Abstract
The Canada-Saudi light armoured vehicles deal is likely to be remembered as the Trudeau government’s first scandal. Situating this deal in a historical-comparative context and using the best available quantitative arms trade data, this analysis advances two main claims. First, Canada’s Liberal governments are just as likely as Conservative governments to encourage exports of Canadian military goods, including goods going to human rights-abusing customers. Second, Canada’s overall arms exporting behaviour is similar to the behaviour of its “international do-gooder” peers, Sweden and the Netherlands. How Canadian governments will respond to the ever-increasing international demands for accountability in this area remains to be seen.
Introduction
The “Saudi arms deal” will be remembered as the first scandal of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. In their 2015 campaign, the Liberals made many promises, but notably absent was any notion of cancelling a $15-billion sale of Ontario-built light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia. Instead, Trudeau and his ministers stood by the deal the Conservatives had made, despite the “risk” of the Saudis using these vehicles for bloody internal repression and/or interventions abroad. Then, in April 2016, The Globe and Mail published a heretofore secret policy memorandum indicating that key export permits had been signed by the new foreign affairs minister Stéphane Dion, rather than any of Dion’s predecessors in the government of Stephen Harper. 1
The uproar was immediate. “The government lied to Canadians about who signed what when in the Saudi arms deal,” declared New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Thomas Mulcair.
2
Some reacted with outrage, others with wit. The Beaverton, a satirical webzine, published a fictitious interview with Trudeau, a self-declared feminist and champion of human rights: I am going to keep saying loud and clear that I AM a feminist... and that I AM going to keep selling weapons to an oppressive regime that imposes travel and employment bans on women, until both statements are met with a shrug!
3
To answer these questions, I conduct a quantitative historical-comparative analysis of Canada’s arms exports since the 1980s. The results indicate that Liberal and Conservative governments have similar records, both overall and in terms of their willingness to grant export permits for military goods going to human rights-abusing buyers. I similarly find far more similarities than differences in comparing Canada to Sweden and the Netherlands, two of Canada’s “recognized peers” in the area of progressive foreign policy. Indeed, the percentage of recorded transfers that went to recipients with “bad” or “very bad” human rights records in the 1981–2010 period is 15 percent for Canada, 10 percent for Sweden, and 14 percent for the Netherlands.
The rest of the article is broken into three sections. The first introduces the data used, visualizes the ebb and flow of Canadian arms exports from 1970 onwards, and defends the decision to compare Canada to Sweden and the Netherlands. The second section analyzes Canadian arms exports from the perspective of human rights in the 1981–2010 period, both in terms of the Liberal versus Conservative governments and cross-nationally, from a Canada–Sweden–Netherlands perspective. The last section reflects on the future of Canada’s arms trade accountability in light of two major new developments. One is Canada’s accession to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), the first and only legally binding treaty designed to regulate the multi-billion dollar global trade in small and major conventional weapons. 8 The other is the Trudeau government’s “feminist foreign policy” turn—a convenient shorthand I use here to refer to Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland’s speech in the House of Commons on 6 June 2017 and the new defence and international assistance policy documents released later that week. 9
Canadian arms exports in context
The industry standard in quantitative arms trade research is the SIPRI Arms Transfers Database. Covering 11 categories of “major conventional weapons” (MCWs) from 1950 onwards, this database is widely used to identify suppliers and recipients and their relationships over time; the type, number, and approximate financial value of conventional weapon systems bought and sold; the ebb and flow of militarization of specific states and non-state actors; and many other developments. 10
To understand how the SIPRI database works, one must first understand the trend indicator values (TIVs). Expressed in constant 1990 USD, this number captures the quality and quantity of military resources being transferred from one country to another, taking into account the price paid, development and production costs, life cycle, and other characteristics of said resources. For instance, a Canadian-made LAV transferred to Saudi Arabia may be priced differently from the identical LAV going to the US Army, but their TIVs should be the same. TIV figures are more reliable from the 1990s onwards, as are figures for high-income states, especially those that are democracies. 11 For example, the SIPRI data on Canada in the 2000s are more reliable than the same data on Canada in the 1960s or on China in the 2000s. The SIPRI relies on input from local arms trade-monitoring non-governmental organizations such as Project Ploughshares, an agency of the Canadian Council of Churches founded in 1976 in Waterloo, Ontario. In Canada, the agency has been instrumental in disclosing information about the arms trade in general and the Saudi LAV deal in particular. 12
Figure 1 plots Canadian arms exports based on the SIPRI Arms Transfers Database TIVs from 1970 to 2015, a period spanning eight ministries from Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s twentieth to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s twenty-eighth. 13 The data reveal a pattern familiar to students of international politics. The “peace dividend” of the 1990s meant a drop in the Cold War-era level of exports, with a bump in the middle for the offloading of excess (a.k.a. surplus) equipment. 14 Then, the 9/11 attacks and two major US-led wars in Asia led to steady increases in Canadian arms exports for most years shown in the figure, with the numbers from the late 2000s onwards surpassing those of the early 1970s. The final upward trend could be associated with a number of developments, including the Harper government’s 2011 effort to increase foreign military sales. 15 Overall, however, the highs and lows of Canada’s arms exports have little to do with the party in power. 16
One way to situate Figure 1 in a cross-national context is to compare Canadian MCW exports to those of Sweden and the Netherlands. This is appropriate for three reasons. First, Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands are all “upper second tier” weapons exporters—they consistently appear in the SIPRI’s annual top 15 supplier rankings, for example.
17
Second, Canadian, Dutch, and Swedish defence industries are similar. All three can be safely described as mature, mid-sized, well-connected, and capable of designing, developing, and manufacturing many kinds of exportable conventional military gear. (This, of course, is not to ignore differences in terms of the global market share, total revenues, share of the gross domestic product [GDP], number of employees, number of firms, self-sufficiency, connectivity, and the number and type of weapon categories in which their industries compete internationally).
18
Last, all three countries are defined by themselves and others as “international do-gooders,” “good international citizens,” “internationalist middle powers,” “humanitarian superpowers,” and “global good Samaritans.”
19
This is reflected in, and reinforced by, their long-standing support for the United Nations (UN), international human rights, international humanitarian law, multilateralism, foreign aid, and other progressive dimensions of the so-called liberal (a.k.a. rules-based) international order. Standard examples include Canada’s historical commitment to peacekeeping and the consistently high level of official development assistance provided by Sweden and the Netherlands.
20
Canadian Arms Exports (MCW) per Government, 1970–2015
Constructivist International Relations (IR) theorists would suggest that Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands are “like-minded countries” who seek status primarily in relation to each other. Thus, rather than being merely similar to Canada on a set of dimensions, Sweden and the Netherlands are, in fact, Canada’s most immediate recognized peers—“small- and middle-sized states that are both rich and democratic” and, crucially, “eager to spread their moral capital.” 21 If the point about status-seeking is true, then Canadian foreign policy practices are significantly influenced by Dutch and Swedish developments, and vice versa. 22 It is entirely possible that such peer effects might be operative in the case of arms exports. Following the LAV scandal, for example, some Canadian journalists showed interest in the changes to the Swedish arms-exporting regime towards the Saudi Kingdom. 23 Also significant is the way in which Canadian parliamentarians in June 2016 discussed the LAV deal with one eye on the Swedish and Dutch parliamentary activities regarding their own Saudi Arabia-related arms scandals. 24 Even Canada’s new feminist foreign policy may be subject to said peer effect. In June 2017, Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallström, the driving force behind Sweden’s own feminist foreign policy turn in 2015, and Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland, had a Twitter exchange about women’s rights as human rights that ended with Freeland commenting, “So glad to have #Sweden as a model and ally in feminist foreign policy!” 25
Figure 2 is similar to Figure 1, but plots two additional trend lines, one each for Swedish and Dutch arms exports. The visualization reveals that Canada exports fewer MCW than the two European countries. Canadian exports were greater than Dutch exports and equal to Swedish exports only in the early 1970s; after that, the exports by the European countries were consistently higher. Indeed, sometimes they were significantly higher than the Canadian exports—consider the Swedish exports around the turn of the millennium, or the Dutch exports in either the late 1970s or the late 2000s.
Canadian, Dutch, and Swedish Arms Exports (MCW), 1970–2015
Seasoned observers of the international arms trade will probably not be surprised by these findings. Per head of the population, Canada trails behind the Netherlands and Sweden even more. 26 The causes behind these developments are varied. For Sweden, they have to do with huge Cold War-era investment in indigenous defence industry, and for the Netherlands, the ability of its industry to capitalize on national strengths in shipbuilding, aerospace, logistics, and, in the more recent years, the Dutch government’s interest in surplus sales. 27
Based on this analysis, Canada appears to export much less than its recognized peers. The appearance is misleading, however, for three reasons. First, SIPRI generally focuses on whole-unit MCW, ignoring the traffic in small arms and light weapons (SALW), subsystems, components, software, and services.Related, the Canadian defence industry is part of a larger North American system. Today, over 60,000 Canadians work in the sector, contributing over $10 billion annually to GDP, with 60 percent of its sales being export-dependent. 28 Project Ploughshares estimates that between one-half and two-thirds of Canadian arms exports are to the US (the majority of which are in fact exempt from export permit requirements). 29 Following the Canada-United States Defence Production Sharing Agreement of 1959, the defence sector in Canada has come to revolve mostly around small- and medium-sized enterprises that specialize in supplying components and subsystems for Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and other US firms. 30 Crucially, many of these flows do not count as Canadian exports. Finally, arms trade data is deeply political. This is especially important in the Canadian context. One former official I interviewed suggested that the federal government at one point in recent history “deliberately” avoided collecting data on “small scale transfers” in order to keep some Canadian arms trade practices “away from the media spotlight.” 31 If it were possible to measure and aggregate all this information—that is, SALW, continental and other hidden flows with MCW—and plot it as Figure 2, Canada would doubtless look more far more formidable vis-à-vis Sweden and the Netherlands.
More context: Human rights
Where does Canada stand on the “risks” of arms trade—specifically, the risk that the military gear it exports is used for human rights abuses? Thanks to path-breaking new scholarship by Jennifer Erickson, it is now possible to match data on arms exports to the recipient’s human rights records during the entire period of 1981 to 2010, thus shining new light on the question of risk. In this approach, “human rights records” are constructed by the Political Terror Scale (PTS), a cross-national dataset that relies on annual country assessments of physical integrity rights by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the US State Department, providing a human security score for each country-year, starting in 1976. There are five levels of scores, where 1 refers to “rare or extremely exceptional human rights violations or no violations” (e.g., Botswana, 1994) and 5 to “frequent and severe violations extended to whole populations” (Rwanda, 1994). 32
To produce a “truer” analysis of the arms trade–human rights nexus, Erickson combines the SIPRI MCW data with her own coding of SALW transfers drawn from the raw data compiled by the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers (NISAT). 33 Although far less reliable than its SIPRI counterpart, NISAT data remain the best available to quantitatively trace the international traffic in SALW such as revolvers, rifles, and explosives. This approach helps correct some of the data limitations mentioned earlier, namely excluding smaller arms flows.
We thus see that 644 or 38 percent of Canadian arms transfers in the 1981–2010 period were coded as “very good” on human rights, 458 or 27 percent as “good,” 321 or 20 percent as “neutral,” 196 or 12 percent as “bad,” and 43 or 3 percent as “very bad.” We also see that the three countries behave similarly. More than half of all recorded Canadian, Swedish, and Dutch arms transfers in 1980–2010 were to states with “very good” or “good” human rights records. Put differently, the percentages for Sweden (45 percent are PTS level 1, 28 percent are PTS level 2) and the Netherlands (43 percent and 27 percent, respectively) are either equal or only slightly higher than the Canadian percentages (38 percent and 27 percent, respectively). The three countries also act similarly when dealing with countries with “bad” and “very bad” human rights records. Of all recorded Canadian arms transfers in this period, 12 percent were to PTS level 4 recipients and 3 percent to PTS level 5 recipients. For the Netherlands, these figures are, respectively, 11 percent and 3 percent; for Sweden, they are somewhat lower at 9 percent and 1 percent, respectively. Thus, when it comes to the so-called irresponsible transfers, Canada does not stand out as exceptional. Analysis of the “Cold War” versus “post-Cold War” periods and of “MCW only” versus “SALW only” does not change this interpretation. 35
The same analysis can be extended for comparing Canada’s weapon exporting practices under Liberal and Conservative governments. Tables 4–7 are cross-tabulations of PTS scores and all recorded MCW and SALW transfers (N = 1,662) for Canada in three periods: “Liberal I” (1981–1985, containing data on transfers approved by the Liberal governments of prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and John Turner); “Conservative I” (1984–1994, containing data on transfers approved by the Progressive Conservative governments of prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell); “Liberal II” (1993–2007, containing data on transfers approved by the Liberal governments of prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin); and “Conservative II” (2006–2010, containing data on transfers approved by the governments of Prime Minister Stephen Harper). 36
The results indicate little variation between Liberal- or Conservative-governed periods. Exports to countries with either “bad” or “very bad” human rights records on the PTS scale are always below 5 percent, except during “Conservative I” and “Liberal II” periods when level PTS level 4 countries (“bad”) received, respectively, 10 percent and 12 percent of Canadian transfers. As expected from the cross-national analysis presented earlier, most Canadian-made weapons transferred abroad went to countries with “very good” and “good” human rights records—67 percent to 68 percent in each period. If there is one partial deviation from this general pattern, it is the “Liberal II” period, which is characterized by 826 recorded transfers, by far the highest in simple frequency as well as in the number of transfers per year in office. Together, these results suggest the Liberals and Conservatives do not radically differ in the way they steer the export permit regime for the military goods and services Canada sends abroad.
These findings accord with the previous research on Canadian arms transfers.
37
They are also a reminder that Canadian-made LAVs have now been transferred to the Saudis for well over two decades.
38
“Ottawa sees Saudi Arabia as an increasingly positive force in the Middle East,” wrote Ernie Regehr in 1987, reflecting on a proposed sale of weaponized armoured vehicles to the desert kingdom that gained headlines in The Globe and Mail. In Regehr’s words: Military commodities are sold to countries in either conflict or imminent conflict on the grounds that there are more important strategic reasons for supporting them. The sale of the LAVs to Saudi Arabia is further defended on the grounds that these vehicles are defensive rather than offensive.
39
From Canada with LAVs, forever?
This analysis advances two main claims. One is that Liberal- and Conservative-governed Canadas have rather similar arms exporting records, including goods going to countries accused of human rights abuses. This is useful information for Canadian foreign policy scholars who emphasize “consensus” over “partisanship.” The other claim is that Canada’s dealings with such countries are similar to those of Sweden and the Netherlands—two nations that, like Canada, export arms everywhere, while thinking of themselves as “global good Samaritans.” In the period under study, 15 percent of Canada’s military deals were with buyers with “bad” or “very bad” human rights records; the figures for the other two countries are 10 percent and 14 percent, respectively. In other words, when it comes to arms exports, Canadian, Dutch, and Swedish ethically driven foreign policies are suspended one or two times out of ten.
People supportive of Canadian arms exports might wish to interpret said 15 percent as a sufficiently low figure, while also pointing to Figure 2 as evidence that Canada should export more, not less. In contrast, those who favour arms trade restrictions might wish to underscore the limitations of data and thus the value of quantitative cross-national comparisons. Indeed, they might say that arms trade research should focus on tracing the ways in which Canadian-made subsystems, components, and software are assembled into weapon systems abroad and then exported to human rights-abusing actors. 41
The export of arms is likely to remain a major policy challenge for Canada. While the new institutional architecture introduced through the ATT adds new layers of accountability in arms trade, future Canadian governments will continue to make their own calls about specific deals, balancing support for indigenous defence industries against the need to reduce trade with human rights-abusing actors. 42 Can we imagine a scenario in which Ottawa says “no” to a Saudi LAV-like blockbuster defence contract? The new feminist turn in Canadian foreign policy suggests a prima facie affirmative answer. If, indeed, the Canadian government truly wishes to help build gender-equitable societies around the world, then a good place to start would be nixing massive arms sales to countries with lousy records on women’s rights.
To ponder such a scenario further, consider once again the case of Sweden. In February 2015, foreign minister Wallström stood up in the Swedish parliament to denounce the Saudi state, offering a harsh criticism of its human rights abuses and oppression of women. While the speech shocked many diplomats, it was entirely consistent with “standing against the systematic and global subordination of women”—a core idea behind Sweden’s “feminist foreign policy” that Wallström announced upon assuming office a year earlier. 43
In reporting on Wallström’s speech, the media made a link to a separate decision by the Swedish government—a coalition of two left-leaning parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens—not to renew a memorandum on military collaboration and weapons technology exchange with the Middle Eastern sheikdom. Then, in June 2015, after a parliamentary committee recommended that Swedish arms export should be made conditional on “democracy criteria,” the media came to interpret Wallström’s intervention as a feminist foreign policy-driven “moratorium” on arms exports to Saudi Arabia. In reality, however, it is not at all clear that Sweden ever stopped its dealings with the Saudis. In October 2016, a state visit to Saudi Arabia led by Prime Minster Stefan Löfven notably included Marcus Wallenberg, chairman of Saab, the Swedish aerospace and defence giant. Furthermore, the new bill on arms trade regulations passed by the Swedish parliament in June 2017 was much weaker on said democracy conditionalities than expected by local arms control and human rights advocates. Rather than making an arms sale impossible, the “poor democratic status” of a recipient merely decreases the chances of an export permit. 44 To the extent that these Swedish activities are indicative, Canada’s own feminist foreign policy is likely to be characterized by “inconsistencies,” “contradictions,” and “exceptions,” especially in the area of arms trade. 45
Much like Canada’s belated accession to the ATT, attempts to implement Canada’s new feminist foreign policy are likely to draw further attention to the Trudeau government’s unedifying role in the LAV deal. Coupled with the fact that the deal effectively commits Canada to “helping prop up the Saudi government until 2028,” 46 and also to the “second largest arms exporter to the Middle East” label, 47 the chances of the Saudi scandal re-appearing in Canadian federal elections are solid. In the worst-case scenario, the Saudi National Guard or a nearby Saudi state security organization will deploy its Canadian-made LAVs in a major internal crackdown or in a military intervention in Yemen, Bahrain, or some other state Riyadh considers to be within its sphere of influence. 48 When this happens, the government will hear it from Canadians again—just think of the volume of clever political satire that will appear in the old and new media.
What, then, should the Trudeau government do? Two policy ideas come to mind. One is to follow the 2017 Swedish model and legislate additional stringency in the Canadian regulations regime. The other is for the ruling Liberals to reverse their stance on the 2016 proposal by NDP MP Hélène Laverdière to establish a British-style House of Commons committee tasked with reviewing defence exports. 49 Either one of these policy moves would make it harder for the Canada’s arms industry to sell their wares to repressive governments in the future—a minimum demand made by the critics of the LAV deal. Now that it has expressly committed itself to advancing feminist foreign policy objectives, the Trudeau government might even decide to revisit Canada’s arms control regime for reasons other than public relations damage control.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to two anonymous reviewers, Andrea Lane, Sanna Strand, Eugene Lang, Brian Bow, Cesar Jaramillo, Kenneth Epps, Cornelia Weiss, Jonathan Caverley, and especially Jennifer Erickson for their input. The paper also benefitted from presentations at Dalhousie University and L’École nationale d’administration publique Gatineau. All remaining errors are those of the author.
1
Steven Chase, “Dion quietly approved arms sale to Saudi Arabia in April: Documents,” The Globe and Mail, 12 April 2016. The newspaper placed the story on the front page, then followed up with a series of dissections of the transaction penned by Chase, Paul Webster, and others. The deal—the largest foreign sale of military goods in Canadian history—was first announced by the Conservatives in February 2014.
2
Steven Chase, “Liberals accused of lying about Saudi arms deal,” The Globe and Mail, 13 April 2016. The NDP never opposed the LAV deal itself. On 24 January 2017, the Federal Court ruled to reject the bid to stop the LAV deal launched by a Montreal-based group, Opération Droits Blindés (Armoured Rights Operation), which was led by Prof. Daniel Turp. The group’s website, 
, has since been discontinued and the legality of the transaction is no longer challenged.
3
4
Andrea Lane and Ellen Gutterman, “Beyond LAVs: Corruption, commercialization, and the Canadian defence industry,” Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 23, no. 1 (2017): 77–92; and Erika Simpson, “Canada’s arms deal with Saudi Arabia,” Peace Magazine 32, no. 2 (2016): 13–14.
5
Kim Nossal, Stéphane Roussel, and Stéphane Paquin, The Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy (Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 312. A small sample of studies: Heather Smith, “Choosing not to see: Canada, climate change, and the Arctic,” International Journal 65, no. 4 (2000): 931–942; Brian Bow, “Parties and partisanship in Canadian defence policy,” International Journal 64, no. 1 (2008–2009): 67–88; Jonathan Paquin and Philippe Beauregard, “Shedding light on Canada’s foreign policy alignment,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 46, no. 3 (2013): 1–27; Justin Massie and Darko Brizic, “Rupture idéologique et redéfinition de l’identité internationale du Canada: Harper et Chrétien face aux guerres en Libye et au Kosovo,” Canadian Foreign Policy 20, no. 1 (2014): 19–28.
6
Jennifer Erickson, “Market imperative meets normative power: Human rights and European arms transfer policy,” European Journal of International Relations 19, no. 2 (2013): 206–234.
7
Ernie Regehr, Arms Canada: The Deadly Business of Military Exports (Toronto: Lorimer, 1987), chapter 7; Richard Sanders, “Canadian Military Exports to Countries at War, 2003–2005,” Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT), (accessed 7 October 2017); and Naël Shiab, “Marchandises militaires: la grande hypocrisie canadienne,” L’Actualité, 5 February 2017. On the inherent value of cross-national comparisons, see Luc Turgeon, Martin Papillon, Jennifer Wallner, and Stephen White, eds., Comparing Canada: Methods and Perspectives on Canadian Politics (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014).
8
9
The new documents were introduced by defence minister Harjit Sajjan and transport minister Marc Garneau on 7 June and by international development minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on 9 June. I leave others to examine how hierarchical relations between masculine and feminine subjectivities, among other power relations, are implicated in arms exports and in modern militarism more generally. On this tradition of scholarship, see Claire Turenne Sjolander, Heather Smith, and Deborah Stienstra, eds., Feminist Approaches to Canadian Foreign Policy (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2003), and Bryan Mabee and Srdjan Vucetic, “Varieties of militarism: Towards a typology,” Security Dialogue (forthcoming, 2017).
10
“SIPRI Arms Transfers Database—Methodology,” SIPRI, https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers/background/ (accessed 7 October 2017). Inevitably, the database glosses over some nuances. For example, a multirole fighter derived from a foreign design but built indigenously counts as an “export,” not “production under license.” A ten-page appendix to this article, which is available through the author’s website, , has more details.
11
Jürgen Brauer, “Arms industries, arms trade, and developing countries,” in T. Sandler and K. Hartley, eds., Handbook of Defense Economics, Volume 2 (New York: Elsevier, 2007), 973–1015, 984. The fact that such data often lack clarity, comprehensiveness, and comparability is a product of a long-standing struggle between security and business impulses on one hand, and humanitarian imperatives on the other.
12
Project Ploughshares’ Canadian Military Industry Database goes back to the mid-1980s; phone conversation with Ken Epps, former senior program officer and Cesar Jaramillo, executive director, on 16 February 2016. Also see Regehr, Arms Canada, 218–242; and Lucas Powers, “Canadian arms trade much larger than data suggests, experts says,” CBC News, 23 February 2016.
13
A simple four-year moving average signals that the SIPRI data cover deliveries, not deals. In the Canada–Saudi LAV contract, one government made the deal, the next government granted key export licenses, and the subsequent two to three governments will oversee the deliveries. See appendix for alternative figures.
14
Recall that CF-116 jets went to Botswana and CH-147 helicopters to the Netherlands, for example. In addition to information on second-hand transfers like these, the database also assembles data involving multiple suppliers—transfers of weapons produced by two or more cooperating countries—as well as deals between “unknown” suppliers and/or “unknown” recipients.
15
Appendix; Lane and Gutterman, “Beyond LAVs,” 80.
16
17
On the global hierarchy of arms-producing and arms-exporting states, see Keith Krause, Arms and the State: Patterns of Military Production and Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 26–33; Richard A. Bitzinger, “Towards a brave new arms industry?” Adelphi Papers 43 (2003): 1–102, 6–7; Regehr, Arms Canada; and Alistair D. Edgar and David G. Haglund, The Canadian Defence Industry in the New Global Environment (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995).
18
In general, see Stefan Markowski, Peter Hall, Robert Wylie, eds., Defence Procurement and Industry Policy: A Small Country Perspective (London: Routledge, 2010). For Sweden specifically, see Government of Sweden, Inspectorate of Strategic Products, “Annual Report 2015,” https://isp.se/media/1139/isp_annualreport2015_web.pdf (accessed 7 October 2017); and Mark Bromley and Simeon Wezeman, Current Trends in the International Arms Trade and Implications for Sweden (Stockholm: SIPRI Papers, 2013). For the Netherlands, see Triarii BV/Ministerie van Economische Zake Eindrapport, “Nederlandse Defensie-en Veiligheidsgerelateerde Industrie 2016,” https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2016/03/22/eindrapport-039-nederlandse-defensie-en-veiligheidsgerelateerde-industrie-2016-039 (accessed 7 October 2017). And for Canada, see Binyam Solomon, “The defence industrial base in Canada,” in Craig Stone, ed., The Public Management of Defence in Canada (Toronto: Breakout Educational Network, 2009), 111–139; Global Affairs Canada, “Reports on Exports of Military Goods,” 2007–2015, http://www.international.gc.ca/controls-controles/report-rapports/index.aspx?lang=eng (accessed 7 October 2017); Statistics Canada, “Canadian Defence, Aerospace and Commercial and Civil Marine Sectors Survey,” 2014, http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/160217/dq160217f-eng.htm (accessed 7 October 2017); Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), “State of Canada’s Defence Industry, 2014,” (2016), (accessed 9 October 2017).
19
See especially Cranford Pratt ed., Internationalism Under Strain: The North-South Policies of Canada, Norway, The Netherlands, Norway and Sweden (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989); Andrew Cooper, ed., Niche Diplomacy: Middle Powers after the Cold War (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1997); Alison Brysk, Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), esp. chapters 3, 4, and 6; Ronald Behringer, The Human Security Agenda: How Middle Power Leadership Defied US Hegemony (New York: Continuum, 2012), esp. 16–19.
20
On Canada, see, inter alia, Steven Kendall Holloway, Canadian Foreign Policy: Defining the National Interest (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2006), 1–2, and Claire Turenne-Sjolander and Heather Smith, eds., Canada in the World: Internationalism in Canadian Foreign Policy (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2014), iv. On Sweden, see Christine Ingebritsen, Scandinavia in World Politics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), chapter 7. For the Netherlands, recall that its commitment to international development was constitutionalized in 1957. For more, see Peter Baehr and Monique Castermans-Holleman, The Role of Human Rights in Foreign Policy, 3rd ed. (London: Palgrave, 2004), 95–100.
21
Benjamin De Carvalho and Iver B. Neumann, “Introduction: Small states and status,” in De Carvalho and Neumann, eds., Small State Status Seeking: Norway’s Quest for International Standing (London: Routledge, 2014), 1–21, 13.
22
De Carvalho and Neumann insist that Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands constitute a single status group. Other states that might warrant comparison with Canada in this regard are Denmark, Norway, Finland, Australia, and Switzerland. However, these five countries are either lower-tier arms exporters (e.g., Finland [appendix]) and/or poor international citizens (e.g., Switzerland [De Carvalho and Neumann, “Introduction,” 13]). Note also that Anthony J. Dolman was the first to explore the concept of the like-minded countries with relation to the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, but not Canada. Dolman, “The like-minded countries and the new international order: Past, present and future prospects,” Cooperation and Conflict 14 (1979): 57–85. For more rationales for Canada–Netherlands comparisons, see Joseph T. Jockel and Justin Massie, “In or out? Canada, the Netherlands, and support of the invasion of Iraq,” Comparative Strategy 36, no. 4 (2017): 166–181, 167.
23
For example: Steve Chase, “As Canada faces heat over Saudi deal, Sweden looks to restrict arms exports,” The Globe and Mail, 20 May 2016.
24
Canada, House of Commons, The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, Minutes of Proceedings, 1 June 2016, 7:17.
26
The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (SPAS) produces “per-capita rankings” annually, using a combination of SIPRI and UN data. Sweden is always in the top three, while Canada switches between the top 20 and the top 25. See appendix. For the latest English language releases by the SPAS, see http://www.svenskafreds.se/reports-press-releases-and-other-publications (accessed 7 October 2017). Also see the “alternative annual report” series published by the Dutch Campaign against Arms Trade. For English language summaries, see (accessed 7 October 2017).
27
Bromley and Wezeman, Current Trends, 7–8, 11–14, 24–25.
28
The sector’s export intensity is above the overall Canadian manufacturing average. For details, see ISED and CADSI, “State of Canada’s defence industry, 2014”; Global Affairs Canada, “Reports on exports of military goods”; Statistics Canada, “Canadian defence, aerospace and commercial and civil marine sectors survey,” 2014.
29
30
Attend CANSEC, Canada’s largest defence and security jamboree that takes place every spring in Ottawa, and you can witness this relationship in action.On the history, economics, and politics of Canada–US defence industry integration, see Yan Cimon, “Defence policy and the aerospace and defence industry in North America,” in Jonathan Paquin and Patrick James, eds., Game Changer: The Impact of 9/11 on North American Security (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014), 213–230; Alastair Edgar, “Growth pains or growing strains: The limits of neighbourliness and the politicization of Canada-US defence industry integration,” Canadian Foreign Policy 8, no. 2 (2001): 1–22; Edgar and Haglund, The Canadian Defence Industry, chapter 4; Michael Slack and John Skynner, “Defence production and the defence industrial base,” in David B. Dewitt and David Leyton-Brown, eds. Canada’s International Security Policy (Scarborough: Prentice Hall Canada Inc., 1995), 365–390; Solomon, “The defence industrial base in Canada”; Craig Stone, “Defence procurement and industry,” in David S. McDonough, ed., Canada’s National Security in the Post-9/11 World: Strategy, Interests, and Threats (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 73–97; and Srdjan Vucetic and Atsushi Tago, “Why buy American? The international politics of fighter jet transfers,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 48, no. 4 (2015): 101–124.
31
Interview with a former foreign affairs official with experience in the arms trade file, Ottawa, Canada, 24 November 2016. Of course, other governments may be doing the same.
32
Jennifer Erickson finds US State Department numbers more useful for her purposes. Erickson, Dangerous Trade: Arms Exports, Human Rights, and International Reputation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 169. For more, see M. Gibney, L. Cornett, R. Wood, P. Haschke, and D. Arnon, The Political Terror Scale 1976–2015, (accessed 7 October 2017).
33
Erickson, Dangerous Trade, including the book’s appendix.
34
35
Available upon request. Looking at the frequency figures, the Netherlands has over twice as many recorded dealings with countries with “very bad” human rights records (34) than either Sweden (14) or Canada (16), while Canada has a slight lead on countries with “bad” human rights records—196, compared to 198 for Sweden and 118 for the Netherlands. Due the nature of data and measurement used here, however, we can make valid inferences only on the basis of percentages.
36
Due to the changing norms and practices of record-keeping, earlier data is less complete than more recent data, which weakens the comparability between the periods. Another challenge is the time lag between “deals” (“agreements”) and “deliveries”: some transfers approved in “Liberal periods” are recorded in “Conservative periods” and vice versa. To offset this weakness, the periods overlap and government changeover years (1984, 1993, and 2006) were also cross-tabulated and analyzed separately, in search of additional information. Results available upon request.
37
See Lane and Gutterman, “Beyond LAVs,” and Shiab, “Marchandises militaires.” The latter uses Freedom House data to show that over the past quarter-century Canada sold $18.5 billion worth of military goods to 144 countries, 50 of whom were classified as dictatorships in the year of delivery.
38
Simpson, “Canada’s arms deal with Saudi Arabia,” 14.
39
Regehr, Arms Canada, 152.
40
Shiab finds that Ottawa very rarely blocks exports on the basis of human rights considerations, including in cases when the recipient is engaged in violent civil war (e.g., Algeria in the 1990s). In 2015, for example, Ottawa blocked only 0.1 percent of exports. Shiab, “Marchandises militaires.”
41
Stefan Labbe, “Seven Human Rights Violators Buying Canadian Military Goods,” OpenCanada, 16 August 2016, (accessed 8 October 2017). Rather than just states with poor PTS scores, such actors can also be transnational and/or underground groups engaged in bloody conflicts, such as assorted non-state armed groups that receive Western support, including support of Western intelligence agencies.
42
On the limits of the ATT regime in Canada and more generally, see, respectively, Jaramillo, “Canada’s ATT legislation has a loophole,” and Anna Stavrianakis, “Legitimizing liberal militarism: Politics, law and war in the Arms Trade Treaty,” Third World Quarterly 37, no. 5 (2016): 840–865.
43
Karin Aggestam and Annika Bergman-Rosamond, “Swedish feminist foreign policy in the making: Ethics, politics, and gender,” Ethics & International Affairs 30, no. 3 (2016): 323–334.
44
45
Sweden’s feminist foreign policymakers have faced a number of criticisms from the beginning: why shun the Saudis but strike deals with China or Iran; why curb arms exports but ignore the plight of refugees; why reintroduce the military draft? Such “whataboutisms” fail to appreciate that the idea of “feminist foreign policy”—and the rhetorical endorsement thereof by the Swedish and Canadian governments—already challenges much of the senso communo that informs prevailing international norms, institutions, and practices. For illuminating discussions, see Aggestam and Bergman-Rosamond, “Swedish feminist foreign policy,” 329–331; Behringer, The Human Security Agenda, 163; and Valerie Percival, “What a real feminist foreign policy looks like,” OpenCanada, 12 May 2017, (accessed 8 October 2017).
46
Simpson, “Canada’s arms deal with Saudi Arabia,” 15.
47
See the figures from 2016 from Jane’s Defence Weekly, as cited in Steven Chase, “Canada now the second biggest arms exporter to Middle East, data show,” The Globe and Mail, 14 June 2016. Also see appendix.
48
Keep in mind likely Saudi war crimes and crimes against humanity in the ongoing conflict in Yemen. Simpson, “Canada’s arms deal with Saudi Arabia,” 15. The collapse of the Saudi state is a discernible risk, too. See David Carment and Teddy Samy, “Trudeau may come to bitterly regret the Saudi arms deal,” iPolitics, 17 February 2016, (accessed 8 October 2017).
49
Author Biography
Srdjan Vucetic is associate professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), University of Ottawa. He received a PhD in Political Science from the Ohio State University. His research interests revolve around international security, including Canadian foreign and defence policy. He is the author of The Anglosphere: A Genealogy of a Racialized Identity in International Relations (Stanford, 2011), and editor of two special issues on the politics of the F-35/Joint Strike Fighter. His articles have appeared, and will soon appear, in Canadian Journal of Political Science, European Journal of International Relations, International Journal, International Organization, Journal of International Relations, and Development, Politics & Policy, Review of International Studies, Security Dialogue, and other journals. Website: .