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A farewell to arms, with a value of $1 billion With a perverse sense of timing, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade released its annual report of military exports on UN Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, 1997, and only a few days after the signing of the Ottawa process banning anti-personnel land mines. >> It shows a threefold increase in the total value of military export permits (the amount of arms the Canadian government permits to be exported) from 1990 for a total of nearly $500 million--a figure that doesn't include exports to the U.S. When these are factored in, Canada's military exports total roughly $1 billion. >> Montreal companies like Bombardier, SNC Lavalin, Pratt & Whitney Canada, CAE Electronics and Canadian Marconi are responsible for a good deal of these military exports. According to Richard Sanders of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT), many of their weapons and weapons components are now readied in the Persian Gulf to bomb Iraq at the U.S.'s signal. >> Sanders says that countries whose governments systematically violate human rights regularly receive Canadian weapons through third parties. According to the Canadian Friends of Burma, engines made by Pratt & Whitney Canada are sold to the Pilatus company of Switzerland, which in turn sells them to the government of Burma. Pratt & Whitney engines were used in planes that bombed Burmese villagers in the early '90s. >> But several countries with whom Canada deals directly also have questionable human rights records, or are directly involved in internal or external wars, including Algeria, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Peru. >> For more information, call COAT at (613) 231-2076. --Jacquie Charlton
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