A $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia has torpedoed early enthusiasm for the Liberal government’s foreign policy.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to office with a mandate to rewrite the narrative on Canada’s place in the world. Between a large-scale airlift of Syrian refugees and Canada’s more constructive role at the global climate change talks before Christmas, it did feel for a while like something was different about Canada on the world stage. You could be forgiven for believing Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna when she said that Canada was “back”.

But Liberal efforts to remake the country’s image are facing their first challenge. London-based General Dynamics has a contract to supply Saudi Arabia’s National Guard with an unknown number of light armoured vehicles (LAVs). The new government — elected with a set of expectations on foreign affairs entirely different from the previous government’s policy — hasn’t adequately addressed the fear that these weapons could be implicated in future human rights abuses.

If the government doesn’t offer new reasons to believe Canada is a force for good in the world, its reputation for muddled messaging could stick. Ottawa is eyeing a free trade with China, one of the world’s largest human rights abusers, according to a Globe and Mail report from last week. While business ties are critically important, a lack of clarity on questions of justice and international development can only undermine one of the most prevalent mantras in the government’s marketing arsenal.

As for the Saudi deal, the Liberal government has put itself in a position where it likely will have a tougher time defending similar contracts in the future. During the election campaign, Trudeau promised his party would sign the Arms Trade Treaty, a United Nations effort to stem the flow of weapons to rogue states and militias.

The treaty requires signatories to implement standards on sales to countries where human rights violations are likely to occur. While it isn’t certain that those standards would exceed the existing ones under Canada’s export rules, the requirement to avoid selling arms to human rights abusers would become an international legal obligation, said Alex Neve, executive director of Amnesty International Canada.

As part of its export rules, Ottawa has performed an assessment of whether the General Dynamics deal will fly any red flags on human rights — but it won’t release this information to the public. Taking such a position while at odds with an international agreement on arms sales would put added pressure on Ottawa, said Neve.

“It would be absolutely essential that the result of any such assessment would be shared with Canadians,” he said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion has refused to release the information, claiming it might jeopardize Canada’s sources in Saudi Arabia. But if this is a worry, then there shouldn’t be any problem with releasing the assessment’s conclusions only on the critical question of whether the LAVs are likely to be used in a way that violates human rights. All the public needs needs is the final finding — not how the Global Affairs department got to it.

Dion has agreed to release a general assessment of the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia, much as the U.S. State Department already does. But this doesn’t answer any important questions about the LAVs.

Maybe the Liberals agree with the previous Conservative government (which approved the LAV deal) that Saudi Arabia is a reliable ally — and that selling the weapons sale is justifiable. But that’s not the kind of balanced foreign policy the Liberals have pitched elsewhere when talking about the Middle East.

During the election, Roland Paris, a former University of Ottawa academic who is now a senior advisor on foreign policy to Trudeau, said it wasn’t clear whether Saudi Arabia offered any guarantees that it would abide by international human rights norms.

“We don’t know whether assurances were obtained from the Saudis,” Paris told the CBC. “We’ve allowed an arms sale to trump human rights.”

To the extent that these principles still carry weight in the PMO, Canadians need to see proof in the future direction of the government on foreign affairs. For the Liberal government’s sake, it should try to preserve the sense that Canada is changing the world for the better — not just for its benefit.