By: Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Okay, at first glance, I’ll admit, this looks bad. Like, really, really, super crazy bad.
I mean, how could I, Stephane Dion, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, champion of human rights, and the closest thing this world has to a living, breathing Loofah brush, vocally denounce the Saudi government for executing 47 prisoners in one breath, and then publicly champion Canada’s plan to sell them $15 billion worth of armored vehicles just two days later? Am I really that big of a hypocrite?
The answer, my friends, is no. And here’s why: technically, Saudi Arabia’s money never executed anyone.
Make no mistake, the Saudi Royal Family are horrible, horrible people. We’re talking straight up monsters here. They execute one person every two days, and not by traditional methods like the electric chair or lethal injection. No, these sheep-fuckers get straight up biblical: beheadings, stonings, even crucifixions. And as long as we’re being totally honest here, I’m, like, 99% sure they helped orchestrate 9/11. But that’s a YouTube rabbit hole for another night.
My point is, Saudi Arabia’s leaders are human garbage. And there’s no place for people like them here in Canada. But their seemingly unlimited supply of beautiful money never did anything to anyone. I mean, besides insulate the Saudis from anything even remotely resembling consequences for their egregious violations of human rights. But besides that, the money is totally innocent. And it helps pay for things we all love, like health care, school textbooks, and increasingly unrealistic election promises!
So please, before you go all Saudi on me and start casting stone, after stone, after stone, after stone, after — well, you get the idea — I beseech you to take a moment, and follow the example of your elected officials by thinking of the money. I know they say it can’t buy happiness, but I can think of at least fifteen billion reasons that that’s just not true.
And if we keep looking the other way the next time Saudi Arabia takes a big, steaming dump on everything our country claims to stand for, I’m sure we’ll be able to think of several billion more.
