Globe editorial: On Saudi arms sale, Ottawa must be prepared to say no
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is right to call for a probe into video evidence and photographs that appear to show Canadian-made armoured vehicles being deployed by the Saudi Arabia government against its own citizens.
If the allegations prove true, Ms. Freeland should suspend future sales of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, including the controversial $15-billion deal to supply Riyadh with armoured vehicles produced at the General Dynamics plant in London, Ont.
The deal, originally signed by the Harper government in 2014, has been a tricky inheritance for the Trudeau government, one that it handled poorly from the minute it came to power in 2015.
He and his cabinet never did a good job of it, pretending at first that the sale was a private matter between vendor and customer, then that it had no choice but to approve a deal made by a previous government, and then squirming when evidence first emerged that the Saudi regime was using armoured vehicles made in other countries to kill dissidents within its borders.
