A factory in Brampton is set to deliver 20 armoured vehicles to ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Canadian camera systems were used in recent US strikes on Venezuelan boats. Montreal-made artillery propellant and bullets have been ordered by the Pentagon to assist Israel’s genocide.
Every year Canada sells over a billion dollars in arms to the US. It’s hard to know exactly how many billions of dollars in arms are sent south since the government doesn’t tabulate US sales. Due to a unique 70-year-old bilateral accord most arms shipments to the US do not require permits.
In response to activist pressure targeting the flow of arms to Israel via the US, NDP MP Jenny Kwan recently proposed Bill C-233 (“No More Loopholes Act”). The private members’ bill would prevent country exemptions from permitting requirements and introduce greater reporting measures for military exports.
Thursday, The Maple reported on the Liberal party’s response to Kwan’s important bill. According to a briefing note prepared for the Liberal caucus, C-233 is “misguided” and would “weaken our alliances, and decimate our defence industry.” The note read: “Our general exemption with the U.S. is not a loophole — it reflects a unique geopolitical relationship rooted in shared security commitments, continental defence, and decades of military integration. Imposing the bureaucratic red tape envisioned by this legislation would undermine these efforts and make both countries less secure against threats to sovereignty and stability.” The note also adds that the US might retaliate.
While arming Israel’s genocide and a US military blowing up vessels in the Caribbean is odious, the unpermitted arms sales is rooted in a longstanding unique accord. In 1956 Canada and the US signed the Defence Production Sharing Agreement (DPSA), which allowed Canadian companies to bid on US military contracts. In effect, the DPSA makes Canadian companies part of the US defence industrial base and through the DPSA most military items shipped to the US do not require permits.
The DPSA improved Canadian firms’ access to the world’s most lucrative arms market. Additionally, it offered them access to advanced military technology and facilitated participation in US firms’ global value chains. For every dollar Canadian firms have exported to the US military under the DPSA they’ve generally sold about another 50 cents worth of that product to another country.
The DPSA appealed to the Pentagon because Canadian firms were relatively sophisticated suppliers. But there was also a political element to the DPSA. The Pentagon wanted to tie Canadian firms to the US military industrial complex in the hope that would spur them to advocate a pro-US military policy. A 1958 US national security document described the importance of maintaining a “healthy” “Canadian defense industry” for the US to “receive the same excellent cooperation in the joint defense effort that has prevailed in the past.”
In a sign of the DPSA’s success, president of Canadian Marconi (now CMC) John H. Simmons highlighted the importance of Ottawa aligning with US military policy at a defence committee review of NORAD. In a 1987 speech labeled “a summation of the general feeling among industry representatives”, Simmons testified, “it is vital to Canada that the defence industrial base survives and grows, and it is vital to the defence industry that it retains its access to the US defence market and continues to be considered as part of the US defence industrial base. To achieve both of these goals, it is therefore vital that Canada continue to co-operate with the US in defence areas generally, and in NORAD in particular.”
In other words, Canadian capitalists in general and ones invested in arms industries in particular, are in thrall to our southern neighbours. The Canadian arms industry is tied to the Pentagon and US military policy. Bill C-233 is a useful contribution towards disrupting these ties but it’s important to understand what we are up against.
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