Saturday, April 16, 2016

That LAV deal

Frankly, the LAV deal is a shitty deal for anyone in Canada but the Tories, and I honestly don't believe the Trudeau, Dion, and the rest like it any more than of us. I think they probably know they've got no good defence for their decision. They've got advisors looking at the tea leaves and wondering what the next of war in the region will look like. We've got no idea where and how any weapons in the region will be used and by whom.

Dion, Trudeau, others, and their advisors would have done a cost-benefit analysis around this, I'm sure. It might have come up with the following:

First, if they'd cancelled, the Americans and Europeans would have made noises because it impacted their arms industries too given the distributed global supply chains involved (e.g. for LAV gun turrets).

Next, the Saudis (and General Dynamics Land Systems) would have sent a fleet of Suezmax tankers full of lawyers to compel us to fulfil the order or compensate them into the gazillions, probably both. I'm the contracts have pretty nasty penalties written in. We might have had a serious diplomatic spat too, and watched Canadian investments in the Kingdom run into serious trouble. There's $4 billion in trade between the countries and we weren't going to mess with that by axing the armour deal.

Despite having a majority, the Grits are also worried about public opinion. If we'd squashed the deal, a few (but not all!) of the same folks now vexed at them for signing it would have been yelling at them for not signing it. They'd cite protecting Canadian manufacturing jobs, screwing-over a key partner in the fight against ISIS (and therefore coddling up to the terrorists!), opening Canada up to lawsuits, and so on. The PR mess is bad now, but I wonder if it would be a hell of a lot worse if Canada was faced with penalty payments in the middle of a loud public protest about cancelling the deal.

Here's the thing: Canada makes a lot of weapons. We have a sizable, top-shelf arms industry. We mostly export to NATO allies and other friendly liberal democracies. But there are customers who aren't in that category and buy big ticket weapons from our allies too.  The ugly fact is that selling big ticket items to employs a lot of people and brings in a lot of cash. The LAV platform is the major heavy weapon system made in Canada in large numbers and it sells very, very well around the world.

What should they have done? Revoke the export permit and faced the kind of backlash that would have material impact in terms of industry and labour relations, penalties and lawsuits? Let the deal go ahead, and face the rhetorical lashing from the public and the perhaps comparatively minor cost of facing off a court challenge?

My sense is that there was no good answer in front of them, and they defaulted to spin and mistruths.  What would have been a better way for the Liberals to handle it? Perhaps being more direct about the pros and cons of the deal and the whole rationale for their decision, whatever decision it was. They can definitely revisit Canadian arms manufacturing and export law.

The arms trade is a dirty business for everyone involved. Best to stay the hell out of it.


11 comments:

e.a.f. said...

Its one thing to sell to NATO members. its quite another to sell to Saudi Arabia and any number of other countries. We have known from the day the country was formed, what their politics and agenda were. they aren't much on human rights, etc. they export their terrorists and fund terrorist organizations. That should disqualify them from having Canada sell arms to them.

It was harper, who was a little light on the ethics, who signed the deal and the Liberals are stuck with it. it might be best if we delivered on the terms of the contract and then, never again. We need to tighten the laws regarding the export of arms to other nations. There are a whole raft of them Canada ought not to be doing business with. We ought to also ensure the countries we sell to do not become re sellers of those arms. There other ways for Canada to make money.

theo said...

Damned if you do and darned if you don’t. It’s always interesting how situations present themselves. The Saudis are (!!##$@#) less than nice. We do business with them. Therefore, we are (!!##$@#) less than nice. That is all I am going to say, beyond, we do business with them.

Steve said...

Good summary of how to deal with a flamming turd.

The Mound of Sound said...

Janes reports that Canada is now the 2nd largest supplier of arms to the Middle East and, globally, we're in a solid 6th position.

I thought it worth a howl to read that Canada lectured the Security Council last week about the need to protect civilian populations in conflicts yet we blindly support Israel with its Dahiyeh strategy that Saudi Arabia is emulating by cluster bombing Houthi civilians in Yemen. Cognitive dissonance anyone or is that just self-serving hypocrisy?

SADLOVE said...

Thomas Juneau is assistant professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. From 2003 until 2014, he was an analyst with Canada’s Department of National Defence.
The proposed $15-billion sale of light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia has brought significant attention – mostly negative – to Canada’s partnership with the Arabian Peninsula kingdom.
Much of this criticism is valid – the human-rights situation in Saudi Arabia is undeniably abysmal.
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