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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPrime Minister Mark Carney passes an honour guard as he disembark a government plane in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Adrian Wyld<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a willingness to deepen relations with Canada, but we are not high on their priority list.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carney\u2019s visit follows a gradual thaw in bilateral relations after what Juneau called \u201ca fairly major diplomatic dispute\u201d in 2018.<\/p>\n
The Trudeau government had criticized the kingdom\u2019s justice system and its treatment of women, calling on Saudi Arabia to \u201cimmediately release\u201d human-rights activists. Riyadh instead withdrew its ambassador from Ottawa and expelled Canada\u2019s envoy.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia halted trade talks with Canada, before restoring ambassadors in 2023.<\/p>\n
The dispute followed years of controversy around Canada\u2019s sales of light armoured vehicles to the kingdom.<\/p>\n
Juneau said Carney\u2019s visit could lead to investment deals, as well as co-operation on security and defense, green-energy projects and various diplomatic initiatives. The Gulf region produces little of its own food, Juneau noted, and Saudi Arabia is among those interested in Canada\u2019s secure supply chains.<\/p>\n
Juneau said he\u2019ll be watching for any discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since both countries have \u201cbroadly similar\u201d positions that Israel should live in peace next to a sovereign Palestinian state.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll also watch for any detail on Canada saying it could help secure shipping in the Strait of Hormuz should there be a viable ceasefire between the U.S., Israel and Iran. The tentative ceasefire brokered in June collapsed this week, when Iran fired at commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, and the U.S. responded with a new wave of attacks on Iran Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Juneau said overall, it\u2019s a guess what Carney is trying to achieve with his visit. Carney\u2019s office listed multiple \u201cpriority sectors\u201d including mining, artificial intelligence, cleantech, agriculture, tourism, infrastructure, and life sciences.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be useful if the government were more transparent in explaining to Canadians, especially given the difficult past \u2026 what our expectations are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Carney has made a clear outreach to Gulf states, including trips to both the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in the last year. But Canada has generally lagged behind its peers on pursuing investment from wealthy oil states and co-operation in diplomacy, security and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Juneau said that discrepancy has increased as Canada\u2019s peers have provided more military and intelligence assistance during this year\u2019s Iran war.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia has turned to South Korea for defence manufacturing and infrastructure needs, Ukraine for drone technology, and Western European countries for nuclear and agriculture projects.<\/p>\n
Juneau said Canada remains focused on relations with the U.S. while Riyadh is dealing with the U.S. war on Iran and other Middle East conflicts. But both are seeking more partnerships beyond Washington while remaining under the American security umbrella.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia has also undertaken an infrastructure boom, with mixed success. Saudi Arabia planned for a futuristic metropolis called Neom that has largely fallen apart due to cost and logistical issues, particularly \u201cThe Line,\u201d a 170-kilometre long linear city that was to be carved straight into the desert.<\/p>\n
Global Affairs Canada says Ottawa has a \u201cstrong bilateral relationship\u201d in its online country profile, noting \u201csignificant momentum since 2025\u201d thanks to high-level visits involving trade, AI and agriculture.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaudi Arabia is a valued security and economic partner for Canada and its allies,\u201d the department wrote. \u201cCanada values its strong bilateral relationship, reinforced by high-level engagements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Juneau said Saudi Arabia is in major transition, with the country diversifying its economy beyond hydrocarbons. The country has made social changes he described as narrow and top-down, but real. Women have been allowed to drive since 2018 but still face male guardianship rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is social and economic reform, but there is no political reform. There is no liberalization, there is not democratization. If anything, human rights are even worse now than they were 10 years ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the Carney government, it\u2019s been pretty clear that human rights are much less of a priority in general \u2014 and specifically with respect to its interest in deepening relations with countries in the Gulf area.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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Human Rights Watch says Saudi Arabia has long had an \u201cabysmal human rights record\u201d that has only gotten worse with a recent surge in executions.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaudi Arabian authorities harshly repress any dissent, including by handing down long sentences or the death penalty after unfair trials on charges related to peaceful online expression,\u201d the group writes.<\/p>\n
The Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights has called on Ottawa to push Riyadh to drop its travel ban on Raif Badawi, a blogger Saudi Arabia flogged and imprisoned for 10 years over his writing.<\/p>\n
Badawi served a decade in prison and has been barred from leaving the kingdom since his release in 2022, despite his wife and children living in Quebec.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 8, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2013 Prime Minister Mark Carney has arrived in Saudi Arabia as he seeks economic partnerships with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-788987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}