High numbers driven by transfers to human rights violators
By Kelsey Gallagher
Published in The Ploughshares Monitor Autumn 2024
Each year, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) releases its Exports of military goods and technology report, which provides details on the Canadian military goods exported around the world. The most recent report covers the 2023 calendar year.
The report shows that Canada continues to transfer historically high levels of military goods abroad. The large numbers have been driven, in part, by exports to states with deplorable human rights records, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel.
Overview
As shown in the 2023 Exports of military goods and technology report, for that year Canada reported exports totaling $2.143 billion in military goods to non-U.S. destinations – a decrease of 2.8 per cent from 2022 ($2.204 billion) and almost 50 per cent less than Canada’s exports in 2019 ($4.308 billion), when these exports reached their peak.
The main driver of these exports continued to be Saudi Arabia. In recent years, this state has accounted for more than 50 per cent of non-U.S. exports. However, in 2023, Saudi Arabia imported $904.557 million in Canadian arms, 42.2 per cent of non-U.S. exports. In 2023, Canada also transferred arms totaling $1.238 billion – the largest such figure on record – to countries other than the United States and Saudi Arabia. This statistic illustrates that Canadian arms manufacturers are finding new markets and diversifying export destinations.
While last year’s total was lower than that of some recent years, it remains historically significant. It was substantially higher (61.8 per cent) than the total for other previous record-breaking years, including 2012 ($1.324 billion), and nearly double the total for the previous peak year, 2003 ($1.122 billion).
Some of Canada’s top weapons customers
Saudi Arabia
In 2023, the high value of Canada’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia continued to be driven by the 2014 Canada-Saudi arms deal, the largest in Canadian history with a price tag of $14 billion. Under the terms of the contract, London, Ontario’s General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada (GDLS-C) is to supply the Saudi Royal Guard with 742 light armoured vehicles (LAVs). The vehicle variant, the LAV-700, is the most advanced available today.
According to Canada’s submission to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA), which collects data on actual arms exports rather than their sum value, Canada transferred 40 armoured combat vehicles (ACVs) to Saudi Arabia last year. Since 2017,
Canada has transferred 652 of these vehicles to the Saudi government. While Canada does not typically disaggregate the make and model of ACV transfers in its reports to UNROCA, it can be assumed that the majority of such transfers to Saudi Arabia since 2017 have been GDLS-C LAV 700s.
Ukraine: Explaining how Canadian military aid works
Canada has exported significant levels of military goods to Ukraine since Russia’s full-blown invasion in February 2022. According to the 2023 report, Canada transferred military goods valued at $416.7 million to Ukraine that year. The bulk of these goods ($359.8 million) were ACVs and associated components, followed by small arms ($54.2 million).
However, this is not the whole picture. Most of Canada’s arms transfers to Ukraine since early 2022 have been in the form of military aid. While typical arms exports are licensed on a case-by-case basis by officials at GAC, military aid follows a parallel process overseen by the Department of National Defence (DND). One feature of this process is that most military aid does not appear in official export values published in the Exports of military goods and technology report.
In addition to the $416.7 million in military goods that Canada reported exporting to Ukraine in 2023, Canada also provided military aid that included eight Leopard 2 main battle tanks (MBTs), 253 guided missiles, and more than 21,000 small arms and light weapons and associated ammunition. Using available information on the per-unit cost of this equipment, Project Ploughshares conservatively estimates that Canada’s military aid to Ukraine in 2023 would be valued at more than $300 million. Therefore, the actual value of Canada’s arms transfers to Ukraine last year was closer to $716.7 million. This assessment only includes transfers of military aid that were confirmed to have been totally completed in 2023 and not those transfers that occurred over more than one calendar year; it also assumes lower export values for MBTs transferred from existing Canadian Armed Forces stocks.
Although reporting on Canada’s transfers of military aid still has transparency gaps, for the first time, the 2023 GAC report provided a comprehensive overview of DND’s risk assessment process when conducting exports of military aid, including information on the risk assessment performed by DND officials.
*Information on units sourced from Canada’s annual submission to UNROCA.
**Values sourced from Canada’s annual Exports of military goods and technology reports, Annex G, Export Control List Category 2-6 exports to Saudi Arabia. ACV export figures are expressed in current Canadian dollars.
Germany and United Kingdom
The next largest customers for Canadian arms were Germany ($111.1 million) and the United Kingdom ($106.9 million). Both countries have long been steady customers of Canadian military goods.
In 2023, Canada’s largest exports to Germany, as categorized under Group 2 of the Export Control List (ECL), were: training and simulation equipment ($28.7 million); imaging, sensor, and target acquisition technology ($15.4 million); and military aircraft and associated components ($14.7 million). Canada’s top three ECL Group 2 exports to the United Kingdom were technology ($22.6 million), military aircraft and associated components ($12.5 million), and electronic equipment and spacecraft ($11.8 million).
Qatar
Qatar took fifth place, with arms transfers valued at $73 million – the highest amount ever recorded for this state and a major increase over the previous high of $51.1 million in 2022.
Most exports in both 2022 ($33.3 million) and 2023 ($60.9 million) fell under the export category for training and simulation equipment. Although details on individual contracts are not included in the report, these figures likely result from a number of high-value, multiyear deals between the Qatari government and CAE Inc., one of the world’s premier manufacturers of military aircraft simulators, based in Saint-Laurent, Québec.
Israel
Last year, Canada exported more weapons to Israel ($30.6 million) than at any point in its history. Arms exports to Israel have been on an ascending trendline in recent years. GAC reported transfers of $28.9 million in 2021 and $22.1 million in 2022.
Reports of increasing weapons exports to Israel have coincided with a campaign of unprecedented violence and destruction in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces. Israel has been facing near-constant allegations of violating international humanitarian law, including some cases that likely constitute war crimes.
As of August 26, more than 40,000 Palestinians, most civilians, had been killed since the onset of Israel’s operation in Gaza following the October 7 attacks. Much of the Gaza Strip lies in ruins from Israeli airstrikes. There is considerable concern that some of these abuses could have been facilitated, in part, with Canadian-made weapon systems.
Under Article 7.3 of the Arms Trade Treaty, to which Canada is a State Party, Canadian authorities cannot authorize arms exports that pose a substantial risk of being used in such abuses. Given Israel’s conduct throughout its operation in Gaza, this threshold has evidently been met, and in a move reflecting Canada’s Treaty obligations, Canadian officials paused the further authorization of arms transfers to Israel on January 7 of the current year.
However, this pause does not extend to arms exports previously authorized. In 2023, GAC issued 193 individual export permits for arms transfers to Israel, all of which remain valid unless the respective transfers have already taken place. And according to documents recently released by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, a total of nearly $100-million in export permits for the transfer of weapons to Israeli companies or the Israeli government remain valid.
Canada’s arms exports to authoritarian regimes
When all these exports are taken together, it is clear that a substantial portion of Canada’s total arms exports are destined for states deemed to be authoritarian by international civil and political rights monitors.
The annual Freedom House Freedom in the World report ranks states on a continuum from Free to Not Free according to the rights enjoyed by citizens. Findings for 2023 indicate that 49 per cent of Canada’s arms exports, valued at roughly $1.04 billion, were imported by authoritarian states deemed “Not Free” by Freedom House.
To Saudi Arabia and Qatar can be added “Not Free” Algeria ($17.1 million of Canadian arms exports transferred in 2023), the United Arab Emirates ($13.3 million), and Chad ($1.5 million). Many of these despotic states, particularly Gulf States, are long-time customers of Canadian arms, reflecting an established trend in which Canada has been providing weapon systems to authoritarian governments. Canadian officials have gone on record criticizing some of these states for horrendous human rights abuses, while at the same time providing munitions that prop up these regimes.
