May Day march in Ottawa includes call to “shut down CANSEC” weapons exhibition on May 28
On May 1, 2025, a May Day march in downtown Ottawa included a stop outside the office of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), that describes itself as “the national voice representing industry to government and offer platforms to connect companies with customers.”
The Board of Directors of CADSI includes representatives of transnational corporations implicated in human rights violations around the world, including: Stelia North America (that builds the shims that help open and close the weapons bay doors of F-35 fighter jets), Microsoft Canada (that supplies artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli military to select targets in Gaza), and General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada (that builds Light Armoured Vehicles for Saudi Arabia).
Photo: The police presence outside the CADSI office on Laurier Avenue on May 1, 2025.
Notably, CADSI organizes the annual CANSEC arms show that will be taking place at the EY Centre this year on May 28-29.
Last month, Amnesty International released their 410-page report The State of the World’s Human Rights. Reporting on Canada’s human rights record for 2024/25, Amnesty International highlighted (on page 120):
IRRESPONSIBLE ARMS TRANSFERS: “Canada continued to export arms and military equipment to countries despite lack of accountability for past violations and substantial risks that they could be used in serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Arms worth USD 6.4 million were exported to Saudi Arabia, representing 42% of the total of non-US military exports. Authorization of new export permits for transfers of military goods to Israel was reportedly paused in January, although no official ‘notice to exporters’ was issued and at least 180 export permits remained active.”
The export of “military goods” to the United States
Last year, Project Ploughshares highlighted: “The Government of Canada does not regulate the majority of Canada’s military transfers to the United States.”
The “Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act”, sponsored by US Representative Johnson, Henry C. “Hank,” Jr. in 2021, proposed: “To suspend United States security assistance with Honduras until such time as human rights violations by Honduran security forces cease and their perpetrators are brought to justice.”
Video still: Indigenous Lenca territorial defender Berta Cáceres was murdered in 2016. Peace Brigades International accompanies the organization she co-founded: The Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations in Honduras (COPINH).
The legislation also states: “The Honduran military and police are widely established to be deeply corrupt and commit human rights abuses, including torture, rape, illegal detention, and murder, with impunity.”
Project Ploughshares has recommended that Canada should “begin a full reporting of the transfer of military goods, including parts and components, to the United States.”
Without this transparency, we cannot know if Canadian exports to the U.S. help construct the “security assistance” they send to Honduran security forces that the “Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act” is seeking to suspend.
Obligations under the UN Genocide Convention
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Action Center for Corporate Accountability has documented this list of companies implicated in this violence and that arguably have obligations under the UN Genocide Convention and, as previously mentioned, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Five CANSEC 2025 sponsors – Google, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Cisco and Leonardo – are on the AFSC list.
Dublin-based Front Line Defenders has stated: “Those defending the right to health and the right to life as doctors, nurses, or ambulance workers, those exposing and documenting war crimes as journalists, and those providing humanitarian support as volunteers or employees of aid agencies were all specifically targeted by Israeli bombs or guns.”
To date, as many as 1,586 human rights defenders have been killed in Gaza, including 175 journalists, 408 aid workers, more than 1,000 medical staff, 2 lawyers, and 1 International Solidarity Movement volunteer (in the West Bank).
SHUT DOWN CANSEC, May 28
Peace Brigades International-Canada will be present at the Shut Down CANSEC mobilization taking place on May 28 at the EY Centre in Ottawa.
On Instagram: @shut.down.cansec
0 Comments