Video still: At the Building Movements in Defence of Life film festival in 2021, Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, general coordinator of COPINH, expressed her support for the proposed Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act.
The Maple reports: “A leaked Liberal caucus briefing document obtained by The Maple warned that regulating the flow of Canadian-made military goods to the United States might upset the Americans, resulting in economic blows to Canada and damaging geopolitical alliances.”
The briefing document comments on the proposed BILL C-233 An Act to amend the Export and Import Permits Act.
The Maple explains that C-233 attempts to address the situation in which: “Most military exports to the United States currently do not require permits, and researchers have warned that this serves as a backdoor by which Canadian-made military goods are ending up in Israel, which is committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
The Maple highlights that the caucus briefing document states:
-“Our general exemption with the U.S. is not a loophole — it reflects a unique geopolitical relationship rooted in shared security commitments, continental defence, and decades of military integration. Imposing the bureaucratic red tape envisioned by this legislation would undermine these efforts and make both countries less secure against threats to sovereignty and stability.”
-“Such retaliation could dismantle trade, strip Canadian firms of near-equal treatment with American counterparts and force the relocation of business lines outside Canada—including by U.S. contractors who dominate our production and export capabilities. Lost business would be nearly impossible to recoup in other markets.”
$1 billion a year in exports
Both the Project Ploughshares peace research institute and the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries have stated that Canadian military exports to the United States are at least $1 billion a year, perhaps more.
US “security assistance” linked to civilian harm
Professor Patricia L. Sullivan at the Department of Public Policy, Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense, University of North Carolina, has noted: “Between 2002 and 2019, US$300 billion in US security assistance flowed to foreign governments and at least one million foreign nationals received US military training.”
Professor Sullivan adds in her Sage Journals article: “Does American military aid increase the risk of civilian harm? …Until very recently, there have been few systematic attempts to evaluate the effects of security sector assistance. …The results of this study suggest [there] is strong evidence that ‘lethal’ aid—military equipment, weapons, military training, and combat assistance—increases extrajudicial killings by security forces in states without effective institutions to constrain executive authority.”
The Berta Cáceres Act
PBI-Canada has previously highlighted that the “Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act” proposes: “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.”
The PBI accompanied COPINH supports this arms control legislation.
Section 2 of that legislation states:
“(1) 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.
(21) In this context of corruption and human rights abuses, trade unionists, journalists, lawyers, Afro-Indigenous activists, Indigenous activists, small-farmer activists, LGBTI activists, human rights defenders, environmental defenders, and critics of the government remain at severe risk; and previous human rights abuses against them remain largely unpunished.
(23) United States agencies allocated approximately $39 million that Congress appropriated through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, to the Honduran police and military for fiscal year 2017.”
Voices at Risk
On November 7, Canada commented on the protection needs of human rights defenders in Honduras during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Honduras at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Speaking on behalf of Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, Joseph Flores Ayala stated:
“Canada recommends that Honduras fully implement the National Protection Mechanism by establishing robust accountability measures for state authorities who fail to provide adequate protection to human rights defenders, including Indigenous rights defenders, environmental rights defenders, and journalists.”
This concern, however, appears to be de-linked from the direct or indirect flow of “military goods” exported to Honduran security forces that have been implicated in violations of human rights defenders.
Currently, there is also no coherent strategy within “Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders”, specific mention in the Export and Import Permits Act (EIPA) or evident use of the Defense Production Sharing Agreement (DPSA) that specifically provides for the protection of human rights defenders from weapons and military components produced in Canada that are either directly or indirectly exported to countries where the rights of human rights defenders are violated.
New concerns
One week ago, US President Donald Trump backed Tito Asfuro to be the next president of Honduras. CNN has reported that Asfura is a “right-wing businessman [and] construction magnate who is running on a free market platform.”
The outcome of the close vote on November 30 is still to be determined. The new president will be sworn in on January 27, 2026.
Yesterday, this statement by COPINH and other civil society organizations highlighted: “The electoral trends published by the National Electoral Council indicate a power struggle between the National Party and the Liberal Party, historically responsible for the poverty and injustice suffered by Honduras. We warn that these parties’ public alliances with certain business and criminal sectors threaten the struggles of peasant, indigenous, worker, feminist, and environmental movements.”
It is unclear when the next House of Commons vote on C-233 will take place but it will likely be after the House of Commons resumes sitting on January 26, 2026.
We continue to follow this.
Additional reading: The integration of Canadian and US military production puts Canada at risk of complicity in violence against human rights defenders (PBI-Canada article, March 5, 2025).
“We never wanted to go to the police, because it was the police who were chasing us.” The National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras has explained that in Honduras 70 per cent of the attacks against women defenders the aggressors are state security forces, especially police or the military.
