Photo: The protest sign outside CANSEC says: “Canada, don’t sell weapons to Peru.” Since 2012, Global Witness has documented 62 killings and disappearances of land and environmental defenders in Peru.
Peace Brigades International-Canada is highlighting the increased risks faced by human rights defenders from Canadian arms exports to countries where the State has been implicated in violence, repression and human rights violations.
PBI-Canada is doing so in the lead-up to the CANSEC “defence, security & emerging technology event” that will take place on May 27-28 in Ottawa.
The countries at CANSEC
The organizer of CANSEC, the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), notes that their event attracts “60+ International delegations” and “300 Exhibiting Companies”.
Amnesty International has cautioned: “[In 2024-2025] 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.”
Unlike the British government, the Canadian government does not make public the list of countries that come to CANSEC to shop for weapons and technology.
The UK Department for Business & Trade has posted that 75 countries, plus NATO and the European Union, were invited to the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) trade exhibition in September 2025. The countries that attended included Canada, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey, UAE and USA.
Photo: Canada at DSEI in London, UK.
It is known however from past reports (from CADSI in 2015 and the Canadian Commercial Corporation in 2014) and various social media posts that delegations from Argentina, Bahrain, Chile, Colombia, Equatorial Guinea, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Mexico, Oman, Peru, the Philippines, Qatar, United States, and the United Arab Emirates have all attended CANSEC in previous years.
Peru
In April 2025, Amnesty International noted that in Peru: “Investigations continued into deaths during protests in 2022 and 2023 [where security forces responded to protests with excessive use of force, especially in regions with largely Indigenous populations]. …Human rights defenders remained at risk, particularly Indigenous leaders, and protection mechanisms were lacking.”
Still from CADSI video promoting CANSEC 2023.
Indonesia
Global Witness has documented that 25 land and environmental defenders have been killed in Indonesia between 2012 and 2024. At least 11 of those defenders were killed by State actors (Armed Forces, Police, Government officials).
According to Government of Canada figures from annual reports on exports, during the period of 2012 to 2024, Canada exported almost $45 billion of so-called “military goods and technology” to Indonesia.
Philippines
Global Witness has also documented that 17 land and environmental defenders were killed in the Philippines in 2023 and that 298 were killed between 2012 to 2023.
During the 2016-2022 presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, who is now detained under an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for crimes against humanity, Canada exported about $7 million in military goods to the Philippines.
Photo: Philippines delegation at CANSEC, June 2017.
The companies at CANSEC
The Ottawa-based CADSI also no longer makes public on its website the list of exhibitors at CANSEC, but its member groups include the world’s largest and most profitable weapons companies, notably Lockheed Martin (with USD $64 billion in arms revenue in 2024), RTX Corporation ($43 billion), Northrop Grumman ($37 billion), BAE Systems ($33 billion), and General Dynamics ($33 billion).
Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, BAE and General Dynamics have all been implicated in research done by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) as “companies profiting from the Gaza genocide”.
General Dynamics
On May 28, 2025, the Quebec-based company General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems-Canada posted on LinkedIn: “It’s a start to CANSEC 2025! Join us at booth #1203 to discover our products! #CANSEC2025”
In their photos, their “Large Caliber Ammunition Propelling Charges For 155mm Artillery Projectiles” display can be seen.
The American Friends Service Committee has documented: “General Dynamics is also the only company in the U.S. that makes 155mm caliber artillery shells, which have been used extensively to attack Gaza. One source reported that, by Nov. 25, one Israeli brigade fired some 10,000 such shells using BAE’s M109 howitzer.”
The impacts on human rights defenders
Palestinian human rights defenders
The Dublin-based organization Front Line Defenders (the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders) has documented the killing of at least 31 Palestinian human rights defenders in 2023 and 2024.
Photo from Front Line Defenders photo of three HRDs/health care workers killed when the Al-Awda hospital was shelled by the Israeli military artillery.
Fatma Hassouna
On April 16, 2025, 24-year-old Palestinian photographer Fatma Hassouna was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike on her home in Gaza.
In the documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk”, Fatima tells Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi that she could hear an Apache helicopter near her home in Gaza. Later Fatma told Farsi that F-16s had bombed Gaza all night.
Boeing, the maker of Apache helicopters, and Lockheed Martin, the maker of F-16 fighter jets, are exhibitors at CANSEC.
Video still: Fatma Hassouna.
In defence of human rights defenders
Mary Lawlor, the United Special Rapporteur for human rights defenders has written: “There exist no moral arguments that can justify the continued sale of weapons to Israel by states that respect the principle of the universality of human rights.”
Lawlor adds: “Palestinian human rights defenders have emphasized to me the importance of a ban being placed on such sales, given that Israel has demonstrated time and again that it will use such weapons indiscriminately against Palestinians.”
Elbit Systems Ltd., the largest Israeli weapons company, has been an exhibitor at CANSEC. It is believed that the International Defense Cooperation Directorate of the Israeli Ministry of Defense (SIBAT) is also an exhibitor.
Photo by UN of Mary Lawlor.
HRDs in the United States
In early January 2026 after an ICE agent killed Renee Good, UN Special Rapporteur Lawlor also posted: “Shocking news out of Minnesota. On my recent trip there I met with numerous human rights defenders who told me of the violence they faced from law enforcement officers, and the legacy of law enforcement killings in the city. In light of the reports that the victim was in the area to document potential human rights violations by ICE agents, I’ll be closely examining this incident, in line with my Mandate.”
Roshel
Brampton-based Roshel is also an exhibitor and sponsor of CANSEC.
In February 2026, Greenpeace Canada highlighted in a press release that they had “unveiled a banner saying ‘No Canadian Arms for ICE’ at the Brampton headquarters of the Canadian company that is building armoured vehicles for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”
Photo: Greenpeace Canada at Roshel in Brampton.
At that time, Keith Stewart, Senior Energy Strategist with Greenpeace Canada, commented: “Canada cannot claim to defend human rights while exporting armoured vehicles that will be used to terrorize communities. These exports directly contradict Canada’s obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty, which prohibits approving export permits where there is a substantial risk of human rights violations.”
Speakers at CANSEC, May 27-28
Image from CADSI.
David McGuinty, Melanie Joly
This week it was announced that Defence Minister David McGuinty and Industry Minister Melanie Joly will be keynote speakers at CANSEC this year.
In November 2025, CBC News reported: “Budget 2025 earmarks $81.8 billion for defence over five years, roughly $72 billion of which is new money.” In June 2025, the Carney government announced its intention to increase military spending to 5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which could mean an increase from the current $33 billion a year to $150 billion a year by 2035.
On February 17 of this year, Prime Minister Mark Carney promised to “increase our defence exports by 50%” and “appoint new trade commissioners in the United Kingdom and key European Union markets to support Canadian business abroad and ramp up Canada’s presence at major global defence and aerospace trade shows.”
The Canadian Commercial Corporation
In May 2018, Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese reported: “The Ottawa-based CCC [Canadian Commercial Corporation], which helps Canadian exporters get contracts with foreign governments acknowledges it conducts no follow-up to ensure exported Canadian-built equipment isn’t being used to abuse human rights.”
The Canadian Commercial Corporation is a Crown corporation (government-owned enterprise) overseen by Minister Joly and McGuinty’s cabinet colleague Dominic LeBlanc, the Minister of International Trade.
Photo: The CCC at CANSEC 2025.
Jake Sullivan, Sir Richard Moore
The other keynote speakers at CANSEC this year will be former US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and former head of MI6, the United Kingdom’s foreign intelligence agency, Sir Richard Moore.
On October 7, 2025, the Associated Press reported that the U.S. provided $17.9 billion in military assistance to Israel in 2023-24 (when Sullivan was advising the Biden administration). In April 2025, Sullivan denied that genocide is being committed against the Palestinian people.
Mark Curtis, the co-director of Declassified UK and an analyst of UK foreign policy, has commented that MI6, under Moore’s leadership, provided “military and intelligence support for Israel’s Gaza genocide.”
Communities resist CANSEC
A wide range of social movements, peace groups, faith communities, non-governmental organizations, and individuals will be mobilizing to protest the CANSEC arms show on Wednesday May 27 and Thursday May 28.
We will continue to follow this.
Photo by Koozma J. Tarasoff.
Photo from World Beyond War.
Instagram page for the Shut Down CANSEC campaign.
