WARREN: Trudeau can't reverse course on Saudi Arabia now

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS

While Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and the Trudeau government may have inadvertently backed into a wider conflict with Saudi Arabia with its stance on jailed blogger Raif Badawi and his sister Samar, it cannot reverse course on human rights or its stance on Saudi Arabia.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Freeland stand on the moral high ground. It is the correct ethical stance and unintentionally it is going to be the correct political stance.

We should not apologize and we should be ready to accept further retaliation from Riyadh.

When we consider Canadian values versus Saudi Arabian values, we must stand up for what is right and for what we believe in. This will require sacrifices. Doing the right thing sometimes costs you something.

The husband of a Canadian citizen, Raif Badawi, sits wrongly in jail. If it was your friend or family member you would expect the Canadian government to do everything to save or protect them.

Nothing our government has done this week is new. It is the same stance multiple governments of both Conservative and Liberal stripes have held before.

What’s new is the overreaction of Saudi Arabia. They expelled our ambassador, froze trade and investment, recalled 16,000 students including medical students, stopped the purchase of wheat and barley and suspended flights to Toronto.

What good is there in having values if you are not willing to sacrifice something to protect them?

Much of what the Saudis have done will hurt them as much as it will hurt us. A student doctor pulled from their education ultimately means one less doctor in Saudi Arabia.

There has been much conflict on Twitter between Conservatives and Liberals in Canada.

Many Conservatives say that if this incident had happened with Stephen Harper as prime minister that there would be more criticism of Harper for being personally responsible than there is for Freeland or Trudeau.

First, Harper isn’t prime minister and won’t be again — at least anytime soon.

Secondly, let’s not forget who is wearing the white hat and who is wearing the black hat in this fight.

There really is no place for partisan politics when it comes to basic human rights.

Saudi Arabia is a terrible place to be a woman and while they may be taking small steps in the correct direction, now is not the time to start fighting amongst ourselves instead of focusing on who the bad guy is.

One unintended consequence of the whole conflict is potentially a political gain for Trudeau and his Liberal government.

Trudeau and the Liberal government approved selling more than 900 Canadian-made military vehicles to Saudi Arabia, which have been used to assist the Saudis killing people in Yemen.

The initial contract was approved by the Conservatives, but the Liberals signed off on the final deal.

It has been a political quagmire for the Liberals. On the one hand Liberals pronounce their moral standards and act to protect human rights on the global stage.

At the same time they are attacked by the NDP for selling the very tools that commit the same human rights atrocities they profess to want to stop.

No one can now say the Liberals are too soft on Saudi Arabia given the events of the past week.

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