Canada's arms exportation with Saudi Arabia and its role in the Yemen conflict

Farhana Khan | October 30th, 2020

Canada is known for its overseas military goods exportation, and some countries they export to are the United Kingdom, Turkey, France, Saudi Arabia etc. These trades are not rare occurrences but in the year 2019, a spike in the number of weapon sales made with Saudi Arabia was observed; a whopping 3 billion CAD worth of weapons were sold to the desert kingdom. (1) Although some may consider this an accomplishment for Canada, it is, however, a dark symbol. Saudi Arabia has been at war with Yemen for almost five years and certainly buying a large number of weapons is not a good sign. More importantly, Canada being the supplier of said weapons indirectly involves us with the violent conflict which we have no desire to meddle in.

For overseas exportation of resources between countries, a treaty (contract of some sort) is put in place; for weapon exportations, the Arms Trade Treaty exists. This treaty outlines the rules that ought to be respected by the two countries, and within these rules, it states how the exporting country has the right to deny the export authorization if they see that “the arms or items to be exported would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes as defined by international agreements to which it is a party.” (2)

This suggests that if Canada has reason to accuse Saudi Arabia of using the weapons against their citizens, or in the conflict with Yemen, they have the right to terminate the exportation contract. Therefore, the consequence of Canada potentially facing billions of penalty charges for cancelling the contract can be avoided. That being said, the military combat vehicles that Canada sold to the desert kingdom were seen in the conflict location, suggesting that Saudi Arabia may be violating the treaty rules. Not to mention, Saudi Arabia is notorious for its poor efforts in protecting and preserving human rights, thus furthering concerns around its purchase of a colossal number of weapons. (3)

Due to this witnessing of Canadian exported war vehicles in the Yemen conflict zone, Canadian rights groups and academic and policy advisors collectively submitted a signed letter to the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, urging him to cancel any future arms exportation to Saudi Arabia to prevent Canada from becoming deeply involved in the war with Yemen. (4) In addition, other countries like Sweden and Germany cancelled their military exportation deals with Saudi Arabia, providing Canada with more reason to cancel theirs. Although this may seem like the most sensible course of action, the Canadian government had other plans. Instead of not providing Saudi Arabia with more military resources, Canada decided to provide Yemen with resources and necessities that will help them overcome the war they are currently in. (5)

This is a very counter-intuitive thing to do since, on the one hand, Canada is giving Saudi Arabia the necessary tools to fight Yemen but on the other end, they are trying to help Yemen survive. The fact that the Prime Minister decided to not stop all transactions with Saudi Arabia, essentially involves us with the war in an indirect manner, which means that we can be considered to be siding with Saudi Arabia at this rate. This begs the question if Canada is doing the right thing by continuing their arms exportation contracts with Saudi Arabia since it is generating a lot of profit, or if it should take a more humanitarian standpoint and cancel all contracts.

Endnotes

1. "Canada Doubles Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia Despite Moratorium," The Guardian, last modified June 11, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/canada-doubles-weapons-sales-to-saudi-arabia-despite-moratorium.

2. accessed October 28, 2020, https://unoda-web.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/2015-08-21-Toolkit-Module-6.pdf.

3. Steven Chase, "Trudeau Urged to End Arms Exports to Saudi Arabia After Canada Cited for Fueling Yemen War," The Globe and Mail, last modified September 17, 2020, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeau-urged-to-end-arms-exports-to-saudi-arabia-after-canada-cited/.

4. Chase, “Trudeau Urged to End Arms Exports to Saudi Arabia”

5. Brendan Kennedy, "Canada’s Dual Role in Yemen: Arms Exports to Saudi Coalition Dwarf Aid Sent to War-torn Country," Thestar.com, last modified July 17, 2018, https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2018/04/30/canadas-dual-role-in-yemen-arms-exports-to-saudi-coalition-dwarfs-aid-sent-to-war-torn-country.html.