By Hugo Joncas
It is not only armored tanks that Canada exports to Saudi Arabia. Quebec's aeronautics has its well-kept secret: the industry has sold more than $ 920 million in military equipment and services to the kingdom and its allies since the start of the bloody war in Yemen, our investigation bureau found.
Longueuil aircraft engines and Montreal cockpit instruments for killer planes, militarized Mirabel helicopters, Bombardier jets turned into espionage devices, training for drone pilots ...
More than fifteen Quebec contracts for equipment destined for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their allies have gone unnoticed in the recent controversy over arms sales to the oil monarchy.
They do not boast about it, but since the Second World War, Quebec firms have been accustomed to exporting military equipment to all corners of the globe.
Their contracts with countries at war in Yemen, however, indict human rights activists since their bombings have killed more than 4500 civilians since 2015, according to the United Nations.
The aeronautical firms of Quebec do not make anything illegal. Most do not even need licenses to sell this equipment to the Saudis and Emiratis, but they get them when needed.
141 engines for military aircraft
In Longueuil, the Pratt & Whitney Canada turboprop plant has been running at full steam for years for coalition members in Yemen.
Since the start of the war in 2014 alone, the company has delivered at least 141 engines for military aircraft to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan, according to data from Stockholm International. Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which collects all arms transfers around the world.
These four countries are all members of the coalition fighting the Houthi rebellion in Yemen. They reported at least $ 185 million worth of contracts to Pratt & Whitney in four years, according to an estimate by our Investigation Bureau with the help of expert reports from the aeronautical industry.
Among these orders: 24 engines for attack aircraft used in Yemen.
In 2016, Pratt & Whitney even agreed to put his technology at the service of a major project by Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Ben Salmane: to produce a plane in the country, for the first time in the kingdom's history.
The engine manufacturer refuses to confirm our figures or to comment on our information. "These are things that remain confidential to us," says Communications Director Isabelle Gagné.
$ 530 million in militarized equipment
The major assemblers of Quebec's aerospace industry are not left out. Bombardier and Bell Helicopter Textron have had orders worth more than half a billion dollars from the United Arab Emirates since 2014.
European and American military contractors are modifying these Quebec-made aircraft for combat, espionage and reconnaissance missions.
Emirati forces are also boosting avionics firms in Montreal, such as the CAE flight simulator manufacturer, which trains pilots of Emirati vessels, drones and helicopters.
With Saudi Arabia, however, this country is regularly singled out for its violations of human rights and the law of war.
Nothing that shakes Esterline CMC. The Saint-Laurent company sells cockpit displays for combat aircraft that IOMAX supplies to the United Arab Emirates, confirms spokeswoman Marie-Hélène Émond.
"After, what does Iomax do with ... We have no control over it! "
RAIN OF BOMBS ON CIVILIANS
A merciless civil war has been raging in Yemen for over four years. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are leading a coalition fighting alongside ... the resigned Hadi regime to dislodge the Houthi revolutionaries.
These nations are bombing all over Yemen, with the help of other countries such as Egypt and Jordan. A fragile truce in the port of Hodeïda allows the civilian population to breathe a bit since December, but the war and its ravages continue.
Of the more than 7,000 civilians killed by the war in the country, more than 4,500 have died under the bombs of the Arab coalition, according to the United Nations (UN).
Last August, for example, Saudi forces dropped a US bomb on a bus, killing 44 children. In October 2016, the same type of bomb killed 140 people in an air raid on a funeral ceremony.
A MONK'S WORK IN SWEDEN
Our Inquiry Office relied heavily on data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) for this report.
♦ The Swedish Parliament created this independent body in 1966 to work for peace in the world. He tries to collect almost all available information on arms sales, says the director of research program on transfers of military equipment, the Quebec Aude Fleurant.
♦ "We are presenting the information so that interested or concerned people can do something about it," says the researcher, joined by our Investigation Bureau.
♦ The SIPRI data on heavy weapons is more comprehensive than the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms. The latter only compiles transfers of complete systems such as tanks, hunters or artillery batteries, according to the declarations of the States.
♦ By multiplying the sources of information, SIPRI also includes in its data sales of parts such as aircraft engines, or helicopters or civilian jets intended to be transformed into war machines.
Aircraft, engines, training and simulators "made in Quebec"
At the start of the war in Yemen, Pratt & Whitney began the largest delivery in its history for a Saudi-designed aircraft: 55 engines for as many Swiss PC-21s, considered the most advanced training aircraft in the world.
Pratt & Whitney has also delivered another 10 for Jordan's PC-21s. The military uses this device to learn how to fly warplanes.
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the bombing of the Sunni coalition led by Saudi Arabia has killed more than 4,500 people in Yemen.
Pratt & Whitney is also supplying turboprops for the 21 C295W troop carriers that have been ordered or received in recent years by Saudi and Emirati forces and their Egyptian ally.
The Longueuil engine manufacturer also equips two Italian patrol aircraft P-180MPA for the United Arab Emirates. The assembler of these devices, Piaggio, is 100% owned by the Emirati public fund Mubadala since 2015.
From weapons to dictatorships ... and no need for licenses
Bell Textron Helicopters ensures that it has no military export license to apply to sell a device that will be turned into a killing machine for the United Arab Emirates.
"I did not sell it to the Emirates Army, I sold it to NorthStar Aviation," said Virginie Brizard, Director of Global Communications at Bell. What NorthStar does with, nothing in the law says it's my responsibility as a Bell! "
Based in Florida, NorthStar is owned by a United Arab Emirates company. From 2014 to 2016, the firm bought 30 helicopters from Quebec to turn them into Bell-407 MRH armed to the teeth and sell them to this great ally of Saudi Arabia in the war in Yemen.
"We export our helicopters in compliance with the applicable regulations," says Bell spokeswoman.
Ottawa has not confirmed this statement, but Canada's Guide to Export Controls, available online, seems to support Bell Helicopters.
The "Military Goods List" for which the government requires an export license states that no authorization is required to sell aircraft that are not "configured for military use" abroad.
Exempt engines
For its part, Pratt & Whitney Canada refuses to answer any question for this report.
Its engines, however, are also concerned by the exemption on civilian equipment, even if they end up in killer planes of the United Arab Emirates, made in North Carolina.
In any case, both Bell and Pratt & Whitney sent their products to American companies.
However, "Canada does not require an export license for most items in the Export Control List if they are destined for the United States," said a spokesman for the Department of World Affairs. , Stefano Mariano.
In 1956, Ottawa signed the Defense Production Sharing Agreement, a true armaments free trade with the Americans.
Global Express approved
Bombardier also does not need a license to sell its aircraft as such. However, the company must have the "export" of data approved to militarize its planes when they do not go to the United States.
This is the case of the Global Express that the firm sent to Europe, where they are modified for the Emirates forces.
"All the engineering information needed for the modifications is considered a product and subject to the rules - so the controls at the Canadian level are on the aircraft transaction," says Mark Masluch, director of communications at Bombardier Business Aircraft. .
The company must declare to the government who will be the end user of his device.
Already in the middle of a legal battle to ban the export of tanks in Saudi Arabia, former MP Daniel Turp is considering initiating the same procedures to stop sales of aeronautical equipment to the forces of the kingdom and its allies.
"It's explosive," he says. It's a fairly significant number of companies in Quebec! "
The constitutional lawyer is trying to appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn the export licenses for General Dynamics' armored vehicles.
"Our arguments could also be used for any export of equipment by Quebec companies because they could be used to violate human rights in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Yemen," he says.
According to him, these sales of military equipment violate both federal law and the rules of the Geneva Conventions on war, which Canada has signed.
NGOs go up to the plate
Global human rights organizations are also demanding that Canada and other western nations stop selling military equipment to countries at war in Yemen.
"All sides in the conflict have committed serious human rights violations," said Rahsa Mohamed, Amnesty International's researcher in Yemen. But of course, Canada sells arms to one side of the conflict, and it's the one with an air force that has planes. "
Human Rights Watch is also pressing for the cessation of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and its allies. "Violations of the law of war are legion," says Ahmed Benchemsi, director of communications for the Middle East. He denounces numerous strikes against hospitals, schools, markets, burials and weddings.
Source: Le Journal De Montreal, Edited by Website Team
