A Decade of Military Exports to Saudi Arabia 2003-2013

April 19 Update : Liberals use majority on Foreign Affairs Committee to vote down NDP motion to create Commons committee to scrutinize arms exports. 

All 5 Liberal MPs on committee voted against motion : Peter Fragiskatos (London North Centre), Michael Levitt (York Centre), Marc Miller (Ville-Marie-Le Sud-Ouest-Île-des-Soeurs), Raj Saini (Kitchener Centre), Jati Sidhu (Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon).  

Foreign Affairs Committee Lib Chair Bob Nault (Kenora) : "Our committee is too high-profile and too important to play politics with issues. Parliament does not need "a special committee for every issue that people think needs to be discussed."

Appalled at both the size of the new military contract with Saudi Arabia and the Libs ham-fisted defence of it, Canadians have been pretty focussed on those weaponized LAVs. 

Yet we have been supplying the Kingdom with Item 2-10 - aircraft, drones, and components "specially designed or modified for military use" - continuously since 2004 when a $900K start-up contract was followed up in 2005 with a $10M contract.

Was this longterm contract also enacted as "a matter of principle" or does it fall more into the "if we don't someone else will jobsjobsjobs" category?

Data collected from DFAIT, Global Affairs Canada, and their archives:

2003 - 2005 http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/transfers/transparency/national_reports/canada/canada_03-05

2006  http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2010/maeci-dfait/FR2-6-2006-eng.pdf

2007 - 2009 
http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/transfers/transparency/national_reports/canada/Canada_2007_2009

2010 - 2011 http://www.international.gc.ca/controls-controles/report-rapports/mil-2010-2011.aspx?lang=eng#fnb11

2012 - 2013http://www.international.gc.ca/controls-controles/report-rapports/mil-2012-2013.aspx?lang=eng#fnb16
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Update : G&M : Trade minister Chrystia Freeland ‘comfortable’ with decision to approve Saudi arms deal

G&M : Dion takes responsibility for pushing through Saudi arms deal 
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CCC : Crown corporate arms dealer

"There is no better trade show for defence equipment than a military mission,"  wrote Marc Whittingham, CEO of the Canadian Commercial Corporation five years ago.

CCC is the crown corp stick-handling Canada's $14.8B arms deal with Saudi Arabia for an undisclosed number of Light Armoured Vehicles to be manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS), based in London, Ontario.

The new CCC CEO Martin Zablocki told an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper last year that he considers "the union of Arab states in the Persian Gulf one of the hottest markets in which to sell military wares." 

So we do military trade shows there now.

Chairman of the Board Ray Castelli is also CEO of Vancouver-based Weatherhaven, "a builder of deployable military shelters." 

This is the spot we've staked out for ourselves as regards what it pleases Justin Trudeau to refer to as Canada selling "jeeps" to the Saudi Arabian National Guard to protect the Saudi royal family.

*Global* Affairs Minister Stephane Dion said "It’s not a backing, it’s simply a private-company contract”...  skipping over the bit about Canadian taxpayers funding it via a crown corp.

“For reasons of commercial confidentiality, Global Affairs Canada does not comment on specific export permit applications.” Nor do they intend "to make public a recently completed assessment of the state of human rights in Saudi Arabia."

We officially condemn the public floggings, beheadings, and of course the crucifixions, and I'm sure M. Dion was saddened to learn the Saudi *coalition* bombed a school for the blind in Yemen yesterday, but as Canada - alongside Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Somalia and Syria - has not signed the Universal Arms Trade Treaty, it's all good for business. 

The Canadian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Tom MacDonald last February : 

"The Big One is Landed.

 A big congrats! And inspiring for all. Great day for Canadian interests. The biggest-ever single export deal in Canadian history.

This is also a breakthrough deal for CCC which will be the prime contractor and will receive a substantial service fee for its role.  CCC expects to establish a presence in KSA in due course to manage the contract."

Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada as per international.gc.ca

Saudi Arabia - - 2010 - 2011 and  2012 - 2013 :

• Guns. Bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles, other explosive devices and charges, and related equipment and accessories specially designed for military use. 
• Ground vehicles. 
• Vessels of war, special naval equipment and accessories, and components specially designed for military use
• Countermeasure equipment specially designed for military use
• Aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, unmanned airborne vehicles, aero-engines and “aircraft” equipment, related equipment and components, specially designed or modified for military use. 
• Specialized equipment for military training or for simulating military scenarios, simulators specially designed for training in the use of any firearm or weapon controlled in 2-1 or 2-2, and specially designed components and accessories
• Imaging or countermeasure equipment, specially designed for military use.

Might be time to revisit the official Canadian definition of "jeeps".

h/t Kev for video of General Dynamics ad for their LAVs

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Update : Feb 3 2016 CBC investigates the per diem expenses of the last three CCC board chairs, which include a day of golf for the board members, four days at a reception in Washington, and a junket to an airshow in Paris.
CCC says all legit and approved under guidelines. 
Kinda like those Senate per diems I'm guessing.
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Ethical arms sales from Canada

Back here in comments, e.a.f. noted I was singling out Israel for its promotion of occupied Gaza as a lab/marketing display tool for selling its population control armaments abroad - when USA arms manufacturers also benefit. 

Too true. Also Canada.

As Marc Whittingham, CEO of the Canadian Commercial Corporation, the crown corporation that acts as Canada's global military sales agency and "a foreign policy instrument for the government of Canada", once put it :

 "There is no better trade show for defence equipment than a military mission."  

"Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada", as per international.gc.ca :

Israel - 

• Chemical or biological toxic agents, riot control agents, radioactive materials, and related equipment, components, materials. 
• Bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles, other explosive devices and charges, and related equipment and accessories specially designed for military use. 
• Vessels of war, special naval equipment and accessories, and components specially designed for military use. 
• Aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, unmanned airborne vehicles. 
• Specialized equipment for military training or for simulating military scenarios, simulators specially designed for training in the use of any firearm or weapon.

Saudi Arabia -

• Guns. Bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles, other explosive devices and charges, and related equipment and accessories specially designed for military use. 
• Ground vehicles. 
• Aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, unmanned airborne vehicles, aero-engines and “aircraft” equipment, related equipment and components, specially designed or modified for military use. 
• Imaging or countermeasure equipment, specially designed for military use.

Qatar - 

• Chemical or biological toxic agents, riot control agents, radioactive materials, and related equipment, components, materials

[Aug 25, 2014 Update : Yesterday in the NYTimes, Israel's ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor called Qatar the “Club Med for Terrorists.”]

Egypt - 

• "Guns. Ammo. 
• Aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, unmanned airborne vehicles, aero-engines and “aircraft” equipment, related equipment and components, specially designed or modified for military use. 
• Specialized equipment for military training or for simulating military scenarios, simulators specially designed for training in the use of any firearm or weapon. 
• Imaging or countermeasure equipment, specially designed for military use." 

Iraq - Software.

Bahrain - 

• "Aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, unmanned airborne vehicles, aero-engines and “aircraft” equipment, related equipment and components, specially designed or modified for military use."

Colombia - 

• "Bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles, other explosive devices and charges, and related equipment and accessories specially designed for military use. 
• Aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, unmanned airborne vehicles, aero-engines and “aircraft” equipment, related equipment and components, specially designed or modified for military use. 
• Imaging or countermeasure equipment, specially designed for military use, and specially designed components and accessories."

[Note : Since this gc.ca report was issued, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird recommended amending the Automatic Firearms Country Control List (AFCCL) to create "new market opportunities" for Canadian companies to sell armoured personnel carriers to the Colombian military in January 2013.]

Algeria - "Aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, unmanned airborne vehicles, aero-engines and “aircraft” equipment, related equipment and components, specially designed or modified for military use." 

Ukraine - "Guns. Ammo."

Russia - "Guns. Ammo. Electronic equipment. Software."

I could go on. You will note we have armed both sides of many recent bloody conflicts, as for instance when Saudi Arabia sent troops into Bahrain to crush their "Arab Spring".

In the time period covered here, 2010 - 2011, 28 countries received "Chemical or biological toxic agents, riot control agents, radioactive materials, and related equipment, components, materials" from Canada.

The figures from this Feb 4 2014 report cover nothing more recent, as our government has not seen fit to provide the Canadian public with more up-to-date figures.   

However Project Ploughshares does provide this rather startling graphic on Canadian Commercial Corporation's recent marketing success in securing "two contracts totalling $14.8-billion awarded by the CCC to General Dynamics Land Systems Canada of London, Ontario during the 2013-14 fiscal year to supply Saudi Arabia with military armoured vehicles. "

According to Project Ploughshares : 

"For the first time in more than half-a-century of CCC operations, Saudi Arabia has displaced the United States as the largest year-on-year recipient of CCC-brokered military export contracts."

Canada, of course, has declined to sign the UN Arms Trade Treaty.
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SNC-Lavalinks in a small, small, small Con world.

Gwyn Morgan, chairman of SNC-Lavalin for six years til this past May, portrayed the beleaguered company in his recent July G&M article as "the victim of embezzlement by two trusted, long-time executives."
There are several long-time execs to choose from here so I'm not sure exactly which two he is referring to.  Morgan, you will recall, was Harper's pick to head up his 2006 ethics and accountability commission. 

Helping SNC-L out during this period of victimhood is the Harper Government, who just extended them a defence contract worth $400 million over up to ten years to provide Canadian troops overseas with military logistical support. An SNC-L exec VP said they were proud to support the Canadian Forces.
The World Bank might have banned SNC-L and its affiliates from bidding on their aid projects for 10 years due to allegations of engaging in corrupt or fraudulent practices across four continents - and CIDA has followed suit - but the Public Works Dept. has its own criteria.

Likewise the crown corporation, Canadian Commercial Corporation, best known for its primary job of  selling $1.4-billion of Canadian military technology to the US Department of Defense, will soon decide whether to award SNC-L the contract to build a children's hospital in Trinidad Tobago. SNC-L has already finished designing it as part of a joint Canada/Trinidad Tobago venture and like the SNC-L MUHC hospital deal in Canada, it's a public-private partnership.
People in T&T are understandably concerned about dealing with a company caught up in the largest corporate corruption case in Canadian history, with fraud and bribery charges pending in Libya, Algeria, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Montreal, but as T&T High Commissioner to Canada and former SNC-L exec Philip Buxo explained : 

 "The T&T Government is not involved in the decision-making process to hire any Canadian company to construct the hospital. The full responsibility for the selection of any company is the exclusive responsibility of the Canadian government’s designated co-ordinator, the CCC.”

It's a small, small, small world ...

In December 2003, Philippe Couillard, then-Quebec Health Minister and now newly-crowned Quebec Lib leader, appointed Brian Mulroney to head up the feasibility study for MUHC superhospitals. A decade earlier Mulroney had appointed David Angus, director of Conservative Fund Canada, to the Senate.

Senator Angus was a director-at-large of the MUHC board that approved the recommendation of the search committee and hired Dr. Arthur Porter as CEO in Jan 2004. Angus became MUHC chair in 2007.

In Sept 2008 Harper appointed both Porter and Couillard to SIRC. 

The MUHC board ratified the choice of SNC-L to build the $1.3 billion mega-hospital in a public-private partnership in April 2010. Three weeks later, SNC-L payments of $22.5-million in consulting fees to Porter's Sierra Asset Management began rolling in, continuing six months after Porter left MUHC. 

Senator Angus continued to stand by Porter publicly, no matter how damning the news about him. In Nov 2011 Arthur Porter stepped down as MUHC director general, followed by Senator Angus' exit as chair of MUHC a month later. 

Fun fact : When SNC-L decided to conduct an internal audit into all this in 2012, it hired Senator Angus' law firm Stikeman Elliott LLP, from which he retired in 2009 as a senior partner after four and a half decades.
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Update : Excellent piece on the SNC-L/T&T deal from economists Patricia Adams and Brady Yauch :

"The injudicious decision by one Canadian federal government agency to arrange an untendered, closed-door deal for SNC-Lavalin while another, the federal police force, investigates the company for wrongdoing seems lost on government officials. Canadian taxpayers would be right to charge, as are Trinidadian and Tobagonians in their own country, that our government is failing to maintain proper standards in the handling of public projects. 

More fundamentally, untendered, closed-door deals arranged by the Canadian government for any company can’t help but create the very environment in which bribery, corruption, and conspiracy to defraud taxpayers and ratepayers thrives.

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CCC : a Crown corporation arms dealer

 "There is no better trade show for defence equipment than a military mission."  

~ Marc Whittingham, CEO of the Canadian Commercial Corporation, the crown corporation that acts as Canada's global military sales agency.

But just in case demonstrations of Canadian military equipment against the 90% civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq are insufficiently compelling, the publicly funded CCC also rents a trailer with Export Development Canada at the big yearly CANSEC arms dealer trade show, which is where Embassy Mag caught up with its enthusiastically entrepreneurial CEO.

 CCC sees 'untapped market' for Canadian arms

"You wouldn't know it from the lack of news coverage, but the Canadian Commercial Corporation has been transformed from a low-profile Canadian intermediary agency to a major player in promoting Canadian global arms sales.

The Crown corporation, often referred to simply as CCC, is best known for its primary job, selling Canadian military technology to the US Department of Defense under the 1956 US Defence Production Sharing Agreement, which today works out to about $1.4-billion worth of product flowing south. 

But in the last few years, as the US defence industry began cooling after years of growth, CCC began talking to foreign governments about whether it was feasible for them to fill what was seen as a yawning gap by emulating some of the actions of the US defence department's Foreign Military Sales program.

The answer was a resounding "yes," and CCC realized it was sitting on a lucrative market. Now, Canadian defence contractors say they are increasingly turning to CCC to help them sell their technology to foreign militaries, and CCC is looking at $10.3 billion in contracts for 2010-11."

Apparently the yearly US Foreign Military Sales in arms is $35 billion, but world demand on them is $50 billion so a combination of $15.6 million per year of tax dollars plus CCC's sales commissions filled that "yawning gap" in making the world a better place for arms dealers.

According to CCC's 2010 annual report : "CCC charges fees for service only on its non-DPSA transactions, as its DPSA transactions are funded through parliamentary appropriations" - meaning that you and I are underwriting their fees on contracts with the US military, contracts which account for 80% of their business.
The CCC Corporate Plan 2010/2011 to 2014/2015 notes the "CCC manages between $1 billion and $1.7 billion annually with the U.S. DoD."

CCC CEO Whittingham, formerly the Assistant Deputy Minister of Public Affairs at Public Safety Canada, explains CCC's new direction :

"We are Canada's global defence sales agency. And so we then moved from being an organization that was largely reactive to Canadian industry ­and we would have done, and have done certain deals in defence ­but we didn't have a proactive strategy ourselves, internally, that said we need a business development capability ... we have a business line dedicated to that now. We are small and nimble, and we are able to charge a smaller fee, obviously, for being a Canadian government element within a transaction."

Obviously.

We have a vice-president of business development and sales, a director of global defence sales. Our board of directors is very enthusiastic about it."

Among them - Andrew Saxton Sr, father of North Van Con MP Andrew Saxton Jr.

Back to the CCC Corporate Plan :

"CCC, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT) and Export Development Canada (EDC) make up Canada’s International Trade Portfolio. In conducting its business, CCC utilizes DFAIT’s Trade Commissioner Service (TCS), which has a well-established international footprint with representation in over 150 embassies, consulates, high commissions and trade offices worldwide.
The Corporation’s mandate... directs CCC to play an integral role in helping the government of Canada achieve its overall goals.

The Corporation’s two business lines are structured to support Canadian companies contracting into the defence sector, primarily with the United States, and into emerging and developing country markets.

CCC’s commercial trading transactions over the next five years will [show] a 90% increase from the last five years. The Corporation’s fees will increase from $7.6 million in 2008-09 to $11.0 million in 2009-10, and to $20.4 million by 2014-15.

Strategic goals :

• Serve as a foreign policy instrument for the government of Canada

• Contribute to the development of public policy & programs that support Canadian exporters. 

The Defence Market 

According to the Stockholm International Peace Institute, global military expenditure in 2008 was estimated to be $1.46 trillion USD. This represented a 45% increase from 1999.

Major spending was mainly due to : foreign policy objectives, including the War on Terror; real or perceived threats; armed conflict; and policies contributing to multilateral peacekeeping operations.

From time to time the CCC website site presents a success story, like a $2B DND and Bombadier joint-procurement deal to provide the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Royal Saudi Air Force with a "program for Aviation and Technical Training".

And above a truly lovely photo of a sunny backlit forest :   Corporate Social Responsibility

"At CCC, we commit to operating in an environmentally, socially, and ethically responsible manner, and to respect Canada's international commitments..."

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