Report Slams Canada’s “Systematic Deception” Over Weapons Transfers to Israel

Activists say the government is misleading the public as Canadian weapons flow to Israel despite pledged restrictions.

By Jillian Kestler-D’Amours , Truthout, July 29, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/report-slams-canadas-systematic-deception-over-weapons-transfers-to-israel/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=dd4ceeb9ab-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_07_29_09_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-dd4ceeb9ab-650192793

Rights advocates in Canada are accusing the government of misleading the public by allowing huge amounts of weapons to be sent to Israel despite a pledge to curtail such transfers.

In a new report issued on July 29, a coalition of advocacy groups released new details about the scope of Canadian-made arms exports to Israel amid the country’s war on the Gaza Strip.

Using commercial shipping and Israeli import data, the report found that at least 47 shipments of military related components were sent from Canadian weapons manufacturers to Israeli arms companies between October 2023 and July 2025.

That’s only a few months after the Canadian government said it was opposed to Canadian-made weapons being used in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Rachel Small, the Canada lead at World Beyond War, one of the groups behind the report, told Truthout that the findings expose “one of the biggest propaganda campaigns in Canadian foreign policy in many decades”.

“What we’ve seen over the past 21 months is, over and over again, Liberal [government] ministers standing in parliament, making public statements, claiming that Canada had paused or restricted or limited or was no longer sending arms to Israel,” Small told Truthout in an interview.

“And while Palestinian families were literally burying their children [in Gaza] … we now know that fighter jet parts literally flew from Halifax to Israel on Air Canada flights, hidden in the cargo underneath passenger seats,” Small said.

“What this report reveals is not bureaucratic oversight; what this looks like is systematic deception. It makes Canada directly complicit in what scholars and organizations all agree is a genocide.”

Pressure to Suspend Exports

The report’s findings come as Israel faces a fresh wave of global condemnation over its blockade of Gaza, which has led to a starvation crisis across the bombarded coastal enclave.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 150 Palestinians have died of hunger since the war began in October 2023, including dozens in recent days.

More than half of those casualties are children, and the United Nations has warned that the number of starvation-linked deaths could rapidly rise unless aid is allowed into the territory in a sustained way.

But long before Israel’s escalation of its blockade in March, people around the world had been calling on their governments to stop sending weapons to Israel that could be used in deadly attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

In Canada, Palestinian rights advocates and other civil society groups demanded an arms embargo against Israel and called on the government to uphold its obligations under the UN Arms Trade Treaty.

That pact stipulates that signatories cannot send arms to a country when they have knowledge that those weapons could be used in war crimes, genocide, and attacks on civilians, among other violations of international law.

In March 2024, Canada’s parliament passed a non-binding motion urging the government to suspend further arms sales to Israel.

As pressure continued to mount, in September of last year, then-Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly announced that the government had not approved any new export permits for Israel since January 8, 2024.

Joly said Ottawa had suspended “around 30” existing permits. She also said the government was opposed to a planned sale by the United States of Canadian-made weapons parts to Israel that was made public just a few weeks earlier.

“Our policy is clear: We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza, period,” Joly told reporters at the time.

Millions in Arms Sent in 2024

Still, human rights advocates immediately questioned why the government didn’t suspend all permits that had been granted for weapons destined for Israel.

The report also noted that, under a decades-old defense pact between Canada and the U.S., most Canadian-made weapons and weapons parts do not need permits to be exported to the country’s southern neighbor.

That has created what some experts have described as a black hole in terms of reporting requirements — and raised concerns that Canadian weapons components could end up in Israel if they are shipped via the U.S.

In fact, in March, anti-war group Project Ploughshares reported that a Canadian Crown corporation — a government contracting agency — had signed a contract in September 2024 with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide artillery propellants used to launch explosive 155m shells that will be sent to Israel.

“This agreement was finalized while the intensive bombardment of Gaza continued,” Project Ploughshares noted, as well as after Canada announced it was suspending weapons exports to Israel.

Tuesday’s report focused on direct military exports from Canada to Israel, not weapons that reach Israel via the U.S.

In an emailed statement sent to Truthout on Wednesday afternoon, Global Affairs Canada, Canada’s foreign affairs department, said it could not confirm the details included in the report, including the number of shipments of items to Israel as well as their method of transit. The department also did not directly answer Truthout’s question about why it hasn’t cancelled all existing weapons export permits to Israel.

“Canada has not approved any new permits for items to Israel that could be used in the current conflict in Gaza since January 8, 2024,” it said, adding that the approximately 30 export permits that were suspended last year “remain suspended and cannot be used to export to Israel”.

“Global Affairs Canada continues to assess all permit applications on a case-by-case basis under Canada’s risk assessment framework, including the criteria set out in the Arms Trade Treaty and enshrined in the Export and Import Permits Act. Any items requiring an export permit adhere to Canada’s rigorous export permit regime,” it said.

The government’s own data shows that Canada exported $13.8 million ($18.9 million Canadian) in direct military supplies and technology to Israel last year.

The weapons were authorized for transfer through 164 permits issued before the January 8 freeze, the government said.

“Global Affairs Canada’s approach since January 8, 2024, has been to not issue permits and to suspend a limited number of export permits for military items destined for Israel,” the ministry said in its report on 2024 exports.

“These suspensions allow for further review into whether the authorized items could be used in the ongoing conflict in a manner inconsistent with Canada’s foreign policy objectives.”

Two-Way Arms Embargo

Tuesday’s report calls on the Canadian government to impose a two-way arms embargo that would cancel all existing arms export permits from Canada and prevent Canada from importing weapons from Israel.

That’s because advocates say the Canadian government should not be buying weapons marketed as “battle tested” on Palestinians or providing profits to Israeli arms manufacturers.

The report also urges Canada to end indirect weapons transfers to Israel through the U.S., including by requiring “end-use assurances” that no arms sent to the U.S. will end up in Israel.

Corey Balsam, national coordinator of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, another one of the groups involved in the report, said arms embargoes are tools the Canadian government has used before in other circumstances.

“I think the government recognizes that it has a responsibility to stop the arms [to Israel], and that’s why they’ve taken some limited measures. But those measures are obviously insufficient,” Balsam told Truthout.

“We’ve grown up with this idea of never again post-Holocaust and that’s something that we hear politicians in Canada repeating,” he said. “And here we are, just letting this happen, and worse, actually contributing. It’s really shameful.”

Balsam added that “if Canada really supports international law and human rights, it needs to be applied across the board”, including to its ally, Israel.

Small also said Canada is at a crossroads.

“I think they are really going to have to choose whether they’re going to continue to try to hide the Canada-Israel arms trade … or whether they’re going to take action and actually stop the flow of these weapons,” Small said.

“We’re not asking them to move mountains,” she added. “It’s the bare minimum to [ask them to] stop Canada from being deeply complicit in what I would say is one of the greatest moral crises of our time.”

August 1, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, weapons and war | Leave a comment