OTTWA: Canada’s arms exports shot up while Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government was in office, fuelled by higher sales to countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Mexico and Austria, an analysis by iPolitics has found.
Between 2006 and 2013, the last year for which numbers are available, Canada’s exports of military goods to countries outside the United States rose 89 per cent. However, that number is likely to hit a new high once figures for 2014 become available and a controversial $15 billion General Dynamics armoured vehicle sale to Saudi Arabia is added to the totals.
While the United Kingdom was the top destination outside of the United States for military equipment manufactured in Canada when the Liberals left office in 2005, that title now goes to Saudi Arabia, whose human rights record — particularly the recent beheading of a Shiite cleric — has made the armoured vehicle deal a target for opposition critics, including the Conservatives who approved of it in government.
During the election campaign, Harper defended the deal, saying that while Saudi Arabia may have committed significant human rights violations, it is an ally in the fight against the Islamic State and cancelling the deal would punish Canadian workers.
