Canada and the World, Ep. 2: Doing business with Riyadh

In the first episode of Canada and the World, which can be downloaded here, host Bessma Momani and guests explored the reasons behind Saudi Arabia’s extreme reaction to criticism from Canada of its human rights record. This week, Momani follows up specifically on the issue that has raised the most questions since the Canada-Saudi spat began earlier this month — what to do about the $15 billion arms deal between the two nations? Is it possible to have human rights guarantees when selling something like light armoured vehicles? How is this all connected to the war in Yemen? What will this mean for Canada’s ability to speak out going forward?

This is the second episode in a new podcast on Canadian foreign affairs. It is produced through a partnership between OpenCanada.org and The Balsillie School of International Affairs. 

Our host

Bessma Momani is professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and University of Waterloo and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. She’s also a non-resident senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and a Fulbright Scholar. She has been non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and a 2015 Fellow at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. She’s a frequent analyst and expert on international affairs in Canadian and global media. 

This week’s guests

Cesar Jaramillo is executive director at Project Ploughshares, a division of the Canadian Council of Churches. His areas of expertise include nuclear disarmament, outer space security and conventional weapons control. As an international civil society representative, Cesar has addressed, among others, the UN General Assembly First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), the UN Conference on Disarmament, the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), and states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He is also a regular columnist on matters of disarmament and international security.

Steven Chase is with The Globe and Mail’s Ottawa bureau, where he has covered federal politics since mid-2001. He previously worked in the paper’s Vancouver and Calgary bureaus and prior to that, reported on Alberta politics for the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun, and on national issues for Alberta Report. 

Jaqueline Lopour is the Global Threat & Intelligence Analysis Manager at Google’s DC office. She was previously a research associate with the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo and before that spent 10 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, specializing in South Asia and the Middle East.

Canada and The World is produced and edited by Matthew Markudis. Each episode is available for download (below) and can also be found on iTunes and other podcast applications.