Such brand recognition would normally be cause for celebration for Huawai execs, if not for the fact that the company is trending for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t a novel feature or phone model that incepted Huawei into the minds of Western consumers, but the spectre of a pocket-sized Trojan horse vacuuming up your personal data and dumping it back to the Communist Party of China (CCP).

The threat of Huawei, or any other Chinese tech giant, allowing its technology to be used in espionage activities is now being carefully assessed by governments and intelligence agencies around the world. The United States is leading the charge on banning Huawei in its national 5G network. Countries like Australia and New Zealand have followed suit; Germany and the United Kingdom have veered from the US line, allowing Huawei to participate in national 5G networks; and Canada has yet to make its final decision.

For the most part, these national security debates have centered around the question of whether or not Huawei is compelled by Chinese law to help the CCP in its spying activities.

But that’s not the question we should be asking.

To do so assumes a false equivalence between Western-style liberalism and the Chinese system. The two systems are not the same, and Chinese officials are usually the first ones to tell you so, unless of course it’s in the Party’s interests to nurture illusions to the contrary.

The Huawei saga is definitely one of those cases, and we’re seeing a proliferation of state-sponsored opinions in the English-language media space, all trumpeting that Chinese law as-is doesn’t compel the country’s tech giants to spy. After all, they argue, doesn’t the Patriot Act make similar demands of US companies on national security grounds?

But the legal debates miss the forest for the trees, and sometimes intentionally. For one they ignore the ground-level realities of operating in China, where Huawei’s ongoing commercial success depends above all on maintaining the Party’s favor. The company has a Party committee embedded at the highest levels of its management structure. And its worldwide employees are at risk of being plied into acts of espionage by offshoots of the CCP united front bureaucracy, which can dangle rewards or threaten retaliation, even against family members back in China.

These extralegal considerations won’t show up on any court record, and they surely aren’t unique to Huawei. Rather they are the cost of doing business in China. And when it comes time to assess the potential role for Chinese companies in our critical national infrastructure, we ignore them at our own peril.

Focusing on the letter of the law is equally problematic because, to borrow a Maoism, the law remains a paper tiger in China. Far from being the highest authority in the land, it is a reference guide to be adhered to only in the absence of powerful intervening interests. Its substance can change arbitrarily, and its enforcement is buttressed by neither an independent judiciary nor a free and fair media.

Thousands of Chinese activists and lawyers can personally attest to this. And it’s not at all uncommon for a lawyer to simply disappear for doing their job. But we’ve been hearing about such cases for decades now and, though the drum beat of human rights abuses drones on, its sound is increasingly falling on deaf ears in the West.

So perhaps a recent example is in order to demonstrate how the law can sometimes work in China, and how it’s not only political undesirables doing the vanishing.

Consider the story of Zhao Faqi, an entrepreneur who sought legal recourse after a coal exploration contract was arbitrarily terminated by local authorities. In 2017, his case made it all the way to the Supreme People’s Court, which ruled in favor of Zhao. However, local officials in Yulin simply refused to implement the verdict, presumably because it would encroach on the economic interests of some other well-connected individual or bureaucracy that had pounced on the lucrative land in question.

The dispute might have ended there if not for a popular former talk show host named Cui Yongyuan taking up Zhao’s cause. Cui interviewed one of the supreme court judges, Wang Liqing, who claimed that another judge had pressured his peers to rule against Zhao, and that records from the case had secretly been removed from the office following the verdict. After Cui shared excerpts from the interview with his 20 million followers on a Chinese social media network, Party investigators announced that they would conduct an official high-level inquiry into the Court’s actions.

Then the axe fell.

The inquiry concluded that Judge Wang himself stole the files. His reason for this senseless act of career suicide? According to the official report it was because he was angry at his superiors for having to work overtime. But in truth, it’s more likely punishment for coming out publically against the Party line. Wang was subsequently made to read a scripted confession on television, in which he apologized for swindling the well-meaning hearts of China’s internet users. He is now facing prison time. Zhao, the entrepreneur, has either gone into hiding or been disappeared, and Cui has gone silent, with speculation rife that he too might be punished for his role in the affair.

The moral of the Zhao Faqi story is that, despite the commendable efforts of many Chinese citizens to advance the rule of law in their country, it’s still the Party that steps in to mete out final justice whenever its core interests are at stake.

Thus, to bring it back to the Huawei debate, does it matter what the law says when we’re talking about an unabashedly illiberal, authoritarian system?

There are better questions that we could be asking to assess the risks of Chinese tech giants building our critical telecommunications infrastructure. For example: What are the core interests of the Communist Party of China, and do they represent a threat to Canadian democracy? How could data from 5G networks be used for espionage? Is it possible to mitigate any of these risks?

Finally, there’s the question of reciprocity, an idea that is far too often overlooked in a global economy characterized by the interplay between liberalized and statist economies: Would China let a Western company build its critical telecommunications infrastructure?

So far the answer has been an emphatic ‘no’ and, ironically enough, Beijing’s oft-cited justification is national security grounds.

They may be onto something there.

**This editorial was originally published on April 29, 2019.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com or any institutions with which the authors are associated.

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US and Canadian negotiators burned the midnight oil through the weekend in order to reach a new deal in principle to save trilateral free trade in North America. In a bit of overhauled branding, the new deal is called the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA). It would appear that NAFTA, which President Trump famously called the ‘worst deal ever,’ has now been consigned to history’s dustbin.

Here are the winners and losers in the new deal:

Winners

US President Trump. The first two years of President Trump’s term have been more about tearing down than building up. The US president scrapped the Paris Climate Accord, NAFTA, the TPP, the Iran nuclear deal, speak nothing of the myriad of other domestic regulations and minor international deals that the US has recently dismantled. Leading up to last weekend, amid the seemingly made-for-TV Kavanaugh hearings and a daunting midterm election outlook, President Trump was in desperate need of a win – one that demonstrated his administration could actually seal new deals that reflected Trump’s rebalanced take on global trade.

NAFTA – sorry, the USMCA – is just that. Trump didn’t get everything he wanted; notably, the Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 mechanisms for company-to-government and government-to-government disputes respectively are still in the final agreement. But he did get greater access to Canada’s dairy market, greater protections for the US auto industry, and other concessions on pharmaceutical pricing and Canada’s poultry market. In the end, a ‘sunset clause’ also made its way into the agreement, but a 16-year one rather than the 5-year expiry initially supported by President Trump.

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Riyadh didn’t stop there. The Saudi government has enacted a swath of draconian measures, from barring its citizens from receiving medical treatment in Canada to telling Saudis studying there to leave. Saudi Arabia is selling off its Canadian assets and has halted Saudia airline flights to Toronto, leaving Canadian pilgrims who traveled to Mecca for the Hajj in the lurch. And then there’s the propaganda campaign: Saudi media has variously tried to argue Canada is “one of the world’s worst oppressors of women,” that indigenous peoples in Canada are the targets of ongoing Rohingya-level persecution, and that Quebec deserves its independence. A pro-government Saudi group even tweeted a digitally-altered image of a plane flying towards Toronto’s skyline, as if to threaten another 9/11-style attack.

The United States and other Western countries, torn between their close relationships to both nations, have mostly stayed on the sidelines. The State Department’s comments that “both sides need to diplomatically resolve this together” constitute little more than a whimper of protest from Canada’s southern neighbor and closest ally. Even so, this nasty war of words has already claimed one prominent victim: the reformist image Saudi Arabia’s young crown prince and de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, had carefully cultivated since coming to power.

The overreaction to the Canadian government’s perfectly ordinary statement has cast a harsh new light on the ferocity – and fragility – of the man who will be king in Saudi Arabia. Bin Salman has been celebrated in the West as an energetic reformer, mostly thanks to his promises to fight radicalism and modernize the ultra-conservative kingdom. The 32-year-old crown prince embarked on a showy global tour earlier this year to promote the kingdom as the “next Europe” and himself as a reliable interlocutor and an agent of change.

The actual reforms underpinning this charm offensive have, after considerable hype, turned out to be lackluster at best. The Crown Prince may have relaxed restrictions on allowing women to drive and opened his country to Western entertainment, but these flashy moves have been overshadowed by a ruthless consolidation of power. Last November, under the guise of an anti-corruption campaign, the prince imprisoned more than 200 influential businessmen, government officials, and his own royal cousins in Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton hotel and forced them to turn over millions of dollars in assets. As the government in Riyadh prepared to lift the driving ban, it also jailed many of the activists who fought for the change in the first place.

Outside Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman is the “architect” of the catastrophic Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. A coalition of Saudi Arabia and its allies has been found liable by the UN for more than half of the children killed during its campaign against Houthi rebels in 2017. On August 9, the alliance dropped a 227 kg bomb—which the United States sold to Saudi Arabia in 2015— on a school bus in Yemen, killing 40 children.

The Crown Prince is also the driving force behind a bruising blockade of Qatar that has now gone on for over a year. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, together with allies such as Egypt and Bahrain, have restricted travel and imported goods from their gas-exporting Gulf neighbor. Frustrated by the strength of Qatari resolve, Mohammed bin Salman was allegedly willing to go so far as to invade the peninsula last year. Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was reportedly responsible for helping the region avert that crisis; recent revelations from the Intercept indicate it may have cost him his job.

With conquering its neighbor off the table, the Saudi leadership is now plotting to build a 60-km long canal to physically turn Qatar into an island. This unwillingness to compromise is a trait Canada is now becoming acutely aware of: as Ottawa and Riyadh’s quarrel drags on, hundreds of Saudi medical residents which the Canadian healthcare has come to rely on are being forced to come home. While this type of aggressive retribution is intended to intimidate Saudi Arabia’s critics, its main outcome is ultimately to expose the crown prince’s unwillingness to entertain meaningful and systematic reform.

Fortunately, Saudi Arabia’s barking about inflicting economic pain has turned out to be far worse than its bite. The embargo against Qatar hasn’t quite had the desired effect; the Qatari economy has recovered from the initial hit, and Saudi’s besieged neighbour has used the spat as a chance to diversify its trading partners and solidify its national identity. Trade between Canada and Saudi Arabia amounted to more than $4 billion last year, but it largely consisted of a controversial deal to sell gun-mounted combat vehicles to the Saudis. If anything, the trade breakdown will save Canadians from being complicit in potential war crimes.

In the past, Canada and other Western allies have been willing to overlook Saudi Arabia’s serious human rights violations in exchange for lucrative arms deals, a steady flow of oil, and support for counter-terror operations. Now, however, Bin Salman’s behavior is taking a turn for the erratic. Canada likely won’t be the last Western government to find itself on the wrong side of the Crown Prince’s sensitivity to criticism. If the Saudi leadership continues down this path, how long will it be until Riyadh’s friendly façade breaks down beyond repair?

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect the official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com or any other institution.

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Canadian expats in Saudi Arabia are now at risk – I would advise them to hold back any cravings for alcohol. More significantly, companies like SNC Lavalin stand to lose considerable business in ongoing projects in the Kingdom. While human rights are important, it’s also important to recognize the totality of a country’s interests when picking a spat – one you can’t win. And Canada is proving that because of the obvious problem that it’s causing in Ottawa, despite appearances.

Recently, through diplomatic channels, Canada has demanded the release of a jailed woman in Saudi Arabia. Her husband has refugee status in Canada. So far so good and diplomatic. But, Canada’s ideological (just look at her record on relations with Russia) former journalist minister of foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland, has picked up Trump’s penchant for Twitter. She decided to tweet about the Saudi woman and ruined any chance of her release, while also triggering a diplomatic crisis with the Kingdom.

For all of the human rights paraphernalia of the Trudeau government, diplomacy should be conducted through diplomatic channels – not social media. Moreover, the Saudis have a distaste for Twitter, having arrested many locals who have used the platform to criticize – however legitimately – the House of Saud. Freeland has committed a rookie but cardinal diplomatic error. Instead of admitting this, Ottawa has upped the ante – and played right into the Conservatives’ arms. They, not to be outdone, presumably sent former foreign minister, John Baird, to criticize the Canadian government on Saudi TV no less. There’s an argument that could be made featuring the term ‘treason’ somewhere in what Baird (and his former boss, PM Harper) did.

Oh my God, indeed!

That said, when it comes to human rights, Freeland and Trudeau seem oblivious to the Saudi led war against the Houthis in Yemen. Canada has gladly sold armored cars to the Saudis. Thus, it has shown that moral lessons can take a backseat to trade and business.

Still, the big issue concerns the excessiveness of the Saudi reaction. Why has it been so tough?

Simply put, the Saudis have little to lose by cutting off Canada. But, they can make a big example out of it, should any other Western nation be tempted to criticize its human right records while Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman implements what seem like slow reforms in the West. Yet, the Crown Prince is moving the equivalent of mountains vis-à-vis the Wahhabi religious establishment, the Ulama.

Saudi Arabia knows that the West is the one that has most to lose in any diplomatic showdown of this kind; especially Canada, which has little leverage in the Middle East. Canada, for example, has bad ties with Saudi enemy Iran and even worse perhaps with Russia, the very same which has defeated Saudi backed ‘rebels’ in Syria (while Canada tacitly supported them).

The Saudis have also been moving closer to Israel – thanks also to Trump’s interventions and the common enemy of Iran. Thus, Saudi Arabia, and not without some reason, believes it should enjoy the kind of immunity from criticism that is afforded to Israel. Moreover, Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS – the real architect of the Saudi ‘reforms’), given the apparent senility of King Salman, expects to become King soon. He faces much internal competition and has to appear tough about upholding traditional Saudi virtues in the eyes of the religious establishment.

The Saudis are clear about one thing. And the other Western nations have already absorbed the message. If you want Saudi riyals in your pockets, you must ignore crimes against humanity and the violence against the civilians in Yemen. The Saudis demand and expect to be granted a special status within the “international community.”

Saudi Arabia has learned much from Israel. It shares with it an intense identity policy, religious exclusiveness, and a willingness to adopt disproportionate military force against civilians.

The Saudis have oil and money. The West wants these and the al-Saud family, the primacy of which is any Saudi monarch’s prime concern, knows this. Either Canada cuts off relations with Saudi Arabia altogether and Freeland starts treating the Kingdom as she has Russia or Iran, or she must keep quiet on violations of human rights. It’s really that simple.

Canada is ready to use tough language and diplomacy against certain easy targets, like Iran and Gaddafi’s Libya. But in the end, Canada will find the right way to apologize to the Saudis and bury the hypocrisy of its selective ‘human rights’ stances under the desert sands.

As evidence, consider Sweden foreign affairs minister Margot Wallstrom and her spat with the Saudis in 2015. The case is remarkably similar to Canada’s, as it involves the same man Raif Badawi, the brother of the refugee Samer Badawi who is in Canada. (Raif was flogged).

After cancelling various arms deals and other cooperation agreements, Saudi-Swedish relations gradually improved. But, in 2017, Wallstrom defended Saudi Arabia’s appointment to the U.N. women’s rights commission. She explained: “[the Saudis] ought to be there to learn something about women.”

Expect Freeland to express support for a similarly incongruent post involving Saudi Arabia in the near future. That will be the price to pay.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect the official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com or any other institution.

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For years, the Canadian government has made billions of dollars on the sale of advanced weapons to countries, many of which boast less than pristine human rights records. Outlined within the “Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada,” nearly $30 million CAD was the export value associated with arms sold to Algeria, over $10 million CAD to Egypt, $2 million to Iraq, $5 million CAD to Jordan, nearly $2 million CAD to Nigeria, $6 million CAD to Thailand, and close to $100 million CAD to Saudi Arabia – a country having earned the lowest ranking on human rights by Freedom House and Amnesty International, among other watchdogs.

Over the past 12 months, Canada has vaulted to a shining 6th place among the world’s top arms sellers and has recently claimed its place as the No. 2 arms dealer to the Middle East. It is a cardinal moment for Ottawa, which has never held the position. Today, only 5 countries sell more weapons around the world. Increased activity in Canadian arms sales converges with Canada’s decision not to sign an international treaty designed to regulate the global arms trade.

Canada’s military exports demonstrate that Ottawa is almost certainly looking for the biggest buyers of weapons and technology.

The United Nations (UN) Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) came into force on December 24, 2014 but Ottawa has opted-out and instead joined the club of non-signatories: Russia, China, Syria, and North Korea. The United Kingdom (UK), Germany, France, and Spain signed without hesitation, and even the United States (US) signed the treaty though has yet to ratify it. The Canadian government’s official position was that its internal control mechanisms were strong enough to manage the export of its military items.

Criticism against Canada’s business ventures with governments looking to arm themselves against internal and external threats to national security position their case on the issue of human rights and abuses that have led to the deaths of many innocent people. The case has been made that the sale of arms is simply good business, good for the Canadian economy, and good for the global economic pulse. However, such an argument is too one-sided, and fails to put into perspective the consequences of selling arms to countries with such spotty human right records.

The Canadian defense sector is comprised predominantly of companies dealing in electronics and firms focusing on the production of sub-systems that eventually become part of a final product. Communications and radar equipment, sensory equipment and electronics used for navigation, other computer systems and software, and various defense systems comprise this sector. Light armed vehicles (LAVs) and an assortment of munitions are also largely produced as part of Canada’s defense sector.

Over a decade ago, the Canadian aerospace industry contributed some 80,000+ civilian jobs to the Canadian economy. Today, the aerospace industry provides more than $28 billion to Canada’s GDP and contributes some 211,000 jobs. 70% of the industry’s activity focuses on manufacturing. 2015 Defense industry statistics have been published and made available through the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC). There is little doubt that Canadians have profited from the production of weaponized machines and components even if they are not entirely aware of where they are going.

Whereas the Ottawa Convention once showed Canada’s determination to achieve disarmament and that cooperative efforts toward that goal are indeed possible, Canada’s role in the global arms trade today exemplifies that the opposite holds true, which is all the more contradictory given Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s humanitarian and diplomatic rhetoric. Indeed, Canada occupies a unique global position, demonstrating that even countries determined to build peace cannot abandon the claim that conflict and war fuel the economy, provide for millions of Canadians, and that doing so under the guise of responsible conviction is feasible.

Canada has faced budgetary pressures just as the US has, and in keeping necessary production going, Canada has turned to buyers categorized by Ottawa’s defense relationships. Outside of the US, the UK was the largest export destination in 2015 ($100 million CAD of military exports). Saudi Arabia held second place for Canadian military exports in 2015 with total sales to Riyadh accounting for 14% of Canada’s military exports.

Thailand accounted for a sizeable purchase of Canadian arms and components. However, in 2016, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Stéphane Dion prevented the sale of arms to Thailand in favor of a $15 billion CAD export of military vehicles arranged under the Stephen Harper administration to Saudi Arabia – a country scoring lower on its overall freedom rating than Thailand. Canada’s LAVs are being sold to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, which is tasked with protecting against internal threats and could be used against the country’s Shia Muslim minority.

General Dynamics Land Systems Canada (GDLS-C) retains a 15-year contract to produce military vehicles for Saudi Arabia and is still collecting the necessary materials to begin production. The deal is expected to create 3,000 Canadian jobs.

Thailand is currently not engaged in military action with any other country, however, internal security tensions are on the rise, and it still has a longstanding insurgency in its southern provinces, meaning there is demand among the government for military hardware from Canada. The same kind of hardware Canada has provided to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has seen its need for new military hardware increase rapidly over the past few years. As a result of its military engagements in Yemen – labeled part of the Sunni-Muslim Kingdom’s Cold War in the Middle East – it has been incurring military losses, meaning it only stands to reason that lost military equipment needs to be replaced. Canada is in the midst of entrenching itself in a position of providing those states with the requisite weaponry to replace such losses and maintain their military postures.

Under the export control policy guidelines that were put in place in 1986, many of Canada’s sales contradict Ottawa’s institutional position on the export of military good and technologies. For instance, Canada claims to control its exports to countries that pose a threat to Canada and its allies, that are either part of or that can easily become part of hostilities, and to countries with governments associated with persistent records of egregious action and violations of the human rights of the people they are tasked with protecting. Adding to the existing controversy is the assessment process undertaken by Ottawa in its lead-up to signing export permits. This process lacks transparency and it is difficult to decipher just how Ottawa follows through on its risk analyses.

Canada’s military exports demonstrate that Ottawa is almost certainly looking for the biggest buyers of weapons and technology. Countries around the world are increasingly showing interest in acquiring advanced weapons component and technologies, and military platforms from Western countries. Canadian-made weapons now fuel the hybrid war ongoing in eastern Ukraine – a war in which both the regular and irregular armed forces on the both the Russian and Ukrainian sides have violated the laws of war. The 2004 sale of Bell 4I2 Helicopters to Pakistan brought home about $346 million CAD with a further $22 million CAD from the sale of aircraft machinery to Indonesia. Canada also sold millions of dollars worth of “Twin Pac” helicopter engines to Indonesia during the Cold War.

Ottawa has no control over the use of goods and technologies after they have been exported, unearthing the paradoxical side of Canada’s positions on disarmament that while states may be big buyers of Canadians arms and arms components, states can also act as important conduits for doing business with violent non-state actors (VSNAs). Arms acquisition by states in volatile regions will likely have an impact but it is difficult to say where exactly that impact will be. Effects can be seen externally and internally but one might expect to see a greater impact on the domestic side of the ledger. Enhanced arms sales are not being considered in a much broader and more strategic context of intra-state, inter-state, and regional/global security.

Much like the US, Canada is increasingly paying attention to the economic potential of becoming involved in proxy wars. In many conflicts around the world, it has become an unsettling truth that military power is the only way to reach a solution. Given that many countries do not have the necessary military industry to support their wars against other states and armed groups, they are able to turn to countries like Canada for their military equipment.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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To Keystone or Not to Keystone?

Justin Trudeau campaigned in support of the controversial Keystone XL project – a proposed pipeline connecting Canada’s oil sands to refineries in the US Midwest, which has long been languishing in political limbo. Despite Mr. Trudeau’s pro-pipeline lip service on the campaign trail, the election result is a net setback for the Keystone XL because it lost a resolute champion in the outgoing prime minister. Prime Minister Harper put so much emphasis on the Keystone XL project that he was roundly criticized by his opponents for allowing the issue to single-handedly sour US-Canadian relations under his watch. Now, with President Obama expected to veto an approval of Keystone XL in Congress, Trudeau might be given an escape hatch from having to follow through on his support.

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The Conservatives are by far the most known entity owing to their nine years in power. Over that time the Harper government has come to be known for its strong support for Israel, opposition to international environmental treaties that might inhibit the development of Canada’s oil sands, strong stance against Russian actions in Ukraine, and most recently its contribution of Canadian CF-18s to the US-led military campaign against Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria. The Harper government has also defined itself as being tough on terrorism, passing the controversial C51 Anti-Terrorism Act, and just this week announcing a plan to institute travel bans on areas deemed to be hotbeds of terrorist activity.

Both the Liberals (currently third in the polls) and the New Democrat Party (first) disagree on the matter of Canada’s active military involvement against ISIS, and this would be the one policy swing of substance that we could expect should the Harper government lose its mandate on October 19.

Beyond that things get murky. Justin Trudeau, the leader of the Liberal Party, has been non-committal on his foreign policy vision and the brief glimpses he affords us tend to look a lot like Harper’s own take on international affairs. Trudeau’s staunch support of Israel mirrors Harper, as does his view on Russian aggression in Ukraine; he also recently came out in support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In fact, it’s difficult to find one foreign policy plank that is unique to Trudeau’s Liberals. There may be more policy announcements yet given there’s two months to go before elections, but going by the piecemeal assortment of information already available, it seems unlikely that there will be any foreign policy bombshells coming from the Trudeau camp.

Trudeau’s style has been called “deliberately nebulous” by Western professor Erika Simpson, and rightly so. Yet the ambivalence is likely by design. The Liberals are banking that there’s more to be gained from a focus on the domestic, where the Harper government has been rendered vulnerable by five consecutive months of economic contraction, than by rocking the boat with any major changes to Canadian foreign policy. This tendency to play it safe was also apparent in Trudeau’s reluctant acceptance of Bill C-51 because he didn’t want the Conservatives to make “political hay” out of the issue.

The New Democratic Party’s Thomas Mulcair represents the more radical departure from Prime Minister Harper’s foreign policy. Though solid policy pronouncements have also been scant from the NDP so far, Mulcair has been vocal as the mouthpiece of the official opposition: He wants to make Canada a “world leader” on climate cooperation and laments Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol under Harper, he has spoken out against the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program and the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS) program, and he has pledged to repeal Bill C-51 if elected. On Israel he has continued the movement towards a more centrist position from the NDP over the past decade. Notably, he supported Israel’s right to defend itself during the Gaza conflict, a stance that NDP MP Sana Hassainia cited as the reason for quitting the party caucus in August of 2014.

And herein lies the major obstacle on Mulcair’s path to power. Some valuable middle ground has been ceded by the Liberals and the Conservatives, and if the NDP seize it they can win the election. Doing so however means watering down past NDP policies in order to court the centrist voters who are now in play, which in turn carries the risk of generating a backlash in some of the more puritanical corners of the party. Thus we can expect Mulcair to be just as vague as his Liberal counterpart in terms of foreign policy, and in doing so attempt to glide on past NDP policy stances without necessarily having to state them anew. On the other side, the Conservatives will jump at every opportunity to reverse this subtle rebranding process by shining a spotlight on any hint of the NDP’s leftist credentials. Case in point is the swift response to NDP candidate Linda McQuaig’s comments on having to leave oil sands oil in the ground, which came right from the prime minister himself.

The unfortunate result to all this is we’re unlikely to see a real debate on Canadian foreign policy in the lead-up to October 19.

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An additional C$292.6 million over five years has been allocated to the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and the Canada Border Agency services to fight terrorism and intercept the financing of terrorist groups. This new funding is a response to criticism from the opposition, which argued that the Canadian law enforcement team was being ignored. As expected, the Conservatives have used the budget to give Canadians the impression of caring for their safety, while Finance Minister Joe Oliver reinforced the need for additional security measures, warning citizens that jihadists had “declared war on Canada and Canadians.”

The budget also includes C$12.5 million over five years to oversee intelligence services in order to address concerns from the NDP and the Liberals about the lack supervision measures in Bill C-51 – so called anti-terrorism legislation that was recently passed in the House. An additional C$94.4 million over the next five years was allotted to protect Canada’s infrastructure from cyber-attacks. Despite the grandstanding, some analysts suggest that the additional funds account for a mere five percent increase in Canada’s public security budget. Nonetheless, the Conservative government has framed the budget to appeal to people’s anxieties emanating from lingering international crises.

“Our Government understands the presence of danger and is determined to respond in a responsible manner, without ambiguity or moral ambiguity,” said Mr. Oliver during his speech. He specifically cited ISIS or Islamic State, noting that the new funding gave the RCMP and CSIS new resources to investigate and prevent terrorist attacks against Canada, as well as hampering Islamic State’s ability to draw vulnerable young Canadians to its cause. As for border security, the budget allows for additional use of biometrics to identify travelers who require a visa to come to Canada. For some countries like Brazil, NAFTA partner Mexico, or EU members Bulgaria and Romania, cumbersome procedures could have economic consequences against the Harper government. Mexicans were enraged by the visa requirement imposed by Canada a few years ago, while imposing visas on travelers from Romania and Bulgaria is an obstacle to the ratification of an important free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union.

The military as a reflection of a changing foreign policy

Harper’s Canada has taken on military missions that have increased the country’s exposure to the very risks that the additional security measures are intended to address. Canada wisely managed to stay out of Iraq, but the current government has sent Special Forces to fight against Islamic State alongside Kurdish forces in northern Iraq with provisions to attack ISIS posts in Syria as well. In an even more ‘ambitious,’ or imprudent, move depending on perspective, the Harper government has sent special troops to train Ukrainian soldiers confronting pro-Russian rebels. The Canadian Armed Forces had until recently acted in concert with other national forces in peacekeeping roles under UN auspices; after all, even the mission in Afghanistan had a UN, as well as a NATO, component. The new and more aggressive stance suggest that the Canadian military will have to evolve in a direction that reflects the current government’s policy. The 2015 election may have an outcome that precludes significant changes, but it will not be easy to stay the momentum.

So far, the Harper Government has promised to spend more to keep the military afloat, but by less than the minimum estimated by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The current budget has not seen any increases, which would not be effective until two years from now. It stressed benefits to veterans but capped the total at about C$1.6 billion. In recent weeks, the new Minister of Veterans Affairs, Erin O’Toole, announced various measures for veterans, including a pension benefit for soldiers who are not eligible for the army’s own pension plan, a financial support program for caregivers of wounded soldiers, and hiring staff to handle cases and claims.

Minister Joe Oliver said the government planned allocations of C$11.8 billion over 10 years for military supplies starting in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Yearly increases of C$184 million will eventually increase the military budget by C$2.3 billion in 2026-2027 compared to the current one. This is not a great number, considering many military leaders believe that the government should spend up to C$3 billion per year just to keep the armed forces at their current level. The government has made special provisions for the special missions of 2015, allocating an extraordinary amount of C$360.3 million this year to fight Islamic state, and an additional sum of C$7.1 million for the military training mission in Ukraine.

The Conservative government was under pressure to increase military budgets – especially from its NATO allies – but the announced measures will have a minimal impact. NATO recommends member governments to devote at least 2% of their budgets to military spending. The military also suffered because of the government’s drive to balance the budget. The next government, he said, will have to make painful choices and possibly even make cuts – either actual or to the planned supply. The Conservative government canceled C$3 billion in expenditures for the purchase of ships, aircraft and military vehicles, promising to make these acquisitions later and there are no specific dispositions on the subject. As the general elections loom closer, the Conservatives would have liked to present themselves as the champions of the military, but their budget suggests a mixed record at best. The recent budget balancing cuts – which allow the Conservatives to avoid having to raise corporate taxes – actually come after a period of relative growth under the Chretien-Martin Liberals, who increased military spending to the point that by 2011, in real terms, it reached the their highest level since the end of World War II.

Nevertheless, the future of Canada’s defense remains uncertain. Surely, major hardware rearmament programs remain, including the purchase of a new generation fighter, likely Lockheed Martin’s F-35 and a whole fleet of new warships. The election in October has forced the government to dig itself into a pigeonhole since the economic situation is rapidly deteriorating, forcing it to use a series of exceptional measures and accounting tricks to keep the promise of eliminating the deficit. Nevertheless, while the Kurdistan and Ukraine missions are especially appealing to Harper supporters, all parties appear to agree with the more interventionist shift in Canadian foreign policy since the beginning of the 21st century, less about peacekeeping and more about following US-led coalitions in a series of wars and military interventions around the world. These include NATO’s war against Yugoslavia in 1999, the invasion and the occupation of Afghanistan, the expulsion in 2004 of Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Haiti’s elected president), and NATO’s war in 2011 for a “regime change” in Libya.

Yet, rather than a ‘peacekeeper,’ throughout the Cold War, Canada has been a staunch ally of the United States army, a NATO member and a founding partner in NORAD. For nearly half a century, Canada’s military resources were dedicated to the planning of a Third World War against the Soviet Union. Indeed, most of Canada’s UN peacekeeping operations all enjoyed Washington’s tacit approval and support. Nevertheless, Canada served an important diplomatic role as a bridge. It held relations with Moscow, and Havana, in the darkest days of the Cold War; it kept an embassy in Tehran until just a few years ago and avoided aggressive stances and policies. As part of Canada’s new and more aggressive foreign policy, which is what has really changed rather than military capabilities, the government appears to be leading an effort to distort the notion that Canada is a “peacekeeper.” The media have abutted this by celebrating the achievements of the Canadian army in the past and present struggles, and PM Harper likes to remind his voters that Canada is a “warrior nation” and that WW1 was an “honorable war.” Canadian Forces have been almost constantly at war since the turn of the century: Afghanistan (2001-2011), Libya (2011), Iraq since last fall and now in Syria. In addition, Canada is deeply involved in three major US-led strategic and military offensives on the world stage. The war against Islamic state – a war that has emerged from a series of wars that the United States has undertaken in the Middle East, and one which has the ostensible goal of ensuring US hegemony in the largest oil-exporting region in the world.

Canada has long supported the United States in its attempt to transform Ukraine into a satellite of the West and to extend NATO to Russia’s borders. The Harper government, with the full support of the opposition parties, deployed Canadian aircraft in Eastern Europe and warships in the Black Sea to intensify NATO threats against Russia. Canada signed a secret military agreement with the United States to include Canada in the “pivot to Asia” policy to encircle and strategically isolate China. Canada also participates in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), through which Washington seeks to establish a larger regional economic bloc led by the United States. Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE), it should be noted, is one of the key partners of the US National Security Agency (NSA), spying on governments and citizens around the world in order to eliminate “threats to security.”

There is global pressure on Canada to respond to the United States’ relative decline in economic power and the rise of new powers. Canada calculates that the best way to defend and assert its own economic and strategic interests is to support American interventions. The military is the only aspect where the United States enjoys supremacy over its rivals.

This policy is reflected in last week’s surprise visit by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Canada’s Special Forces stationed in northern Iraq and Kuwait. Harper used this trip to promote Canada’s growing role in the newest Middle East war as well as the thrust of his government’s policy to expand the powers of the national security apparatus – portraying these measures as required responses to Islamic terrorism. In a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the president of the autonomous Kurdish region Masoud Barzani, Harper reaffirmed the commitment of the Conservative government to continue its ongoing military operations in the country and in neighboring Syria. Harper seeks to present this military intervention as a humanitarian mission to protect the civilian population against Islamic State. He announced modest sums totaling some C$160 million to help rebuild Iraq and to support other countries in the Middle East facing a massive influx of Syrian refugees. In fact, there are Canadian oil companies operating in Kurdistan, producing and shipping oil. In recent years, Iraq has become a major trading partner for Canada, with bilateral trade in 2012 totaling more than $4 billion, making the country one of the most important trading partners for Canada in the Middle East.

In addition, Iraq is seen as offering significant growth opportunities for oil companies and Canadian infrastructure. The Conservative government named Iraq as one of Canada’s “development partners”, which allows Baghdad to receive additional financial assistance and other forms of support from the Canadian government. The Kurdish region is one of the most lucrative parts of the country for Canadian investment. Several oil companies and other companies have operations there and the Harper government last year opened a sales office in Erbil, the regional capital. This office is responsible for the expansion of Canadian investment in Iraq and was promoted at the time by the government as necessary because the Iraqi economy was one of the fastest growing in the world – notwithstanding the fact that Kurdish authorities are being challenged by Baghdad over their handling of oil contracts with foreign companies. In Erbil, Harper took time to visit the office of Melwood Geometrix, a Montreal company specializing in precast concrete. Media commentators have noted the electoral nature of this visit, as in many other Harper appearances in Iraq and Kuwait. His meeting with the local manager Melwood Geometrix took place before the cameras and after the greetings, Harper received a Montreal Canadiens hockey jersey.

Canada has deployed 69 military Special Forces to train and advise Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, six combat aircraft CF-18, two surveillance aircraft and an aircraft refueller, all supported by some 600 members of the CAF, to help the coalition bombing missions. In late March, the government extended Canada’s military mission in the Middle East until April 2016 and authorized the FCC to take part in the bombing campaign in Syria, making Canada the only Western ally of the United States to attack Syria. Bombing Syria is a violation of international law and tantamount to a declaration of war against the government of that country. Moreover, it would make more sense for Canada to attack Islamic State in Syria if it had friendly relations with Iran and Russia, which are Syria’s de-facto regional protectors. Rather, the government treats the governments of both those countries with contempt. At first it was said that ground troops in Iraq would not engaged in a combat and be limited to training and advising the Kurdish militia behind the front line. However, within months, it was revealed that Canadian troops have regularly gone to the front to directing attacks against Islamic State, asking for air strikes by coalition aircraft. In January, the Canadian army admitted that Special Forces troops were at the front almost 20% of the time.

During his visit to Kuwait, Harper has cultivated the image of a prime minister at war with appeals to nationalism and Canadian militarism, even if the military itself has not been the recipient of significant additional funding. Although it remains unclear whether the Conservatives will call for an early election, it is clear that whether the vote takes place this spring or next October, they will mount a bellicose campaign, stoking Canadian nationalism and appealing to anti-Muslim sentiment – in no small way heightened by Bill C-51. Harper has already indicated his intention to portray the opposition parties as being “soft” on the issue of terrorism because they have not fully endorsed the combat mission in the Middle East. He also said that if they were elected they would amend Bill C-51, which, it is reminded, allows CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) to violate virtually any law to disrupt whatever it deems a threat to Canada’s national and economic security or its territorial integrity. In his tour of the Middle East, Harper took the opportunity to promote Bill C-51, saying: “We are working to give our security agencies all the modern tools needed to identify terrorists and foil their plans, including a greater capacity to stem the recruitment and flow of fighters in the country.”

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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Not one of these cases needed any special laws, whether anti-terrorism or anti-conspiracy, to bring the accused to face justice. It was sufficient for police and intelligence services, RCMP or CSIS, to rely on their current and rather ample powers – enhanced in 2002 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States. This is the main argument against the Conservative government’s decision, as presented in Bill C-51, to give police more powers and modify the fundamental role of CSIS from intelligence gathering to being able to carry out arrests. In other words, Prime Minister Harper wants to give Canada more cops and more spies to give a semblance of tough talk for the consumption of voters in the 2015 election. Harper likes to say that “Canada is at war,” a condition that demands unapologetic firmness, but also one that will result in the ‘creation’ of new crimes – and new criminals.

Here is a brief overview of the proposed changes to law enforcement in Bill C-51, which is being considered for adoption by the House of Commons and the Senate:

Broadening the mandate of CSIS. CSIS is granted the mandate to disrupt threats to national security in Canada and abroad. Currently, its mandate is limited to the collection of information and it must communicate with other agencies such as the RCMP. CSIS could now move itself to action in preventing potential movements, among other things, by intercepting weapons shipments or blocking communications inciting terrorism. This new power would be subject to judicial authorization.

The criminalization of “advocating or fomenting” acts of terrorism. A maximum of five years is planned for these new offenses. The government says that these measures are aimed at discouraging more general terrorist acts such as incitement to “carry out attacks against Canada.”

Targeting terrorist propaganda. The current law allows for the seizure of hate material or child pornography. This measure would create two new mandates to prevent individuals or groups from encouraging the commission of terrorist acts.

Facilitating preventative arrests. The bill lowers required thresholds for recognizance, with conditions and a commitment not to disturb public order by changing the terminology.

Bill C-51 raises more concerns than it provides protection from terrorism; it gives CSIS the power to thwart imminent threats to national security, whether in Canada or abroad. This might be expected, but the problem lies in the fact that a judge can grant CSIS the authority to act beyond its traditional mandate and even to violate the law or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bill C-51 has a rather opportunistic character; it is the Canadian government’s response to lone-wolf attacks in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Ottawa last fall. The attacks were promptly described as acts of terrorism with apparent evidence to suggest it was Islamist-inspired terrorism.

The Federal Court has already revealed the limits of the current law in an unspecified case related to national security. In the fall of 2013, Justice Richard Mosley ruled that CSIS had been secretive about the foreign and domestic surveillance partnerships it was trying to form – including an eavesdropping warrant which would have extended its powers beyond Canada’s borders. Justice Mosley ruled that such activities, “if conducted in Canada, require the issuance of a warrant.” Bill C-51 has effectively removed such limitations. Therefore, Mr. Harper has acquiesced to changing the law in the manner decided by CSIS rather than the Canadian public. So judges in Canada will now be able to issue a warrant for CSIS to collect information abroad regardless of the laws of the other country.

Speed limits provide a good analogy for the problem of Bill C-51. Politicians advocate speed limits in the same way they ‘sell’ a war – and what better example than the attacks on Parliament Hill in Ottawa?  It is merely necessary for the people to believe that the cause is right, and the amount of media coverage certainly achieved this. The point is to frame it and the reaction as being about “freedom and justice” (speed limits are presented as ‘safety’). However, the problem is that any legislation will only be as good at preventing the ‘last terrorist attack”; in other words, it can be a reaction at best and cannot really provide any preventative measures. The Patriot Act in the US, for instance, was designed to prevent another 9/11 and various laws were passed in Britain to prevent bombings and attacks, despite the fact that Britain faced terror attacks throughout the 1970s and 80s by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Spain too, before the Atocha train station attack in 2004, had suffered a number of attacks by the Basque separatists of ETA, and then there is Italy with the Red Brigades. New laws are adopted but they never really work because the ‘last terrorist attack’ never becomes the norm; thus the new laws are old before they are even adopted. The assumption that new attacks can be prevented by new laws is the problem. It would be better if governments were more concerned about being effective with existing laws rather than pandering to public opinion and risking potential abuses of constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms, as is the case with Bill C-51. Indeed, France did not adopt new laws after the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

Most media and (especially in Canada) government discussion about terror attacks, or attempted ones, occurs in response to random events presented as if isolated from a wider reality. If the focus falls on the Sahel one day, on another it shifts to the Arabian Peninsula. In some other place and some other time, it is about Somalia and its pirates, or Afghanistan, or North Africa, or Europe, or for that matter, anywhere in the world and at any time. Most commentators just do the best they can to comment about an event without linking it to other events or other issues. Because of this inability to link issues and topics, no meaningful solutions are proposed. Yemen’s strategic position and its rapidly failing socio-economic conditions, for instance, make it a country of critical concern. Yemen has shown to have immediate security concerns that left unmitigated have the potential to create a situation of chronic instability and militancy.

It would be more effective, rather, for governments to adopt more ‘holistic’ approaches to confront terrorism rather than merely policing and legal ones. This is where Liberal and NDP leaders Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair should press the government during the debate for Bill C-51. There are already more than enough surveillance methods and prison sentences to “arrest your way out of terrorism”; what is lacking is a better understanding of the Muslim community (even though the number of people involved in terrorism is a fraction of a fraction) and a much needed and honest debate over Canada’s foreign policy – and its impact – as a driver for the recruitment of militants. Moreover, while the focus of Bill C-51 is unabashedly on ‘Islamists,’ the conflict between the Islamists and the West (or its perceived proxies) is permanent. Unless major grievances are tackled, Islamic militancy will remain difficult to moderate, even if it may seem to be the case from time to time.  More precisely, a solution to the conflict starts with solving the big visible issues, including the fate of the Arab-Israeli conflict, reassessing Western support to the dictatorships in the Arab world, reintroducing a sustainable path of democratization, and inviting moderate Islamists to share in governance, in addition to enforcement and military action.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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