How Saudi Arabia, and a $15B armoured vehicle deal, became an election issue

Sure, Steveo. Did you ask them how hard they want you to orally copulate them?

We've sold them vehicles 20 something years ago as well. But we didn't hear lefties whine about it back then.

That's because you have your left ear plugged.

They were sold under a Liberal government IIRC.

Oh, well then, that makes it OK. The Liberals did it tooooooo. Oh, and as Steveo makes clear, our allies are doing it toooooo.

I don't actually care what we sell them, but the sucking up to them that we do to do so. Especially with how they are now destroying our oil industry.

IIRC (again) the whole point of the oil supply glut we have is to lower prices to the point that Russian's economy breaks (how's that going Bart?). I was under the impression that it was a joint strategy between the west and western-friendly OPEC nations.

So Harper is in on destroying our oil industry? What could induce Saudi Arabia to lower oil prices to the point their economy is starting to have problems http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... l-#media-1 to destroy Russia? What would SA get out of that? And Obama is willing to screw his own newly burgeoning industry for this as well?

America buys more oil that Russia. I'm not partial to the backroom deals, but I think everyone misses the economic comfort we had in the 90s when there was no enemy. Perhaps the goal is to bring back that stability by kicking the legs out from under the Russians again. One of those short term pain now for long term gain later type of situations.

Whether Harper liked the idea or not, he'd have to go along with it. If it means we get manufacturing contracts out of the deal in place of oil revenue, then so be it. I doubt $15 billion in LAV contracts will offset the billions in oilfield losses, but it will help a different part of the country that is also in desperate need of a boost - Ontario.

And no, I'm no Ontario lover. But I believe the best economic situation in Canada is where all regions prosper to some degree and all share some economic pains. This lopsided shit where one regions incredible gains are another's severe pain has got to stop.

Nah, I'm reading that the US is in an oil war with SA, and that the US will win, since their economy isn't very dependent on oil. I can just see no reason for SA to try to bankrupt Russia, nor can I see what inducements the West could offer it to do so.

To me the USA waging an oil war with SA makes less sense then them working together to tank Russia's economy.

We were schilling to sell the Saudis Halifax class Frigates when we were building them. I believe that they would have been our only overseas buyers.




... an old story spanning several governments

Oil Prices: What�s Behind the Plunge? Simple Economics



http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015 ... .html?_r=0

Oil Prices: What�s Behind the Plunge? Simple Economics



http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015 ... .html?_r=0
There is another theory that cheap OPEC oil, led by the Saudis is directly aimed at ending U S oil self-sufficiency by making more expensive sources, like oil sands, too expensive to be viable.

I'd say that it's working.

Which should have been met automatically by an embargo of all OPEC oil coming into North America. Odds are that Obama couldn't have done thanks to all the incestuous connections between Houston and Wall Street and Riyadh, not to mention the apparently "need" to project the unending idiocy of "the Saudis are our friends". Our friends? Really? Nice friends they are, what with setting off a recession and putting tens of thousands of North Americans out of work.

Said it before but this lack of reaction by Canada to what the Saudis deliberately did to us is the one issue that has the potential to make me not vote for Harper in the upcoming election. That means I probably won't be voting at all because I certainly won't give my support to the two left-wing parties that want to hammer Alberta as hard as they can and triple or quadruple the amount of economic damage that's already been caused by the Saudis. I just can't set aside though that instead of striking back economically at the Saudis, as much as we have any ability to do so, that Harper has gone out of his way to reward them. That contract for the AFV's should have been cancelled outright. And what remained of the Wheat Board should not have been sold when it was apparent that one of the partners in the group that purchased it was Saudi Arabia.

You don't reward enemies, and the Saudis are our economic enemies as they've clearly demonstrated over the last year. To make things easier for them, while they're doing what they can to harm Canadians, is simply unacceptable.