The Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), an independently operated Crown corporation, arranges contracts between Canadian manufacturers and foreign governments. Between 60 and 70 per cent of these contracts involve military goods, making the CCC Canada’s largest arms broker.
Yemen and Canada’s $2.8-billion moral deficit
On March 1, Canada’s Minister of International Development Karina Gould pledged $69.9-million in aid to Yemen, now mired in its sixth year of continuous warfare. Gould stated, “Yemen is undergoing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and its people deserve decisive action. Their suffering must end, and their rights and dignity must be protected. We must do everything possible to make …
Could a new U.S. administration influence Canada’s arms export policy?
In the run-up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Joe Biden pledged to end arms sales to countries fueling the war in Yemen—specifically, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Only seven days into the Biden presidency, the U.S. government announced a hold on weapons worth tens of billions of dollars to these countries, including “precision-guided munitions” to Saudi Arabia …
The making of Killer Optics
Ploughshares Communications Officer Tasneem Jamal spoke with Kelsey Gallagher about the genesis of Killer Optics, the impact of its publication, and the role of open-source data in tracking arms transfers.
Analyzing Canada’s 2019 Exports of Military Goods report
According to Canada’s 2019 Exports of Military Goods report, last year Canada exported weapons worth almost $4-billion—the highest value on public record. Saudi Arabia, which received 76 per cent of those weapons, is now almost certainly Canada’s prime customer, unseating the United States.
Canada’s top five arms contracts to the U.S. – 2015-2020
The most recently released federal records indicates that Canada transferred over $2-billion CAD in military exports to customers around the world in 2018. Left unpublished are the vast military exports to Canada’s closest trading partner, the United States. For years, Canada’s arms exports to the United States have been largely exempt from federal reporting protocols. Such exemptions persist despite Canada’s …
Open letter re: Ottawa’s decision to lift moratorium on Saudi arms exports
The Right Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, P.C., M.P. Prime Minister of Canada 80 Wellington Street Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A2 14 May 2020 Re: Final Report – Review of Export Permits to Saudi Arabia Dear Prime Minister Trudeau, The undersigned, representing a cross-section of Canadian civil society organizations focused on arms controls, human rights, and international security, are writing in …
Amid COVID crisis, Canada lifts moratorium on arms exports to Saudi Arabia
On April 10, GAC issued an official statement in support of a global ceasefire, in response to the high-profile appeal on March 23 by UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The day before, however, it had announced that it was lifting a moratorium on arms-export permits to Saudi Arabia, one of the worst violators of human and women’s rights on the planet.