Alex Cosh: It took a very long time for the Liberals to actually admit that any military exports were being permitted at all. I had to email Global Affairs I think 20 times in total to get a response on that. Even then they only admitted it in sort of in passing. The first thing they said to me was: “We haven’t authorized new permits for full weapons systems. Canada does not sell full weapons systems to Israel and it hasn’t in several decades now.”
That was a meaningless piece of information and didn’t tell us anything about whether they’ve restricted existing exports to Israel. They eventually came around and said, “Okay, we’ve authorized new military exports, but these are all for ‘non-lethal goods.’” Now, this is a term that has no legal definition. Canada has described items such as rifle scopes and laser range finders in its military aid transfers to Ukraine as non-lethal.
Sure, a rifle scope isn’t going to deliver a killing blow, but it is an integral part of a weapon system that does kill people. This is misleading double-speak that they’re using to throw people off the scent. Since we got a hold of this list of export permits or the values of the export permits, this issue has been raised in parliament, I think three times last week, once by Heather McPherson, then by Jagmeet Singh and then by Green MP Mike Morrice.
Now we’re seeing that MPs in Parliament and ministers, including Trudeau and Mélanie Joly are using a very carefully scripted response saying, “We have not authorized new permits for full weapon systems.”
I get the sense now that they’re kind of a bit spooked that they’ve now decided, “Okay, we actually have to be very careful about what we say. We can’t have people thinking we’re selling military goods to Israel. We can say this thing that is technically true. We’re not sending full weapon systems while obscuring the fact that we are still authorizing huge quantities of military exports that allow the Israeli occupation forces to do their job, which in this case is genocide.”
“It’s about getting to the bottom of things. It’s about unveiling who has the power and what they’re doing with that power.”
Linda McQuaig, journalist and author
As a non-profit, free from powerful corporate interests, we invest in investigations and uncover the cover-ups. Sustain our journalism for transformation.
