Saudi fallout: Canada wants to cancel its largest arms deal
- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said for the first time that his Liberal government was looking for a way out of a multibillion-dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia
- Relations between Ottawa and Riyadh have been tense since a diplomatic dispute over human rights earlier this year
Canada is looking into ways to cancel a giant 2014 weapons deal with Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, as criticism mounts over the kingdom’s role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the Riyadh-led war in Yemen.
Trudeau had earlier said that it would be “extremely difficult” to withdraw from the contract, signed by the previous conservative administration, “without Canadians paying exorbitant penalties”.
But as evidence emerged of direct Saudi involvement in Khashoggi’s murder on October 2, Canada in late November announced sanctions against 17 Saudi nationals linked to killing.
“The murder of a journalist is absolutely unacceptable and that’s why Canada from the very beginning had been demanding answers and solutions on that,” Trudeau said Sunday in an interview with CTV.
“We inherited actually a C$15 billion (US$11.5 billion) contract signed by (former prime minister) Stephen Harper to export light-armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia,” he said.
“We are engaged with the export permits to try and see if there is a way of no longer exporting these vehicles to Saudi Arabia,” he added.
The penalty for breaking the contract could exceed C$1 billion, Trudeau said in an interview with CBC Radio in October.