Stop Canadian weapons contributing to war crimes
Billions of dollars’ worth of weapons are produced, sold, and shipped around the world every year. Many weapons end up perpetuating human rights abuses, war crimes, or cause harm to innocent people. In areas of conflict around the world, MCC and our partners witness the devastating harm caused by these weapons – especially when legal safeguards fail.
While we do not support the use or sale of weapons anywhere, one step our government can take in the right direction is to ensure that Canadian made weapons and the parts used to build weapons do not contribute to these atrocities.
Canada has signed a global agreement, the Arms Trade Treaty, which seeks to ensure that weapons exports are prohibited from contributing to violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. However, there are several areas where our current laws and policies do not uphold the commitments we signed in this treaty, such as regulation on weapons parts – not just full weapons systems. Additionally, weapons sold to the United States and then exported to other countries do not follow the same accountability process, creating an additional loophole where weapons made in Canada can be used to contribute to atrocities in other countries.
Right now, Bill C233, an Act to amend the Export and Import Permits Act is in Parliament. This private member’s bill seeks to close these loopholes and ensure Canada’s legislation upholds Canada’s full responsibilities under the Arms Trade Treaty. We are urging all MPs to support this bill.