Grassroots report paints clearer picture of Canada's arms trade with Israel
Researchers used Israeli customs data and commercial shipping records to identify 391 direct Canadian military shipments to Israel since October 2023, many of which were sent on passenger flights.
Near the beginning of this year’s federal election campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney boasted that Canada has imposed “restrictions, probably from January 2024, on arms exports, or permits for arms exports to Israel.”
Despite this purported pause, we know that Canada authorized $18.9 million in military exports to Israel in 2024 and at least $37.2 million this year, which the federal government first defended as being “non-lethal” military exports before pivoting to claim that the arms weren’t being used in Gaza.
A new report from a coalition of pro-Palestinian groups released on Tuesday details the extent to which Canadian arms still flow directly to Israel, despite the increasingly dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The report, compiled by researchers with the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Independent Jewish Voices, World BEYOND War Canada, and Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, uses Israeli customs data and public shipping records to obtain a clearer picture of which arms were shipped to Israel, by which companies, and when.
“This report lays bare without a doubt the true extent of Canada's ongoing material support for Israel amid this genocide. It illustrates that despite deceptive government statements, the flow of military cargo from Canada to Israel has been uninterrupted,” Yara Shoufani of PYM said at a Tuesday morning Ottawa press conference.
Key revelations include the use of dozens of civilian passenger flights to transfer arms to Israel unbeknownst to passengers, as well as repeated shipments of mortar cartridges to Israel that former global affairs minister Mélanie Joly said she would stop.
Shoufani detailed how the report’s authors spent “hundreds of hours sifting through the Israel Tax Authority portal directly” to compile classification codes, which correspond to specific categories of weapons.
The researchers then cross-referenced these classification codes with commercial shipment data, which only provides “a very small snapshot of the broader picture that exists within the Israel Tax Authority.”
Rachel Small of World BEYOND War noted that the information in this report should have been compiled by the Canadian government “to show the public exactly what it is and is not shipping to Israel.”
Because Canada has been so “untransparent” about its military exports to Israel, said Small, the researchers were unable to “fully corroborate” the data obtained from Israeli authorities and corporations with Canadian export permits.
The press conference was supposed to be broadcast on CPAC, but the public affairs channel made an “editorial decision” not to carry it, according to independent journalist Samira Mohyeddin.
The event was live streamed by PYM on Instagram and World BEYOND War on Twitter.
The Canadian government doesn’t directly sell weapons to Israel, but is able to approve or reject applications through the export permitting process that enables Canadian companies to sell weaponry to military companies abroad.
According to the Israel Tax Authority data, there were at least 391 shipments of military goods from Canada to Israel from October 2023 to June 2025, consisting of bullets, military equipment, weapons parts, aircraft components and communication devices.
Researchers were able to find commercial data on 47 Canadian arms shipments to Israel from October 23 to July 2025, with all but two conducted by air.
The most recent of these shipments arrived in Tel Aviv from Montreal on July 23, with General Dynamics shipping a package of its 120 mm HE Mortar Cartridge, which are manufactured at its plant in the Montreal suburb of Repentigny.
The mortar cartridges are precisely those that the U.S. State Department announced in August 2024 would be shipping to Israel, which then-global affairs minister Joly pledged to prevent.
These same cartridges were also shipped from Montreal on May 22 and September 19—the latter date coming nine days after Joly pledged to block their sale via the U.S.
The report identifies Montreal as a key Canadian hub for arms shipments to Israel, with 40% of the identified shipments departing from there.
With stops in major export hubs such as New York, Chicago, Abu Dhabi, New Delhi, Baku, Frankfurt, Paris and Athens, the shipments identified in the report required more than 100 flights, of which 64 were commercial passenger planes.
This means that in about two-thirds of these flights, “military-related cargo was transported alongside civilian passengers,” the report reads.
The airlines that allowed their flights to be used to transfer weapons to Israel include Air Canada, Air Transat, Air France, Air India, Avelo Airlines, Challenge Airlines, El Al Israel Airlines, Etihad Airways, Eurowings Discover, FedEx, Lufthansa, and SilkWay Airlines.
Neither of the Canadian airlines identified in the report—Air Canada and Air Transat—responded to inquiries about how common it is for military goods to be shipped on passenger flights.
While Canadian arms exports to Israel pale in comparison to those of its largest arms dealers—the U.S. and Germany—Canadian manufacturers supply key components of Israeli weapons systems.
The report provides as an example the U.S.-made F-35I Adir, which the Israeli military has used to drop 2,000-pound GBU-31 bombs on densely populated areas.
On July 13, 2024, an Israeli F-35 dropped three GBU-31s on the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis, which the Israeli military had designated a “safe zone,” killing 90 people, including Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, and injuring 300.
The report identifies three Canadian-made components in the Israeli F-35 that are shipped directly to Israel:
Nexaya Canada’s Modular Product Tester tests the jets to ensure the F-35s are fully operational before they take off.
CMC Electronics’ Doppler Velocity Sensors help pilots navigate their jets, which is crucial for target selection and weapons deployment.
Stelia Aerospace North America makes lightweight multi-layered panels, which enable the F-35s to fly at high speed in high-stress combat environments.
The report acknowledges that more than 100 other Canadian companies build other components that go into the F-35, via the U.S.
One of these contractors is Gastops, an Ottawa-based company which, according to reporting from The Breach, is the only company in the world that has the technology to build sensors that detect an F-35 engine’s wear and tear.
The report identifies 127 direct deliveries of aircraft parts from Canada to Israel worth $27 million since October 2023, according to Israeli customs data.
It also identifies four shipments totalling 421,070 bullets since October 2023, but that’s a small fraction of the 10.2 million bullets Canadian companies shipped to Israel in August 2023.
But the biggest category for military shipments to Israel is communications and surveillance technology.
The report notes that Canada has exported $79 million worth of this technology, which includes lasers, radar, radio and video, to Israel since October 2023. More than half of these exports—$44 million—came in the first six months of this year alone.
Muhannad Ayyash, a sociologist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, wrote an analysis of the Liberals’ policy on arms exports to Israel for Arab Center Washington DC think tank in April 2024.
Ayyash told The Orchard that at the time, he regarded the Liberals’ stated commitment to ending arms exports to Israel as “purely political theatre” and “nothing resembling an arms embargo.”
“What this report shows is that it is even worse than what we thought,” said Ayyash.
He and his fellow researchers were concerned that military exports to Israel would simply be re-routed through the U.S., and that the policy applied strictly to exports and not imports.
“But what we didn't know at the time, although many of us suspected would happen, is that weapons would still flow through other means, and they would be hidden,” said Ayyash.
“That's what it seems to me that this report is showing—that it's really just business as usual, and it's exemplary of Canada's position in the world today.”
Contrary to Canada’s self-image as a “peace-loving, responsible political actor,” he explained, support for U.S. imperialism and, by extension, its Israeli outpost “is embedded in the foundations of its foreign policy.”
Ayyash added that the report’s authors were wise to look to Israeli, rather than Canadian, customs data.
“This is something that researchers always do when they're interested in the question of trade with Israel,” said Ayyash, who is Palestinian-Canadian.
“They’ll go to the Israeli numbers. They know that that's going to be where it's most accurate. The country on the other side is usually trying to conceal it, whereas the Israelis aren’t.”
NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson, who has pushed the Canadian government to release more information on arms exports to Israel, said that the exports detailed in the report put Canada on the wrong side of international law, as well as its own Export and Import Permits Act.
Article 7 of the Arms Trade Treaty, to which Canada is a signatory, prohibits the export of arms if “there is an overriding risk” that the exports “could be used to … commit or facilitate a serious violation” of international law.
The Export and Import Permits Act was updated in 2018 to enshrine this restriction in Canadian law.
“Last year, the Liberal government promised to end arms transfers to Israel amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza — and it’s now clear they’ve broken that promise,” McPherson said in a July 29 statement.
“Today’s report shows that the Liberals misled Canadians instead of taking meaningful action to stop the violence and starvation killing Palestinian civilians.”
Global Affairs Canada (GAC) spokesperson John Babcock told The Orchard that “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.
Thirty export permits have since been withdrawn, he added, “for items destined to Israel that could have conceivably later been incorporated into items that could be used in that conflict.”
Babcock said “that the shipments of cartridges referenced in the recent report are for non-controlled training cartridges (paintball-type items) and related equipment to allow law enforcement and others to train safely with firearms.”
“Such shipments do not require permits under the Export and Import Permits Act. GAC is making enquiries to determine if the other shipments referenced occurred, and if so if they fall under the same category,” Babcock added.
“Exporting controlled goods or technology without a valid permit is a violation of Canadian law and may result in enforcement actions, including fines, seizure of goods, and potential criminal prosecution.”
GAC’s rationale for the shipment of cartridges echoes the explanation their manufacturer, General Dynamics, provided to CBC News reporter Evan Dyer that they constitute "non-lethal training materials not requiring an export permit.”
This story has been updated with comment from Global Affairs Canada.
Thanks for this eye opening article and the research behind it. Keep this type of journalism going as Canada’s politicians and big business need to scrutinized, challenged and held to account. It’s overtime for Canada to Act on human rights and stop with the pretend lying platitudes talk while being an ongoing active participant to genocide and weapons of mass destruction.
Canada needs to take leadership role, put on a real arms embargo on Israel and put pressure on Israel to stop killing the Palestinians peoples.
I’m a member of Labour For Palestine, a constituent group of Arms Embargo Now. Most of the arms trade details in this report have been known for weeks. I am very puzzled why exactly none of AEN’s recommendations encourage popular sanctions where workers embargo the arms now. All the recs call on our govs to act. PYM and IJV know very well that our govts won’t act unless we make them scared of hot-cargo campaigns and other mass civil disobedient direct actions. Maybe not World Without War, cos I don’t know them at all. AEN wants us all to come on a zoom call and plan next steps. I sure hope they bring more resources to make racists scared again than their report.