oil industry.  Not going to make a huge impact to SA, but at least it's doing the right thing.  

 

The Saudi has already declared economic war on the Canadian economy by driving oil prices as low as possible.  If Canadians really want to hurt the Saudi regime, build the pipelines to both coasts.  Taking a few percentage points of customers away from Saudi Arabia will reduce their global influence.  

[YummyCakeFace]

Seems odd the Libs would be in such cahoots with the worst entity on the face of the planet (republicans), but at every turn, it seems Justin is going against his dads wishes.  I’ll be voting against him. To think Canada has any realistic baring on world oil decisions is unrealistic. Sorry. 

[nucklehead]

On February 7, 2019 at 7:57 AM, Tortorella's Rant said:

Except for when and where Canada has not stuck to its principles. And when I say Canada I mean the federal government as the federal government does not represent me or many of us on many issues. The federal government selectively chooses when laws and human rights in this country and abroad are relevant and when they are not. They may have brought Alqnun to Canada which is a noble deed, but they also expedited her process and move her to the front of the line at the expense of everyone else who has been legally waiting to enter this country. Does the law suddenly not apply because she was briefly an international story? Laws have never applied when convenient. Secondly, the federal government is indirectly somewhat responsible for the genocide occurring in Yemen by continuing to provide weapons and vehicles to the Saudis. They will cite "money and jobs," but that's all 15 million Yemenis are worth: 10 billion dollars in weapons contracts. Again, human rights are selective.

I can go on. Compared to Trump, he looks like the greatest leader in the history of the universe, which is what the article is getting at to some extent. But that bar is so pathetically low..

I would submit that the bar is our legacy on the world stage not the antics of a self aggrandizing narcissistic megalomaniac  

[Gurn]

On ‎2‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 7:35 AM, RUPERTKBD said:

(Note: Ignore all the bits about Canadians being nice when playing hockey with them. In the rink, they’re brutes.)

Plus one, and more.