Reflections on the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa and community organizing to stop global human rights violations
News clipping from ARMX ’89.
The international weapons trade has been implicated for many years in multiple violations of human rights and in aggressions against human rights defenders. Amnesty International recently highlighted their concern about Canadian arms exports and the implications on human rights in Saudi Arabia/Yemen, Peru and Israel/Palestine.
With the CANSEC arms show coming to the EY Centre in Ottawa on May 29-30, we look at past and present community opposition to this gathering.
35th anniversary of mobilization against ARMX ‘89
The Ottawa-based Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) campaign against ARMX ’89, the precursor to CANSEC, “marked the first time in Canadian history that the peace movement had organized a large protest effort against a weapons bazaar.”
Their effort sparked a debate in the House of Commons, extensive media coverage, and a City of Ottawa by-law to ban all subsequent arms shows from City property (a ban that remained in place for almost 20 years).
That historic municipal resolution stated: “the arms trade has little or no consideration of moral or humanitarian issues in that weapons have been used against civilians” and further highlighted that “exports of Canadian military equipment and components end up in countries which persistently violate human rights.”
Following this, the organizers of what would have been “ARMX ‘91” first looked at relocating their biennial show from Lansdowne Park to Carp (a community about 38 kilometres away), but ended up canceling that planned convention.
Two years after that, ARMX rebranded itself as “Peacekeeping ‘93” at the provincial government-owned downtown Ottawa Congress Centre. Despite repeated pleas, Ontario NDP Premier Bob Rae refused to stop this gathering.
After 1993, “Peacekeeping” relocated to Washington, DC where it fizzled out. A relatively small military-trade show was then mounted in 1997 and 1998, but didn’t last. But significantly that year CANSEC appeared as an annual arms show. Still, the success of previous organizing was evident. For its first year, CANSEC had 52 exhibiting companies, one-tenth the size of ARMX ’89 almost ten years earlier.
Success stories
We can look at other success stories for inspiration.
Along with the City of Ottawa in 1989 prohibiting ARMX from taking place in City-owned buildings, we have also seen:
– the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom ruling that four activists did not act unlawfully when they blocked the road to the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms show in 2017
– the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan calling on the organizers of DSEI to “reconsider” their event in 2021 highlighting for London “to be used as a marketplace for those who wish to trade in weapons to some countries that contribute to human rights abuses goes completely against our values”
– the Chilean government of barring Israeli companies from participating in the FIDAE arms show in April 2024 in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Other potential measures of success could include the withdrawal of government funding (notably, Global Affairs Canada funding), the withdrawal of government agencies (including the Trade Commissioner Service that did temporarily withdraw from CANSEC this year), restrictions/sanctions on the companies that violate the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and federal legislation that would first strictly regulate them then eventually prohibit them from taking place.
Calls for a public inquiry
A public inquiry could be a starting point for all of this.
This year, multiple groups, including the International League for Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), are calling on the Government of Canada to hold “an independent and in-depth inquiry into CADSI and its direct involvement in human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”
This harkens back to the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) organizing a “Public Inquiry into the Arms Trade and Human Rights” in 1989 that was chaired by former city councillor and Member of Parliament Marion Dewar.
That inquiry took place at Saint Paul’s University included testimony from people who had experienced state repression in El Salvador and Pakistan, and called on Canada “to cease all arms exports” and to “take over arms manufacturing, switch as many weapons factories as possible over to civilian production and support an international arms trade registry to discourage arms sales to repressive regimes.”
Compliance with ICJ ruling
Other demands that could be made this year might include independent monitoring of the exhibits, meetings and transactions at CANSEC to ensure that they are compliant with the International Court of Justice ruling of January 26, 2024.
Legal scholars in Canada have argued that “because the ICJ found a serious risk of genocide in Gaza, continuing to export arms to Israel would be illegal. It would also be flagrantly inconsistent with Canada’s obligation to prevent genocide, and could expose Canada and Canadian officials to liability for participation in genocide.”
This concern also extends to the House of Commons resolution of March 18, 2024 that pledges Canada will “cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel to ensure compliance with Canada’s arms export regime.”
This could also be extended to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights that places responsibilities on transnational weapons companies. It says: “The responsibility to respect human rights is a global standard of expected conduct for all business enterprises wherever they operate. It exists independently of States’ abilities and/or willingness to fulfil their own human rights obligations, and does not diminish those obligations. And it exists over and above compliance with national laws and regulations protecting human rights.”
What mechanisms/protocols are in place to ensure these international human rights norms are respected at CANSEC? Will the Canadian government agencies promoting arms sales at CANSEC being doing this?
With Elbit Systems, the International Defense Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT) of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and some of the biggest suppliers of weapons enabling the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people, serious questions remain about adherence to these human rights norms.
Challenging systems of oppression beyond CANSEC
There is also increasing reflection among some local organizers who see CANSEC as a focal point, but not the crucial concern that needs to be confronted.
In May 1911, Rosa Luxemburg wrote: “Militarism in both its forms – as war and as armed peace – is a legitimate child, a logical result of capitalism, which can only be overcome with the destruction of capitalism, and hence whoever honestly desires world peace and liberation from the tremendous burden of armaments must also desire socialism.”
As such, the local anti-imperialist movement, while continuing to organize to challenge CANSEC, has brought forward the analysis that it is the system that must be challenged, not just its manifestation as a trade show.
And just as capital is highly mobile across international borders, they raise the point that CANSEC could relocate to another city if mobilizations in Ottawa reached the point that the arms show could be shut down here (though the history of ARMX tells us that this is not so easily done and can be a significant, if temporary, setback).
Challenges to stop CANSEC
The challenges for local organizers to stop CANSEC are much greater now:
-it takes place at a privately-run convention centre, so the leverage to mobilize the City or province is less than before
-the City of Ottawa welcomes CANSEC each year, while the Canadian government provides funding to its organizers ($450,352.00 over the past two years)
-it takes place near the airport, so there are more logistical challenges than being able to mobilize people downtown
-it is much larger (exhibitors this year) and much more established
-the peace movement has largely dissipated in Canada (relative to its strength 35 years ago when ARMX ’89 was challenged) and the anti-militarist movement is still nascent and finding its strength.
Challenges and next steps
As such, we are left with many questions: How can the arms trade that has continually violated human rights be effectively challenged at a local level? How can CANSEC be confronted while recognizing the systemic analysis that it is just one manifestation of a larger concern? How can the traditional peace movement/pacifist analysis work in conjunction with the anti-imperialist movement and associated national liberation struggles? How can sufficient capacity be built in Ottawa to attain some of the political success of 35 years ago given a new political moment and new challenges?
Still, there is hope and the necessity to challenge the arms trade that imperils human rights and human rights defenders.
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