Report suggests arms still flow from Canada to Israel despite denials

CBC

13 hours ago

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The government of Canada is adamant — with certain, shifting caveats — that it has not allowed arms shipments to Israel since January 2024, and yet Israeli import data and publicly available shipping records appear to contradict that claim.
The data was uncovered by a group of researchers from four NGOs: World Beyond War, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, and Independent Jewish Voices.
They found entries in the database of the Israel Tax Authority that show Canadian goods continuing to enter Israel, described by the Israeli government as military weapon parts and ammunition.
"What's clear about the findings is that there has been an uninterrupted flow of weapons and military cargo from Canada to Israel," said Yara Shoufani of the Palestinian Youth Movement.
The activists were also able to gather publicly available commercial shipping documents that, like the tax records, describe ammunition being moved from Canada to Israel, and a variety of other military equipment from companies across the country.
CBC News has examined both sets of records. At time of publication, the searchable website of the Israel Tax Authority details 2025 imports of Canadian "bullets" and other military hardware of a kind that Ottawa has said are not being, and cannot be, shipped to Israel.
The shipping data gives detailed tracking of military equipment that traces back to the door of one of Canada's biggest arms companies, as recently as last week.
Permits to sell arms
The Canadian government does not sell arms to Israel itself, but rather regulates sales by and between Canadian and Israeli companies.
Companies apply for permits to cover individual contracts. Current and recent Israeli permits are mostly valid for three to four years. The permits, listed in an annual report to the Commons foreign affairs committee, describe the goods to be delivered, quantity, and the end user. The most common entry for end user on Israeli permits is "Exports to an Israeli company that is part of defence supply chains."
Not revealed in the report to Parliament are the names of the companies at either end of such transactions.
Canada is mostly a provider of components to Israel, rather than finished weapons systems or vehicles. Currently valid permits include printed circuit boards for land vehicles and materials "related to surveillance systems" or "for repairs and maintenance of surveillance systems".
None of the permits included in the latest report to Parliament would allow for the shipment of arms and ammunition.
Old permits still good
The previous government, under Justin Trudeau, said at one point it would stop shipments of all military equipment to Israel, though this was later walked back to apply only to "lethal" equipment.
Global Affairs Canada (GAC) now says the restriction applies only to materiel that could be used in Gaza.
"Canada has not approved any new permits for items to Israel that could be used in the current conflict in Gaza since January 8, 2024," GAC spokesperson Charlotte MacLeod told CBC News, adding that, at the same time, it also suspended "approximately 30 export permits for items destined to Israel that could have conceivably later been incorporated into items that could be used in that conflict."
However, most other permits were allowed to stand, including a number of large dollar-value approvals granted in the three months following Oct 7, 2023, when the Israel-Hamas war broke out.
Consequently, although GAC issued only two permits to Israel in 2024, Canadian government figures show that Israel was Canada's fourth-most frequent customer for military equipment that year, with 164 permits used.
"There's a lack of transparency in particular about what permits are still active, which permits are not active and the rationale behind all of these," Shoufani told CBC News.
"The Canadian government is not giving us the kind of data that we would have needed in order to produce this report. We had to go everywhere but the Canadian government."
While specific sales were not detailed, $2.25 million in sales fell under the Export Control List category "Bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles, other explosive devices and charges and related equipment and accessories."
The taxman sees all
Israel and Canada, like most countries, use the same Harmonized System (HS) customs codes to describe goods.
An entry for April 2025 shows the importation from Canada into Israel of 175,000 units of the HS category defined by Canada as "Bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and similar munitions of war and parts thereof; cartridges and other ammunition and projectiles and parts thereof, including shot and cartridge wads."
The Israeli listing for the HS code is simply "arms and ammunition; bullets."
June 2025 saw the entry from Canada of 15,000 units of "parts and accessories of military weapons" a category ranging from machine guns to howitzers.
No explanation
There is as yet no explanation from the government of Canada for the discrepancy between data showing arms transfers occurred and continue to occur, and the government's denials that it is happening.
CBC News had asked Global Affairs how the government ensures that a given piece of military equipment would not be used in Gaza, but did not receive a response. MacLeod said the government would not discuss individual deals.
"Due to commercial confidentiality, Global Affairs Canada does not comment on the specifics of individual export permit applications or transactions."
Of particular note in the shipping data are three shipments of "cartriges" travelling from Montreal's Dorval Airport to Tel Aviv-Yafo in September 2024, May 2025, and July 2025. All travelLed as "dangerous goods" via John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
The most recent was picked up at postal code J5Z 2P4 on July 17, and left Dorval the following afternoon on a cargo plane operated by Israeli-based Challenge Airlines IL. After a stopover in New York it arrived in Israel and was handed over at 12:53 on July 24 — last Thursday. Its final destination was listed as the Israeli city of Bnei Brak.
The postal code J5Z 2P4, in Repentigny, Que., is listed as the address of General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Cartridge Manufacturing Plant.
In August 2024, the Pentagon announced it would be shipping 50,000 120mm high-explosive mortar cartridges to Israel, naming the "principal contractor" as General Dynamic OTS of Quebec.
Pressed about the reported sale, then-Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly pledged to prevent it.
"We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza, period," Joly said on Sept. 10, exactly one week before a shipment went out, according to the data. "How they're being sent and where they're being sent is irrelevant."
Call for embargo
General Dynamics is one of the largest defence companies in Canada.
An employee of GD-OTS reached on Monday morning at the Repentigny headquarters told CBC News the company was on a two-week shutdown, then put his supervisor on the line. Asked about arms shipments to Israel, the supervisor said they were not true and that CBC News would hear from company spokesperson Berkley Whaley.
Whaley did not communicate in time for this publication. A message left on a Florida number listed in her name on the company website was not returned.
Shoufani says the report suggests that without a blanket prohibition on shipment of military goods to and from Israel, governments will continue to obfuscate and companies will continue to ship.
"What we're saying here is in a moment where so much of the world is pointing to what's taking place in Gaza and calling it a genocide, where the International Criminal Court is saying that this is a plausible genocide, for the Canadian government to go beyond the language of pausing permits, beyond confusions around which permits are active and which ones aren't, and actually implement a comprehensive arms embargo."