Ottawa — Former foreign affairs minister of Canada John Baird denounced the Trudeau government for its “gratuitous attack” on the Saudi regime.

“For Canada to treat a friend and ally this way has been incredibly unhelpful,” Baird said according to the nationalpost.com.

He said the best way to resolve the crisis would be for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fly to Riyadh to apologize in person to the Saudi royal family.

“I think the Canadian government is only beginning to understand how offensive their conduct has been to the Saudi government,” he said.

“This is giving Canada a bad reputation.”

On Aug. 5, Saudi Arabia suspended diplomatic relations with Canada in reaction interference in its internal affairs by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland.

The Kingdom has also suspended scholarships for 16,000 Saudi students in Canada.

Meanwhile, Portland State University is waiving admissions fees and speeding up the admissions process for Saudi students from Canada.

“I think students coming from Canada who have already been there for a couple of years are not going to have a hard time coming to Portland, settling into Portland,” said Christina Luther, director of International Student and Scholar Services at PSU.

“I was worried how they will make it, because we have in my government, we have just a hundred university are allowing students to come in, but for the Canadian students, they make it special, they are welcome to any university in the United States,” said Alhanouf Alhaei, a finance major at PSU. — Agencies