Far from “building Canada strong,” the prime minister’s visit to Abu Dhabi marks the culmination of a decade-long push to secure access for Canadian capital in a lucrative Gulf market. If that requires overlooking the victims of Canadian weapons sales and the brutal consequences of UAE policy in Sudan, the government has shown it is more than willing to do so.

On November 21, Mark Carney landed in Abu Dhabi, becoming the first Canadian leader in more than 40 years to visit the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Ottawa portrayed the trip as a move toward trade diversification—a strategy cast as urgent after Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats against Canadian sovereignty—but the visit also brought Canada into direct contact with a Gulf power implicated in some of the world’s deadliest conflicts.

Not only did the official talks in Abu Dhabi deliberately bypass any mention of the UAE’s funding of war crimes and possibly genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region, but the subsequent media coverage in Canada also conspicuously failed to address the Canadian government’s own entanglement and complicity in these atrocities.

  • Sepia@mander.xyz
    1·
    10 hours ago

    It’s also important that the UAE is also allegedly supporting crimes against humanity and genocide in China’s Xinjiang region. There is ample evidence for Beijing’s atrocities against Uyghurs as you may know (you’ll find a lot of very reliable sources across the web, some of them even here as I have read).

    So Canada must not look only at Sudan but also China.

      • Sepia@mander.xyz
        1·
        2 hours ago

        This is not about ‘leverage’ but a stance on human rights. But, more importantly, it’s a reason why China is not a reliable partner for Canada.

        • acargitz@lemmy.caOP
          1·
          46 minutes ago

          Of course it’s about leverage otherwise it wouldn’t sound silly to talk about Canada cutting off relations with the US over its arming of Israeli genocide the way we have for a Russia’s genocidal actions in Ukraine. Canada just doesn’t have the political weight to cut off relations with 2/3rds of the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

          That said, I’m sorry but are you lost or do you have some kind of agenda? This is the thread under an article about the Canadian-UAE relations. If you want to start a conversation on Canadian-Chinese relations you’re free to submit a relevant article at [email protected]