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Terry Glavin: Carney should hold human-rights violators accountable

The PM's right that we shouldn't lecture from afar, but that doesn't mean we should do nothing

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It was perfectly packaged, deftly marketed, efficiently delivered and widely accepted as reasonable and wise: Prime Minister Mark Carney, in Jeddah, being suave and properly indisposed to “lecturing countries from afar,” would sensibly and of necessity do business with Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s worst serial human rights abusers.

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Of course there would be “disagreements,” but in the newly disordered world thrust upon us by U.S. President Donald Trump, Canada’s “satisfying” but “ineffective” public scoldings of yesteryear will no longer do. Canada is calibrating new alignments with countries around the world, and that’s just how it is.

Terry Glavin: Carney should hold human-rights violators accountable Back to video

“Engagement is not endorsement. So, engaging with the country doesn’t mean that we agree with everything that a country is doing,” Carney said on July 9. His words were taken nearly verbatim from Foreign Minister Anita Anand earlier in the day. Anand said she’d raised human rights concerns with the Saudis, quietly, adding, “It is necessary to fulfill Canadian values, to represent those values on the world stage and to bring those values to the table.”

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Three important realities appear to have been missed in this reading of........

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