In Depth
Arming the World
Tracking the truth
A reporter tries to get to the story about Canada's arms exports
Last Updated October 26, 2007
By Margo Kelly, CBC News
All I wanted was a straight answer.
I thought it would be relatively easy to get information about Canada's military exports. After all, up-to-date information about Canada's exports of soybeans and wheat is easily accessible on a government website. And the U.S. government provides information about its military exports that's current, detailed and only a couple of computer keystrokes away.
But that's not the case for lethal and sensitive military products made in Canada that are being shipped around the world by a growing defence and security industry, which now encompasses 500 companies from coast to coast.
Few Canadians know it, but the country makes everything from ammunition and automatic firearms to missile components, grenade launchers and light-armoured vehicles.
Yet, in the last four years, two successive governments of different political stripes have not released annual reports on military exports to Parliament.
So who really knows what we're selling to whom?
Analysis of customs data
In an effort to get some answers, CBC News conducted its own analysis of military exports, based on customs data.
The CBC News analysis shows exports increased 3.5 times between 2000 and 2006. During that time, Canada exported $3.6 billion in arms and military goods.
While the customs information doesn't contain the full extent of military products captured in the government's annual reports, it reveals the scale of the growth in exports.
The defence industry says that Canada's growing trade in military equipment is necessary in an increasingly insecure world, and that it's creating tens of thousands of high-tech jobs with good wages. So why the silence from Ottawa?
A tedious process
It has been a slow and often frustrating process to get information that should be public from government officials.
A year ago, I first asked why no reports for 2003, 2004 and 2005 had been released. I was told by a spokesperson with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade that the reports were being combined and would be released as a single document in a couple of months.
The winter passed, then the spring, then it was summer. Now a full calendar year has gone by, and I still have no answer to that simple question.
"What's causing this delay?" I asked the same spokesperson. She called to say that before 2006, companies didn't have to report their military exports to Ottawa, so collecting all these details was taking time. Then she called back to say: "I over-spoke my knowledge," and promised further clarification.
In a subsequent e-mail she said companies are indeed obligated to report their shipments, as they have been for years, but that computer technical glitches were holding things up. She also said there is no legislation that forces the government to table the reports in Parliament.
But the government's own words state:
"The Minister of Foreign Affairs is responsible to Parliament for the operation of the Export and Import Permits Act. The Minister produces an annual report on exports of controlled military goods and presents it to Parliament and Canadians. No country reports in more detail on such exports."
Source: Answers to Questions about Canada's Export Controls on Military Goods
Repeated requests for a background briefing with someone in the federal government's Export and Import Controls Bureau were refused, as were requests for interviews with the key cabinet ministers, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier and International Trade Minister David Emerson.
Government officials also refused to release information about companies or individuals charged or convicted of violating export rules.
Opposition defence critics don't seem to have noticed this missing information. These are the members of Parliament whose role it is to hold the government of the day accountable.
South of the border, it's a different story. The Bush administration has appointed a special prosecutor to go after people who are trying to get around military export rules. Within hours of a call to his spokesperson, I was e-mailed a detailed list of recent charges and prosecutions.
'No such thing as the truth'
Arms control advocates say Ottawa's silence has gone on so long that is has now become an international embarrassment. A Geneva-based watchdog, the Small Arms Survey, recently dropped Canada's transparency rating to just above that of Iran.
At the United Nations, Canada is backing a new international arms-trade treaty, and at global gatherings it preaches the need for more transparency when it comes to international arms sales. Yet here at home, the information tap has been turned off.
One government expert on international arms sales sensed my frustration at being unable to discover the truth about military exports. He had a quick response. "In this industry, there's no such thing as the truth."
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By the numbers: 2000-2006
Related Links
Audio:
- Part 1: Margo Kelly reports for CBC News (Runs 1:51)
- Part 2: Margo Kelly reports for CBC News(Runs 1:50)
External links:
- Foreign Affairs military export reports: 2000-2002
- Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers database
- Stockholm International Peace Research Institute database on international arms transfers
- United Nations Register of Conventional Arms
- Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries
- Project Ploughshares
- U.S. report on arms transfers (PDF)
- Foreign Affairs 2002 report on military exports (PDF)