{"id":19271,"date":"2013-12-10T13:55:50","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T20:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19271"},"modified":"2013-12-10T13:55:50","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T20:55:50","slug":"canadas-belligerence-toward-humanity-finds-it-mired-in-dubious-weapons-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19271","title":{"rendered":"Canada’s belligerence toward Humanity finds it mired in dubious Weapons deals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahrain, Algeria, Iraq get new exports of Canadian guns, ammunition<\/strong>
\nMike Blanchfield – The Canadian Press 8 December, 2013<\/p>\n

OTTAWA \u2013 Bahrain, Algeria and Iraq, countries with dubious human rights records or a history of violent internal conflict, have recently become new buyers of Canadian-made guns and ammunition, an analysis of federal government data shows.<\/p>\n

The analysis by The Canadian Press found that Canadian exports to those countries swelled by 100 per cent from 2011 to 2012, the most recent figures publicly available.<\/p>\n

During the same time period, exports of Canadian weapons also increased to Pakistan (98 per cent), Mexico (93 per cent) and Egypt (83 per cent), where, respectively, al-Qaida terrorists, a deadly government war on drug cartels and seismic political upheaval have sparked violence.<\/p>\n

Though Canada\u2019s arms trade is legal and regulated, analysts say the increases raise questions about the government\u2019s foreign policy commitment to human rights, and its regulatory regime for arms exports.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiversification is a principle of business in this globalized economy. As we see western militaries decrease their defence budgets, military industries will be looking for new markets,\u201d said Walter Dorn, the chair of international affairs studies at the Canadian Forces College.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe danger is that the almighty dollar may become the predominant motivator in trade deals and therefore weapons are more easily shipped.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadian Press provided a list of questions to the offices of International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, but an emailed reply from Foreign Affairs left many of them unanswered.<\/p>\n

Foreign Affairs carefully reviews all export of weapons to ensure they \u201cdo not contribute to national or regional conflicts or instability\u201d or \u201care not used to commit human rights violations,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

The analysis examined 10 years of Industry Canada data on a class of exports that is made up of military weapons, guns and ammunition, along with howitzers, mortars, flame throwers, grenades and torpedoes. It does not include other big military equipment such as vehicles, aircraft and other advanced technology, which balloons Canada\u2019s overall arms trade into the billions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Last month, Fast announced that Canada would be putting economic interests at the centre of foreign policy. The shift to \u201ceconomic diplomacy\u201d is designed to increase trade and investment in emerging markets.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Canadian weapons manufacturers found some new customers, which offset a decline in sales to some major democratic allies. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bahrain, Algeria, Iraq get new exports of Canadian guns, ammunition Mike Blanchfield – The Canadian Press 8 December, 2013 OTTAWA \u2013 Bahrain, Algeria and Iraq, countries with dubious human rights records or a history of violent internal conflict, have recently become new buyers of Canadian-made guns and ammunition, an analysis of federal government data shows. more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[582],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19271"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19273,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19271\/revisions\/19273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}